The beloved social justice activist Baroness Lola Young joins us to share her remarkable path from a childhood spent in foster care to becoming one of the first Black women in the House of Lords.
Lola Young has been an actress, an academic, an activist and campaigner for social justice, and a crossbench peer. But from the age of eight weeks to eighteen years, she was moved between foster care placements and children’s homes in North London. It would take many decades before she was able to begin the search for answers to the long-standing questions that would help her make sense of her childhood.
Now she joins us to share that search, from the casual racism of 1950s London to one of the highest offices in the country. She will take us on a journey through care records, lost letters and anonymous photographs as she assembles the pieces of her past into a portrait of a childhood in a system that often made her feel invisible and unwanted.
In this online conversation with Hannah MacInnes, she will tell us the powerful story of how she defied the odds of the ‘care cliff’ to become one of the country’s most prominent activists. Join us for a spirited and eye-opening account of a remarkable life and a vital piece of Black British history.
Tickets to this online event are free for members of How To +.
Praise for Lola Young’s Eight Weeks:
‘In Eight Weeks Baroness Lola Young reveals how a child is constantly wronged by a system which was supposed to help. The pure character necessary to grow through this dark entangled forest of childhood is the stuff of legends…I am in awe of the woman who grew from the child in this book. And when you read it you will see why’ – Lemn Sissay, author of My Name is Why
‘Lola Young takes us on a remarkable journey, both personal and political, that few have traveled but all can relate to. An inspiring story from an inspirational storyteller’ – Gary Younge
‘At once beautiful and harrowing, deeply unsettling and profoundly life-affirming. It is, quite simply, the best memoir that I’ve read on 50s Britain’ – John Akomfrah
‘Lola Young has triumphed against so many odds and stands tall in our world as a fabulous, beautiful, and brilliant woman. A superb, moving memoir of a fraught childhood forging a great human spirit. Inspirational!’ – Baroness Helena Kennedy of The Shaws, LT KC
