Black Success

How did the Windrush generation become so prosperous? Why are Nigerians achieving so highly in the education system? Why does Hollywood rush to cast Black British actors? And why are so many Jamaicans winning Olympic gold? And what lessons are there from these success stories for young black people in low-income communities? In this truthful and often surprising book, Tony Sewell weaves together memoir and argument to explore the drivers of black success. He traces black people's hard-won achievements back to their source: family, religion, education, hard work, discipline and the property market. He argues in favour of rejecting victimhood and low expectations and embracing high ambitions, drawing on a range of interviews and stories to offer a more exciting, sometimes visionary new view of black life in Britain today. Black Success is essential reading not only for black Britons who are fed up with a narrative that denies them agency and responsibility, but also for anyone who wants a balanced perspective on race relations in Britain today.

Born in Brixton, Lord Tony Sewell CBE has been a journalist, teacher and education expert. He was part of the team responsible for driving the transformation of Hackney's education outcomes in the early 2000s, and his charity Generating Genius has helped hundreds of young black people into STEM in business and academia. He was recently chair of the UK's government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, the recommendations which are now the foundations of the government's policy on tackling racial inequalities. He was awarded a CBE for his work on education and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2022. That same year he began his latest project, a farming enterprise in Jamaica.