My friend and former colleague Peter Eyo, who has died of kidney cancer aged 69, wanted to be a footballer, but found an unexpected career in the arts and race relations.
In 1969, with a family to support in Toxteth, Liverpool, he was working as a nightclub doorman. One evening, he accepted an early shift on the door of the youth programme at Great Georges Project in a former congregational church, later to become the Black-E. Within a short time he was a core member of the team, running one of Britain’s first community arts projects.
Peter pioneered the use of video, getting young people to record the Temptations and learn the Motown group’s dance routines. At soul discos, he ensured that funky chicken moves featured alongside the consciousness-raising work of the US civil rights movement’s Last Poets.
He also booked the Persuasions, the African-American a cappella group, to appear, and put on films made by the US Black Panther party. Peter gave youngsters, in his words, “affection, protection and direction”, and provided them with “what they wanted, needed, and had never dreamed of”. During this period he also gained a DipHE Certificate in community and youth work from Leicester University.
Moving to London in 1980, Peter contributed significantly to pioneering work in race relations, first in Thamesmead, south-east London, and then as the first principal race equality officer to be appointed to Southwark council, where he worked from 1982 to 1989.
Peter then travelled to the US and became the manager of the Roxbury Outreach Shakespeare Experience, in Boston, running a programme designed to steer gang members away from street warfare and into Shakespeare. In 1990 he produced a black Macbeth.
When he returned to London, Peter became the manager of SASS, a black theatre company, before taking the helm at the Sojourner Truth Community Centre in Peckham, south-east London, from 1990 to 2004. There he made state-of-the-art equipment and studios available to young black people wanting to enter the music business. He also became a founder member and trustee of The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation for black youth in London and Birmingham in 1996.
Peter was born in Liverpool to an Irish mother, Alice (nee Cushion), and Nigerian father, Thomas, a cook. He was married three times, to Sandra, with whom he had four children, Aria Silva and Niuvis.
His favoured travel destination was Cuba. In retirement his neighbours benefited from his love of gardening.
He is survived by Niuvis, his children, Peter, Karl, Kurt and Maxine, and his siblings, Arthur, Kenny and Christine. Two sisters and a brother predeceased him.
