Leroy Cooper used to paint the road signs in Liverpool 8 in the colours of red, yellow and green.
“Some people say it was vandalism, but to me it was creativity,” says his cousin and poet Levi Tafari, 62. The colours are often used in the flags of African countries and are also synonymous with Rastafari.
“He painted red, yellow and green on the street signs to let people know this is an area that is highly populated by Black people,” explains Levi, adding: “The Chinese had Mandarin characters in Chinatown on the street signs.
READ MORE: Family of community champion whose arrest led to Toxteth Riots wants his legacy to live on
“Black people have been here longer than the Chinese and there is nothing to identify that we are here - that was one thing that Leroy did.”
Leroy, a photographer, painter, writer and historian, died last week at the age of 62, the ECHO understands, with tributes flooding in from political figures and cultural organisations across the city. His name will forever be associated with the arrest that triggered the Toxteth riots in 1981, the “Uprising” as Levi prefers to call it, but he is someone who should instead be remembered for his work to reveal the truth and compassion of the city and postcode he lived in, according to his family members and those who knew him best.
Leroy had been arrested on July 3, 1981 during a disturbance in Toxteth that followed another man being apprehended by the police for reportedly stealing a bicycle. His treatment by the police led to the disturbances which came to be known as the Toxteth Riots, or known to many locals as the Toxteth Uprising.
Levi was there at the time of the arrest and claims the Police did not listen as a group explained whose bike it was and where it could be found. He says a “scuffle broke out” and Leroy was reportedly taken away by Police and put in a van.
“It wasn't something he anchored on, it was something to put into context,” says Levi, of when Leroy would retell the story. “It really informed his work - we all need a spark don't we?”
After the arrest, he later returned to L8 after time spent on remand and in borstal - eventually signing up for a 12-week course with Open Eye gallery in 1984. From there he dedicated his life to documenting the local area and its people.
“He was trying to portray a community that has been vilified by the media as the genuinely caring, kind, supporting and tight knit area that it is,” says Sonia Bassey MBE, 57, a campaigner who knew Leroy from the age of 14 through family.
She added: “People like Leroy, myself and Levi and many other people in the community have been portraying it in a positive way and showing the value of the relationships and the people that have lived in it for a very very long time. That's what Leroy's artwork and his photography has done.
“He has tried to show the true side of the community and it's not what people see from the outside. We've tried to show you from the inside what Liverpool 8 is as a community.”
Levi recalls fond memories as a teenager spent on Granby Street with Leroy, an area that he regards as their “hub”. Much of their time would be spent there or at the Methodist centre on Beaconsfield Street.
The pair used to DJ their own soundsystem, regularly at the centre. They would also meet there for sports as well as extra curricular on Black history and Black culture. In his time he moved from being a punk rocker, funky dread and embracing Rastafari, according to his cousin.
Levi says there was already a creative energy in Leroy at this time, a standout pupil at school, but much of this intelligence and expression coalesced in the years after 1981. It was here where his visual art took on its defining purpose in a bid to show another side to Liverpool 8’s story - told directly by him and the people who lived there.
“People think 1981 is the be-all and end-all of our story, it isn't,” says Levi of Leroy’s decision to pick up the camera and start displaying his own truth, “It is much bigger, broader and wider.
“You need to tell your side of the story. In the saga of the hunter and the lion, the hunter will always win.
“Because the lion never writes the story. The hunter always writes the story.
“Until we started to write our own story, it was one sided. There's two sides to everything and the truth is in the middle.
“People reflect on their side. We had to tell our side.”
Leroy’s work as a photographer capturing the people of Liverpool led to him amassing a "treasure chest" of hundreds of thousands of images that take in a nearly 40-year period. He had his own book published and currently has an exhibition of his works showing at the Museum of Liverpool.
He also branched out into painting, poetry and prose. Sonia Bassey would like Leroy to be remembered as a “historian”, an “urban griot who [was] dedicated [to the] oral and visual history of our community over 40 years.”
Speaking to the ECHO in 2019 about his journey with the camera, he told the ECHO: “It's about letting people see what I see, letting people feel the things that I feel through the photography,” adding: "I have actually made something out of a very bad situation that happened to me - I found the silver lining in that cloud."
Part of a statement shared with the ECHO by Leroy’s family, a quote from 2014 states: “My spirit lives in my works of art. Every photograph is to look through my eyes with empathy and compassion as I watch humanity struggle against all odds.”
For Levi, it is this humanity in Leroy’s work that always shone through. “He tried to bring people together," he says, “not based on the colour of skin but based on that we're neighbours. White, Black, Asian, we're all in this together
“The struggle is for all of us. For us it wasn't about skin tone, it was about humanity. I know that featured greatly in his ethos.”
In terms of Leroy’s legacy, Sonia Bassey believes he was successful in helping to shine light on a positive narrative for Liverpool 8. She believes the area however remains on a journey to fully being seen on its own terms.
She told the ECHO: “He narrates the story of his community and city very differently to the one portrayed at the time so I would say he has been successful in doing that.
“Forty years of dedicating your life to the love of people and the city. The humbleness he had about not letting what happened in 1981 define him. It is quite something
“I don't know where that compassion or heart came from but he had it in abundance. That needs to be recognised in some way really - that he was a historian.”
The statement shared with the ECHO by his family says that it is their hope that Leroy's work "can inspire the young people of today," adding: “It would be amazing to be able to create a space in his name in L8 that allows young people to express themselves in a creative way that Leroy did.”
Speaking to the ECHO at the Museum of Liverpool last week, Leroy’s nephew, Errol Smith, said: "We also want to cement Leroy's legacy in the Liverpool area for a very long time. We want a permanent legacy for him.
"He has got artwork and hundreds of pieces of art, exhibitions, and installations that we would like to get cemented in and around Liverpool. He has offered so much to this city and sacrificed so much for it and for the people of this city. I think the people of this city would love to see his legacy live on."
READ NEXT:
People told to leave their homes within weeks in 'illegal eviction attempt'
Timothy Schofield jailed for sexually abusing a teenage boy
Updates as M56 blocked due to 'police incident'
Home Bargains founder becomes the wealthiest Liverpudlian in history
Superdrug's £15 'miracle in a pot' anti-ageing cream works like Botox
