Lee Lawrence was just eleven when his mother, Cherry Groce, was shot by police during a raid on the family's south London home. It was an event that would spark a violent uprising and dominate his life for the next 30 years as he fought for justice and for the police to admit their wrongdoing.
Along the way, Lee came across dozens of other cases, past and present, which made it clear that the racial prejudice and bias which resulted in his mother's shooting had been in place for many decades, impacting the lives of thousands of innocent people .
Through a deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Lee Lawrence seamlessly combines historical fact with his dramatic first-hand experiences of racial injustice to present vivid stories - from the Somali sailor who was wrongly convicted of murder in Cardiff in 1952 to the assault on professional footballer Dalian Atkinson and from the hounding of Notting Hill's Mangrove Club to Black Lives Matter - that chronicle how Britain's Black community has been mistreated.
Though there remains much work to be done, Lee Lawrence is also an inspiring guide who highlights the many positive changes that have taken place and outlines those still needing to be enacted. Against the backdrop of the hard-learned lessons of years gone by, The Colour of Injustice also lays the foundation for a pathway to the future to move towards a truly anti-racist society.
