Photo credit: Liz Obi with Olive Morris ©Neil Kenlock, 1973

“Within the [Black Panther] Movement itself I was most inspired by Olive Morris. I’d never met anyone like her before and haven’t met anyone like her since. She was fearless, bold, and outspoken, and during the Movement days we became good friends.

The first time Olive made a real impression on me was during my early days in the Movement. It was on a demonstration of residents from the Ferndale Road flats. Beverley Bryan and Olive had been working with the tenants concerning housing conditions - there had been a lot of fires in the flats caused by the use of paraffin heaters and the tenants were demanding that the Council install some form of heating. A demonstration of about 30 tenants made up mainly of women and children, together with members of the Movement set off one weekday morning from the flats in Ferndale Road* to the Housing Office on Brixton Hill. It was the first demonstration I’d been on.

When we reached the Housing Office the tenants demanded to see the Head of Housing to discuss the issue and were told by the housing office staff that this would not be possible and we were to leave the premises or they would call the police. The tenants were unsure about what to do next until Olive spoke to the women and told them that yes we would leave the premises but that they should leave the children behind saying that if the Council would not meet wit them then the Council had better look after their children because it was not safe to take them back home. The women were naturally nervous about this course of action as they feared the Council would take their children into care but after further persuasion from Olive they agreed to do so and all the adults left the building leaving the children in care of the Housing Office staff. We were not outside the office for more than ten minutes before the head of the housing office agreed to come and meet with the demonstrators and the outcome was that the issue of heating provision would be looked into as a priority.

So yes Olive was definitely an inspiration.”

“The British Black Panthers and Black Power Movement: an oral history and photography project” Organised Youth, 2013

*Beverley Bryan mentions in her interview in the book that two students in her school who lived on Ferndale Court were burnt and killed in a fire. This led to a campaign with housing and Lambeth Council and Ken Livingstone was the councillor responsible for housing there.

OLIVE MORRIS (26 June 1952 – 12 July 1979)

THANKS TO Remember Olive Collective (R.O.C. 2.0) AND ALL CONTRIBUTORS FOR THE ANTHOLOGY

Download the anthology here

Marlon, now 45, was 18 at the time of the racist attack in March 1994 and is still described by family and supporters as Bristol’s Stephen Lawrence.

20 fairground workers attacked young Black people at Bob Wilson’s Fair at the Downs in Bristol. Five people were hospitalised, more were injured and Marlon was left for dead. Marlon’s head injuries were so severe that he was in a coma and was unable to move or speak and he now communicates yes or no through blinking.

The attack on Marlon Thomas is not instantly known to many people in Bristol or the UK. Marlon’s family want to make sure that the younger generation remember and what happened remains in the city’s consciousness.

The Amazing Honky Tonk Woman - Winifred Atwell

Today we remember Winifred Atwell, who died on this day at the age of 69 in 1983. 

Winifred was a Trinidadian pianist known for her boogie-woogie and ragtime hits. In 1954 she became the first black person to reach #1 in the UK.

“Between 1952 when she reached number five with Britannia Rag, and 1959 when Piano Party reached number ten, she had eleven top-ten hits and is still the most successful female instrumentalist to have ever featured in the British pop charts.”

In 1956, Winifred opened a hair salon for Black women on Railton Road in Brixton. It was called The Winifred Atwell Salon.

“The Winifred Atwell Show was a British TV series which aired 1956 to 1957. It spent part of its run on the BBC, and part of its run on ITV. Atwell did a later series in the early 1960s called The Amazing Miss A. She was likely the first black woman to have her own series on British television.”

You might have seen Winifred Atwell featured in this artwork as part of the LDN WMN series for the #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign in 2018. (Artist: Carleen De Sözer)

Just some of Winifred’s achievements:

John La Rose

(December 27, 1927 - February 28, 2006)

John La Rose was a Trinidadian-born publisher, cultural activist and pioneer with an incredible legacy.

Before making his home in London, La Rose organised with workers and trade unions in Trinidad: “The encounter with white racism and the manoeuvres of the British capitalist power did not begin in England but in the Caribbean.”

In 1966, La Rose founded New Beacon Books, one of Britain’s first black publishing houses. He co-founded the Black Parents Movement (1969-1993), the George Padmore Institute (1991-), the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-72) and organised the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books with Race Today Publications and Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (1982-95).

“I saw publishing as a vehicle which gave an independent validation of one’s own culture, history, politics - a sense of one’s self - a break with discontinuity.”

In 1981, La Rose was the chair of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee (NCMAC) which led to the coordination of the Black People’s Day of Action (March 2, 1981).

John La Rose died of a heart attack on 28 February 2006.

Darcus Howe 

(February 26, 1943 - April 1, 2017)

Today we celebrate the life of Rhett Radford Leighton “Darcus” Howe. 

We remember his work as a television broadcaster, organiser, civil rights activist, member of the British Black Panther Movement and editor of Race Today.

Darcus Howe’s Political Biography by Robin Bunce and Paul Field is open access on Bloomsbury Collections:

www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/darcus-howe-a-political-biography

Barbara Burford (9 December 1944 - 20 February 2010)

And we are mistresses of strong, wild air, leapers and sounders of depths and barriers.

- “Women Talking”, 1984

A trailblazer in the NHS, Barbara Burford was committed to champion and raise the profile of equality and diversity in the National Health Service.

Source

Justin Fashanu (19 February 1961 – 2 May 1998) was a British footballer of Guyanese and Nigerian descent.  He was the first Black footballer in Britain to be signed for £1million and years later reached another milestone when he became the first openly gay professional footballer.

At the age of 6, Justin was fostered by white parents in Norwich with his brother, football player John Fashanu. Shortly after the public learned of Justin’s sexuality, John agreed to provide The Voice newspaper with an exclusive under the headline “My Gay Brother is an outcast”.

Comments from The Voice included: “an affront to the black community…damaging…pathetic and unforgivable”. Columnist Tony Sewell wrote, “We heteros are sick and tired of tortured queens playing hide and seek around their closets. Homosexuals are the greatest queer-bashers around. No other group of people are so preoccupied with making their own sexuality look dirty”.

Action against the newspaper followed and a boycott was organised by gay activists. Black LGBT activist Ted Brown was involved in leading the boycott.

In an interview with TalkSPORT in 2012, John Fashanu stated he did not believe his brother was gay however believed he had lied for attention and money. Last year, John revealed to The Mirror newspaper that he paid Justin £75k “to try and stop him coming out”.

While some hail Justin Fashanu as an LGBT and football icon, his legacy is tainted due to allegations of sexual assault of a seventeen-year-old-boy whilst he lived in the US. (Justin had started a career in coaching US football team, Maryland Mania). To avoid arrest, John returned to the UK and a month later died by suicide. He left a note to maintain his innocence and stated he did not believe he would get a fair trial because of his sexuality.

Pearl Connor-Mogotsi (13 May 1924 – 11 February 2005)

Pearl is remembered as an “influential figure in black British and Caribbean theatre and the arts”.

She was a Trinidadian-born theatre agent, actor and was the first agent to represent actors of colour in the UK and integral in setting up the Negro Theatre Workshop.

Click here to read Pearl Connor-Mogotsi’s obituary by Margaret Busby

Ted Brown is an American born LGBT activist. He was born in New York City to British Jamaican parents and moved to England in 1959.

Ted was a member of the Gay Liberation Front and founder of the group Black Lesbians and Gays Against Media Homophobia (BLGAMH). He led a boycott against The Voice magazine following their reports on first openly gay professional footballer Justin Fashanu.

In 1992, after the release of Buju Banton’s song “Boom, Bye, Bye”, Ted’s group, BLGAMH, launched a campaign to protest against the songs airplay, which was later banned but still played on pirate radio stations and in clubs. Ted received backlash and violence for his stance on Banton’s music. Three days after appearing in an interview on Channel 4, he was attacked by three men (two of them white) who forced entry into his home. 

Ted Brown is now regarded as a Gay Liberation Front veteran and in an interview said their biggest achievement was “establishing and encouraging homosexual people to be proud, happy and open about our sexual orientation, while simultaneously challenging society’s homophobia.”

Ted’s contributions to the LGBT community was awarded in 2007 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black Lesbian and Gay Community Awards.

Today marks the start of UK’s LGBT History Month and it’s also Ted Brown’s birthday! For more Black British LGBTQ+ History, check out the tag!

Amy Barbour-James 25 January 1906 – 4 May 1988

Amy was a secretary for the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) in 1942 and was involved in civil rights movements in Britain.

Amy was born in Acton, London to Guyanese parents. Her father John Barbour-James worked as administrator in West Africa and in 1918 he founded the African Patriotic Intelligence Bureau.

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