Ekow Eshun talks to Suzi Feay

Writer, broadcaster and curator Ekow Eshun looks at the lives of five black men separated by both centuries and continents and shows how they were all pioneers in their fields and sensitive and solitary individuals moving through a hostile world.

The five are: Ira Aldridge, a trailblazing 19th-century Shakespearean actor, playwright and abolitionist; Matthew Henson, the first man to reach the North Pole; Frantz Fanon, a revolutionary psychologist and political philosopher; Malcolm X, the US civil rights leader; and Justin Fashanu, the first openly gay professional footballer. Eshun locates all of them in the vibrant landscape of Black art, culture, history and politics of the last few centuries.

Eshun is author of the memoir Black Gold of the Sun, which was nominated for the Orwell Prize for its exploration of race and identity. He was described by the Guardian as ‘a cultural polymath’ and by Vogue as ‘the most inspired – and inspiring – curator in Britain’. He has curated critically acclaimed international exhibitions and is chairman of Fourth Plinth, which oversees Britain’s foremost public art programme. Here he talks to journalist and reviewer for the FT Suzi Feay.