Working with key partners across the city including Ort Gallery, the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, Beatfreeks, Midlands Arts Centre and St Barnabas Church in Erdington, we recruited a cohort of volunteers who researched key themes relating to the changing face of Birmingham in 1968. Mass redevelopment was explored through the photographs of Janet Mendelsohn, supplemented by interviews with members of the public who came forward after identifying themselves in photographs in the exhibition at Ort Gallery.

Our volunteers spoke to spearheads of the University of Birmingham student sit-ins, those who regularly frequented Mothers, the legendary club on Erdington High Street which hosted a regular DJ set from John Peel as well as acts including Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeplin and Deep Purple. We hosted reunions with the biker group Double Zero and founding members of Birmingham Arts Lab.

The volunteers received oral history training to undertake interviews which were accessioned into The Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham, as well as being used as source material for a series of podcasts exploring the projects themes.

Original and long-unseen footage of the Black and White, Unite and Fight demonstration on Victoria Square was digitised by MACE and shown for the first time since it was filmed by ATV in May 1968.

The new research and previously unseen ephemera were compiled into a richly illustrated publication telling the story of Birmingham at a time of great flux from the people who experienced it first-hand.

Images - Top of page: Janet Mendelsohn, Cadbury Research Library. Below, images left to right: Nick Hedges, Tony Jones, Nick Hedges.