They won a Grammy, risked being shot in the US and were adored by Bob Marley. As they go on tour, the band look back on half a century of being a voice for the voiceless

In the late 1970s, whenever young Birmingham reggae band Steel Pulse performed their song Ku Klux Klan, the group’s vocalists would theatrically wear white KKK hoods onstage to illustrate the song’s lyrics, which excoriated the Klan’s violence, racism and cowardice. British audiences loved it and understood the power of a black band making such a striking visual statement, but in America it was different.

“American audiences were sort of dumbstruck and flabbergasted,” says lead singer David Hinds, now 68, remembering their first US visit, in 1981. “They told us they didn’t even know there were black people in England, let alone would do a song like Ku Klux Klan. In Boston a white guy jumped out of the audience and started a struggle onstage. In the end the police came and dragged him off. Our elderly African American T-shirt seller said he was scared for us every time we went onstage. He’d say ‘You don’t know America. This place is something else.’”