Originally published as part of our 2018 Black History Month Hidden Stories campaign
In Darcus Howe: A Political Biography, academics Robin Bunce and Paul Field argue that British history is so romanticised that the Black Power Movement of the early 1970s is at risk of being forgotten entirely. A movement whose roots were in the American campaign for civil rights, it gained impetus in 1967 and today marks a significant era in British racial politics.
A British Black Panther movement came into existence in 1968, founded by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Obi Egbuna, Olive Morris and Darcus Howe. Althea Jones LeCointe, a Trinidadian scientist, took over leadership later in the year and by the early 1970s, membership had grown to 3000 in the areas of Brixton and Notting Hill. In the five years they were active, the British Black Panthers led campaigns against police brutality, housing discrimination and educational inequalities and published its own newspaper, Freedom News.
Darcus Howe was one of the most influential names was, having come to Britain from Trinidad in 1961. Howe was part of the Mangrove Nine, a group of black activists tried on charges of inciting a riot from The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill. In the trial the activists demanded an all-black jury and Howe cited the Magna Carta for their right to a “jury of peers”, which drew media attention for being a move so radical and yet so English.
The group argued that they were being deliberately targeted for being black, and upon their acquittal, the judge said that racial hatred had played a part in the trial. This was the first identification of racial prejudice within the Metropolitan Police and it has come to be a historic challenge to police racism in the UK.
As the British Black Panthers declined in 1973, Olive Morris co-founded the Brixton Black Women’s Group. A radical feminist born in Jamaica, she was also an active member of the Manchester Black Women’s Cooperative. In 1979, Morris died from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the age of 27 and her activism has seen her now be depicted on B£1 denomination of the Brixton pound. Olive Morris House is also a Lambeth council building that can be found in Brixton.
The British Black Power movement legitimised the fight against racism, creating organised community resistance that drew widespread attention to racial inequality. Neil Kunlock, the British Black Panthers’ photographer, has said that their success is a ‘hidden story’, with a lot of social progress not being attributed to what was in fact a British Civil Rights Movement. But we think there is a lot to be gained from keeping their story alive today.