Talk to me, Pogus!

I was 22 in 2005 when I moaned and groaned about the injustice of making illustration students write. I didn’t protest to anyone but a couple of adjacent students and myself because deep down I got it.

Eventually, I took my medicine and landed on ‘graphic activism.’ I didn’t really understand the term, but I liked the antagonists. I loved people with something to say. Always have done; from a loudmouth in the pub to historic figures who changed the world.

20 years later I stumbled across the images of Pogus Caesar. The moment I saw the overturned car in his iconic images of the Handsworth riots, I had to talk to him. Pogus moved to Birmingham in 1953 from St Kitts, and I needed to hear his story.

It’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t suffer any of the prejudice he faced. I don’t have to open my inbox to abusive messages about the colour of my skin – one of my closest friends recently told me he does. We weren’t well off but we weren’t breadline poor, and love was everywhere. If it wasn’t growing up in comfort, it was growing up relatively safe, with enough time to daydream and wander towards the things that made me feel something.

But we have a decent spread of empaths in the family. Some days the world feels too much because of that sensitivity. The whole fabric of my life is enriched, for better or worse.

That’s why I wrote about activism, and that’s why I speak to these people who had to work through a lot more than I ever had to deal with. My battles were largely internal. My art – written, spoken, drawn – this cause of championing creativity, is the outward expression of those mental skirmishes and my desire to contribute what I’ve learned to the trials of important creators like Pogus.

I might not have been made to feel unwanted, but the hurt I feel through knowing that good people routinely do… is fuel enough.