black sheep: a story of rural racism, identity and hope

, ’Truly inspirational’ The Sun

’Honest and authentic - I could not put it down’ Michelle Griffith Robinson OLY

’Black Sheep is powerful testimony for anyone seeking to deepen their own anti-racist journey. This is passionate, raw writing, with moments of reflection that we can all learn from. It’s a story that had to be told, and must be heard’ Jeffrey Boakye

Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is a 44-year-old mother of four and grandmother of three, an award-winning businesswoman, an ultrarunner, a social justice activist and a recovering alcoholic.

She is a mixed-raced woman, the daughter of a white Scottish Roman Catholic woman and a Black man. When she was two, her parents separated and Sabrina, her mother and her white-presenting younger sister moved to a small market town where no-one looked like her. From as young as she can remember, she was the subject of verbal and physical racist abuse.

In Black Sheep, Sabrina reveals how she got from there to here: about growing up in a home, a school and a town where no-one looked like her and her subsequent struggle to understand and find her identity; about her lived experience of rural racism; about becoming a teenage mother and her determination to break that stereotype; about her battle with alcoholism and her mental health; about how running saved her life; and ultimately about how someone can not only survive but thrive in spite of their past.

Sabrina’s experience will chime with anyone who has felt like an outsider. Poignant and eye-opening, and exploring themes of trauma, identity, mental health and addiction, Black Sheep is a tale of triumph: of grit and determination, of hope over despair.,

Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is an award-winning businesswoman, an ultrarunner, a social justice activist, a mother of four and grandmother of three.

She is co-founder and trustee of the fast-growing community and campaigning charity Black Trail Runners and is also a well-known ultra-marathon runner. She took up running in 2009 as a tool to manage her post-natal depression and, nine years later, completed the ’toughest footrace on earth’, a 250km multi-stage ultra-marathon across the Sahara Desert, known as the Marathon des Sables, as the eleventh British woman.

Black Sheep is Sabrina’s first book