Three thousand people gathered in Windrush Square, Brixton, to celebrate the opening of the Black Cultural Archives’ (BCA) bespoke new building. As I stood among them, listening to the voice of Linton Kwesi Johnson, I was moved beyond words. Yet, the only way to really understand the gravity of that moment in July 2014 is to consider the time, in the not so distant past, when the archive was first established.