On Sunday 9th August 1970 a crowd of over 100 people gathered outside the Mangrove restaurant to show their support … ‘They [Conservatives] wanted to justify the Immigration Bill’ … For the 9 people arrested following the Mangrove Demonstration, it seemed that the whole machinery of the state was now set against them, and the idea of Black Power in Britain was being unfairly demonised. ibid. activist
Oval 4: When a BBC journalist started investigating Winston’s case, it was revealed that Detective Sargeant Derek Ridgewell’s testimony was directly contradicted by eye-witnesses … ‘The only [mugging] witnesses were the anti-mugging squad themselves’ … The media’s account of Winston’s case helped him appeal and his sentence was reduced, but the judge did not overturn the criminal conviction. ibid.
The confusion over the Spaghetti House siege proved to be a turning point exposing the messy realities of revolutionary politics. ibid.
Last summer the brutal killer of George Floyd ignited huge protests in the cause for change. Fifty years ago the Civil Rights Act brought the promise of equality for all. In America today, if you are black, you are five times more likely to go to prison than if you are white. And the average black family is eight time poorer than the average white family. This is the story of the key moments since the Civil Rights Act where there was a change to make America more equal in housing, education and justice, and why it didn’t happen. The Black American Fight for Freedom, BBC 2021
Dorothy’s case exposed how aldermen had repeatedly refused to allow public housing to be built in white neighbourhoods. ibid.
In 2017 black students were twice as likely to attend a high-poverty school than white students. ibid. caption
In 1980 the number of black men incarcerated was 143,000. In 2019 it had increased to 435,000. ibid.
In 1960s and ’70s Britain hundreds of black children were caught up in an extraordinary scandal. They were labelled as educationally subnormal by the state and wrongly sent to schools for children with low intelligence. A decision that would have a devastating impact on their lives. Subnormal: A British Scandal, BBC 2021
This is a story that exposed assumptions at the heart of the British’ schools system that has an enduring legacy today. ibid.
But how did these ideas about race and intelligence find their way into the British schools system? ibid.
The leaked report from the ILEA contained a multitude of damning admissions: it revealed that the education authority was well aware that Caribbean children were being wrongly placed in ESN schools at much higher rates than their white peers. ibid.
In 1982 thirteen young black British people died after a house party ended in fire. The fire and its aftermath would ignite an uprising by the black British community. Uprising, captions, BBC 2021
‘There was a lot of racism within the police force. People were fitted up with bags of drugs, people were fitted up with offensive weapons. And so often they were young black people.’ ibid. former PC Peter Bleksley
21 Held After Muggings: A 24-year-old housewife and 20 young men will appear at Camberwell Magistrates’ Court, London, today changed in connection with a series of muggings. ibid.
They were arrested after a number of raids in South East London on Monday, and followed a rooftop watch by police on shops and streets in Lewisham and Deptford. ibid.
The Metropolitan Police at five o’clock in the morning smashed the doors down of 21 houses and arrested 21 young people … A campaign for freeing of the Lewisham 21, and some of the people were little more than children. But it was what inspired the National Front to set up what they called the Anti-Mugging Branch. ibid. Sid Shelton, photographer and activist
The Battle of Lewisham: ‘The police were attacking us’. ibid.
Kids lying on stretchers burnt till they were pink, and the smell of burning flesh will go to my graves. Uprising II: Blame, survivor
She saw somebody in a white car throw something. ibid.
Then there was another fire bomb at the Moonshot Youth Club. ibid.
The black people’s day of action was the most powerful expression of black political power that this country has ever seen … There were over 20,000 people marching through the streets of London on an ordinary working day. ibid. Linton Kwesi Johnson
There was a police line across the road that was stopping the march. I really don’t think they wanted us to cross the bridge. ibid. witness
A cordon of police officers in riot gear standing across the entrance to the bridge. We found that particularly disturbing because the route to the march had been agreed. ibid. Johnson
‘Kennington was a very racist area, yeah: Niggers Go Home, NF on the Wall’ … ‘Blacks Stink’ [graffiti] … Uprising III: The Front Line
‘Round and round and round antagonising people endlessly.’ ibid. ex-rozzer whistleblower
Operation Swamp: ‘One day I was stopped three times.’ ibid. old suss law victim
‘We saw the police surround a guy who had been stabbed.’ ibid.
When we got to the high street [after victim dragged to police van] it was one of the proudest moments of our lives. Hundreds of us. ibid.
There was like a cinema playing in my mind of all the indignities I had suffered with the police. ibid.
A lot of chaos. A lot of coppers getting hurt. ibid. ex-whistleblower
You know what? They were good fires. They were fires of freedom. People were breaking the chains. ibid. dude
‘The unprecedented outbreak of violence on the streets of mainland Britain.’ ibid. BBC news
In 1965 Malcolm X, the US Civil Rights leader, arrives in the UK on a speaking tour, spreading the message of black liberation. On a visit to the Congress of Black Unity in London, Michael encounters the charismatic revolutionary. Michael X: ‘Hustler, Revolutionary, Outlaw’, caption, Sky Showcase 2021
He [Malcolm] never went anywhere without his little black case, which a mobile library of statistics ranging from transportation of slaves hundreds of years ago to the latest figures on black poverty. ibid. Michael
Courtaulds Ltd: 900 workers went on strike after a row with the management … ‘The strike as such here involved coloured people.’ ibid. Malcolm’s BBC interview
RAAS is one of a growing number of black civil rights organisations that emerge in the 1960s. With Michael at the helm, it soon gains a high profile. By 1967 Michael X is the most high profile black activist in Britain and claims to have some 60,000 followers of his RAS Organisation. ibid.
Michael’s high-profile appearances attract the attention of the authorities. Six weeks later, he addresses his next rally under police surveillance. ibid.
We were weaned on the concept of the empire and the mother-country and we firmly believed this. No more loyal subjects of the king and queen had ever had … To come here and discover we weren’t wanted has been a very shattering blow … It’s not a matter of hate that our people are feeling towards the people of this country, but a very simple emotion like that of a rejected love. ibid. Michael’s TV interview
After serving eight months in prison, Michael is released but remains under police surveillance. He immediately persuades his white liberal backers to fund a new venture: the Black House [inc. Lennon]. ibid. caption
The assault on Marvin Brown gives the Metropolitan police reason to read the Black House. Michael is charged with robbery and extortion. ibid.
There is a difference between leadership and demagoguery. ibid. professor, re Malcolm X
In the town of Arima, Michael sets himself up as leader of Christina Gardens – a small agricultural commune centred around his claimed political ethos of self-help. ibid. caption
Michael, alongside two of his followers stands accused of the murder of Joseph Skerritt. If found guilty, the penalty is death by hanging. ibid.
The Black Panthers believed that the only way to stop racism in America was for black people to get power. Simply changing the law was not enough. The anger and the fear remained hidden away in millions of people’s mind. The solution was black power, and the first person to articulate this was Stokely Carmichael. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head II: Shooting and Fucking are the Same Thing, BBC 2021
‘The Panther Party at that time took my rage and channelled it against them, instead of against us. They educated my mind and gave me direction, and with that direction came hope.’ ibid. Alice Feye Williams aka Afeni Shakur
The question of who to attack in New York got more and more complicated … Afeni Shakur’s group came up with a plan: they were going to plant bombs in big department stores like Macey’s and they would bomb the Bronx Botanical Gardens, and attack local police stations. ibid.