Three activists. Their ideas, their work, their lasting importance.

In this special short series of audio essays from the Sociological Review Foundation, three expert guests introduce us to key figures in the story of UK anti-racism, illuminating how they show us what that term really means – and what it takes – but also how their work and ideas speak to sociology, too, and deserve to be better known.

Starting the series, John Narayan – Chair of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations – explains Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s take on global technology, exploitation and anti-racist resistance. In the second episode, A.S. Francis celebrates Gerlin Bean as the “mother of the Black women’s movement” in the UK, whose life of committed activism exemplified theory in action – and whose story leads us to ask how we represent individual activists who so passionately valued the collective. And in the third episode, Hannah Ishmael – former archivist at Black Cultural Archives – describes the importance of the determined archivist and educational activist Len Garrison, whose work raises crucial questions about history and identity, self-esteem and self-recognition.