Gloucestershire’s phlebotomists have brought their historic strike to a close after almost a year of action, leaving a legacy of determination – and a clear lesson about the power of solidarity in the face of anti-union laws and austerity, says FBU general secretary STEVE WRIGHT
OVER the years I must have been to dozens of exhibitions on black liberation. Some in Britain, some in Australia, some in the US and one in South Africa which had me in tears when I saw on display a “Free Mandela” sticker that I had designed for the Young Communist League in London in the 1960s.
They were all about the politics and the campaigning but, this spring, the Turner Contemporary Gallery on Margate’s traditional seafront has an amazing exhibition that looks at this subject from a totally unique point of view.
The exhibition looks at the way the various arts have reflected the amazing struggle of black people in the US’s southern states, particularly in the battle for civil rights.
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
NICK MATTHEWS previews a landmark book launch taking place in Leicester next weekend
SYLVIA HIKINS casts an eye across the contemporary art brought to a city founded on colonialism and empire



