How can black women academics improve the lives of young people in their community? Etienne and her colleagues explore the ways they can intervene in two persistent and severe problems - the escalating knife crime that costs ever more young lives, and the disproportionately low academic attainment of black students compared with their white peers. Studies of students in the African diaspora and in South Africa cast light on the effects on UK schools, universities and society of Whiteness, discrimination and the colonial curriculum. The authors cast their net wide to indicate how women's activism across generations can support black youth to resist the pressure of racism. A must-read for all those concerned with social justice.