Exhibition in Windrush Square: 'A Mile In My Shoes: The '81 Uprisings’

Mkuu Amani
Apr 27, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Aug 11, 2025

A group photo that includes some of the contributors to the A Mile in My Shoes: 81 Uprisings' Exhibition.

It feels like only yesterday that I travelled to Brixton's Windrush Square to witness the launch of a thought-provoking exhibition - Empathy Museum’s 'A Mile in My Shoes: 81 Uprisings.'

This exhibition in Windrush Square would offer attendees an opportunity to immerse themselves into a historical time and experience.

Located in a portacabin-sized shoebox built to a size and length that could comfortably accommodate several visitors at a time, the exhibition would consist of audio recordings gathered from a number of key individuals, presented in a warm, dimmed room. And this would be accompanied by the opportunity to literally wear a contributor's pair of shoes.

This unique concept was formed with the intention of evoking both a tangible and psychological feeling - a real sense of walking in someone else’s shoes, and in this case, the shoes of those with a real experience of what life was like for Britain's black community during the 1980s - and especially for those who had experienced the levels of racism that became the catalyst for the riots that erupted in key cities across the nation.

According to The National Archives, Brixton saw 82 arrests, 279 police officers and 45 members of the public injured, 117 vehicles damaged or destroyed (including 56 police vehicles), and 145 properties damaged during three days of conflict that began on Friday 10th April 1981.

In the months that followed similar uprisings occurred in Toxteth (Liverpool), Handsworth (Birmingham), Moss Side (Manchester) and Chapeltown (Leeds).

Empathy Museum website explains that, ‘A Mile in My Shoes: 81 Uprisings brings together stories from people who were there at the time and who felt the reverberations through homes, streets, and communities across the country – in ways we all still live with today.’

People gathered in the court of the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton

The exhibition's launch event took place at the Black Cultural Archives, where, in chilly conditions, several speakers took to the platform on the forecourt.

Amongst them was the Empathy Museum’s Assistant Producer, Olivia Douglass who said, “Empathy Museum exists to give people the opportunity to see the world from someone else’s perspective. This project does that like no other.”

A woman speaks into a microphone at the exhibition — Olivia Douglass

Following Olivia's address, Ros Griffiths, chair of The Friends of Windrush Square - a community organisation that seeks to protect and promote the heritage, function and architecture of Windrush Square would take to the stage.

A woman speaks into a microphone — Ros Griffiths

Also amongst the speakers was the current Intellectual Historian of Abolitionist Ideas at the University of Birmingham, Professor Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman.

A man speaks into a microphone — Professor Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman

Group photograph of men and women, some showing solidarity symbol. — Storytellers Unite. Some of the contributors gather at Black Cultural Archive for the launch event.

Lorna Gee provided inspiration, motivation and some musical entertainment.

A man shows off his book to a woman at the event — Jennifer Blake (left) and Jimmy Jagne - whose stories were two of the thirty-five gathered for the exhibition.

Also amidst the audience were several of the ”storytellers’ whose recorded audio contributions made the exhibition possible.

Jennifer Blake, one of the founding members of the Walsall Black Sisters Collective, was one of them. She agreed to share her story when Empathy Museum approached her in 2022 and travelled from the Midlands to be at the launch event.

Jennifer said, “It was crucial to attend the launch and to mark the significant role the uprisings of 1981 had on the formation of Walsall Black Sisters Collective a few years later.”

“The uprisings put a stark spotlight on the lived experience of racism, exclusion and the scourge of limiting life chances for black people in the UK,” she continued, adding, “It’s likely, Walsall Black Sisters would not have received support and resources for its formation without this. My story provides valuable insights into the legacy and the impact of the uprisings of 1981.”

Written by Mkuu Amani, a writer and photographer committed to amplifying the stories of those affected by injustice. With a focus on immigration, identity, and social change, Mkuu Amani explores the human cost of failed systems and forgotten histories.

To find out more: A Mile in My Shoes – 81 Uprisings

More about the events of 1981 from Mkuu Amani: The Fire, The Bridge and The War Zone