Doreen Lawrence OBE is a reluctant public figure. "If the police had done their job on the night Stephen died, nobody would ever know who I am," she says, referring to her son, Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered 20 years ago this month in a racist attack at a south London bus stop. (It took until last year to convict two men.) Lawrence's tireless campaigning highlighted the extent of institutional racism within the police force and resulted in the 1999 Macpherson Report, an important moment for race relations in the UK. Continuing her campaign for social equality, Lawrence launched the Centre for Research in Race and Education in February this year to address continued racial inequality in education and employment, and improve career prospects for talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – a task she began in 1998 with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.
If you could interview Doreen Lawrence, what would you ask her? Later this month Tim Adams will pose your questions to her for an interview that will appear in the Observer New Review on 21 April. You could ask her about what she considers to be Stephen's lasting legacy; her feelings about race relations and the police and in wider society today; about what motivates her to continue campaigning. Perhaps you'd like to know how she felt holding the Olympic flag alongside Ban Ki-moon at the 2012 opening ceremony. Or what it meant to her when Chris Ofili paid tribute to her in his painting, No Woman No Cry, as part of his Turner prize-winning exhibition? Or, more simply, what it's like to be a working grandmother.
Email your questions to readers.newreview@observer.co.uk or tweet us @ObsNewReview by the end of 8 April.
