Matt Elton: Your book is based on interviews with a group of men from the London district of Brixton. Who did you speak to, and how did you meet?
Jason Okundaye: I was researching rates of HIV among Black gay men in Britain, and part of that involved exploring archive material about Black men who have sex with men. There didn’t turn out to be much of that material, but one name – Marc Thompson – kept coming up, so I knew I had to get in touch with him.
We met, and talked about his life in Brixton and the area’s history. And through Marc I met more and more people, until eventually I had a big cast of characters: a group of Black gay men aged between 50 and 70 based in and around Brixton who had been incredible activists, artists, poets and DJs. Between them they had created a thriving subculture, so I wanted to bring their voices together and paint, from a minority experience, a broader, beautiful picture.
You get a real sense of the men’s characters. Was that important?
I’ve sometimes felt that Black British history has lacked texture and character: the details that reveal someone’s individuality and personality. We might focus on what a person achieved in the context of getting the law changed, for example, but miss a sense of who they actually were. This book is as much about the individuals as it is about the big events and changes in which they played a part.
I particularly wanted to communicate that the period between the 1970s and 1990s was a historical moment
