The year 1981 holds a significant place in the history of the United Kingdom, marked by a series of riots that erupted in various cities across the country.
These events, collectively known as the riots of 1981, were a poignant reflection of the social, economic, and political challenges gripping the nation.
During the early 1980s, the UK faced a turbulent economic landscape, characterized by rising unemployment rates and societal discontent.
Industrial decline and government austerity measures contributed to a sense of hopelessness, particularly among the working class in cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham.
High unemployment rates, especially among minority communities, fueled a growing sense of alienation and frustration.
The relationship between the police and the communities they served was strained by aggressive policing tactics and allegations of racial profiling.
A tragic incident that added fuel to the simmering discontent was the New Cross Fire on January 18, 1981. Thirteen young black people lost their lives in a house fire during a birthday party.
The incident, coupled with perceived racial negligence and an inadequate official response, heightened racial tensions and galvanized communities.
The first major outbreak of violence occurred in Brixton, South London, in April 1981. The Brixton riots were triggered by the death of Michael Bailey, a young black man, during a police operation.
The unrest exposed deep-seated issues of racial discrimination and police brutality, resulting in clashes between protesters and law enforcement, numerous injuries, and significant property damage.
Subsequent riots followed in cities across the UK, including Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham.
While each incident had its specific triggers, a common thread ran through them – a sense of frustration and anger stemming from systemic inequalities and perceived injustices.
The government, led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, responded with a tough stance emphasizing law and order.
However, this approach did little to address the root causes of the unrest. Efforts were subsequently made to tackle issues such as unemployment, police accountability, and community relations.
Yet, the scars left by the events of 1981 lingered, underscoring the need for broader societal changes.
The riots of 1981 were a stark manifestation of the challenges faced by the UK during a period of economic hardship and social tension.
They brought to the forefront issues of racial discrimination, unemployment, and police brutality.
While subsequent efforts were made to address these concerns, the legacy of the riots continues to shape discussions around social justice, inequality, and the relationship between the state and its citizens in the UK.
0:00 – Intro
0:51 – The 1981 Riots
1:38 – Racial Tensions
4:38 – Economic Circumstances
5:01 – Police Powers
9:46 – The Aftermath
11:27 – The Triggers
29:09 – The Brixton Riot
31:12 – The Background Of Brixton Riot
34:13 – The 10th & 11th Of April In Brixton
35:56 – The 11th & 12th Of April In Brixton
38:30 – The Aftermath Of Brixton Riots
29:28 – The Scarman Report
01:02:25 – Other Rioting
01:04:02 – The Handsworth Birmingham Riots
01:06:47 – The Chapeltown Leeds Riots
01:28:25 – The Toxteth Liverpool Riots
01:29:05 – The Background Of Toxteth Riots
01:35:12 – The Events That Happened In The Toxteth Riots
01:37:55 – The Aftermath Of Toxteth Riots
02:26:37 – The Moss Side Manchester Riots
02:28:06 – Inital Riot & Police Response At Mos side
02:28:37 – Community Meeting With Moss Side Leaders
02:29:30 – Stopping The Riots In Moss Side
02:31:31 – Conclusion & Response To Moss Side Riots
03:10:25 – Other Riots
03:11:32 – The Conclusion
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In April 1981 rioting erupted suddenly in Brixton the riers were mainly black youths many with a deep sense of grievance their target was a predominantly white police force it was intimidating it was frightening um you didn’t know what was going to happen [Applause] next in April and July 1981 there were
Riots in several cities and towns in England the riots mainly involved black British English youths clashing with police they were caused by tensions between black people and the police especially perceived racist discrimination against black people through increased use of stop and search were also fueled by Inner City
Deprivation the most serious riots were the April brickton riots in London followed by the riots in tox in July riots in Liverpool the handsworth riots in Birmingham the chapel toown riots in Leeds and the mide riots in Manchester there were also a series of less serious
Riots in other towns and cities as a result of the riots the government commission the scarman Report in all four main cases these areas had large ethnic minority communities who had largely immigrated from the Commonwealth in the 1950s and 1960s to do low paid manual jobs all these areas suffered from poor housing mostly dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries high unemployment and particular problems of racial tensions
According to the subsequently commissioned scarman report the riots were a spontaneous Outburst of builtup resentment sparked by particular incident Lord scarman stated that complex political social and economic factors created a disposition towards violent protests the scarman report highlighted problems of racial disadvantage and inner city decline warning that urgent action was needed to
Prevent racial disadvantage becoming an epidemic ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society brickton in London tox in Liverpool and Chapel toown in leads were originally built as affluent areas of these CI however the relocation of Industry Rising popularity of homes on new private housing Estates since the
1930s poor connections and the influx of Migrant workers has led to a downfall in their fortunes and the lad Victor Ian Terraces and Villas were often divided up into low rent bedsets and many of those still existing as houses have been brought by landlords who L them to
Tenant the first fure Ministry the conservative party elected in May 1979 had instituted a new powers for the police under the vagrancy Act of 1824 to stop and search People based on only a reasonable suspicion that an offense had been committed hence their common name of sus laws these were applied
Disproportionately to the black community and caused widespread resentment amongst young black men the majority of these were not immigrants they were the British born children of immigrants mostly born in the late 1950s or the first half of the 1960s the Baby Bo the election of the conservatives in
1979 had also seen the implementation by the fer government monetarist econ economic policy that were designed to tackle inflation which had peaked at 27% just before the election dropped to 22 C in the 1980s and was still above 10% by 1981 in 1979 the second oil price crisis started although inflation was falling
By 1981 unemployment was still rising and the recession was now in its second year by 1981 unemployment exceeded 2.5 million having stood at 1.5 million 2 years earlier less than a decade later unemployment had still been in the six figures and it had stood at less than
400,000 as recently as the 1960s the inner city areas affected by the 1981 riots were among those hit particularly hard by the recession and the unemployment and other social issues that came with it the level of unemployment not seen since the 1930s the Great Depression in the United
Kingdom had led to mass disconnect in the workingclass areas of Britain most affected by the recession The Asian Community also F isolated and vulnerable to racist attack the police were given new powers to question people about their immigration status resentment arose when these laws were applied but the police were failing to protect the Asian Community from violence on the 11th of July 1981 the
Bradford 12 a group of Asian youths members of the United black youth Le were arrested for manufacturing petrol bomb allegedly to protect their Community from a threatened attack at the subsequent trial they were acquitted by a jewelry on the grounds of self-defense on the 18th of January 1981
13 black youths died in the new cross fire in London when a house was reportedly petrol bomb the police quickly dismissed a racial motive for the apparent ason attack and the local black community were dismay by the indifference shown in the Press towards the deaths 15,000 people marched
Demanding action to Central London in the biggest black issue demonstration seen at the time in the UK racial tensions continued to rise in the early part of the year on the 28th of March 1981 Enoch Powell by Van the AER unionist MP but still an influence on
The conservative party gave a speech in which he warned of the dangers of a racial Civil War in Britain in this country in 15 or 20 years time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man well I can already hear the chorus of
Execration how dare I say such a horrible thing how dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation my answer is that I do not have the right not to do so Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make
Mad we must be mad literally mad as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the Immigrant descended population it is like Wasing watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its
Own funeral part Mr Powell had been dismissed from the shadow cabinet in 1968 by the van Tory leader Edward Heath following his controversial rivers of blood speech in which he predicted Mass civil unrest if the Commonwealth immigration continued 3 years later when still atore MP he warned of an explosion
Unless there was a massive reparation scheme for the immigrants racial tension had been particularly high in wolver Hampton where Mr power was an MP and the town was one of those affected by the less serious ways of writing during 1981 by the 6th of April overall employment
Had risen from 1.5 million to 2.5 million in 12 months and that joblessness amongst ethnic minority had risen faster up 82% in that same period during March and April the Metropolitan Police began operation swamp 81 a London wide campaign against burglary and robbery in Brixton over only 6 days 120
Plane closed police officers stopped 943 people arresting 118 predominantly black youths the police Justified their style of policing by statistics showing that while Street robberies had increased 38% across London between 1976 and 1980 in Brixton it had risen 138% the first disturbances began in Brixton over the weekend of the 10th and
12th of April 1981 and were followed in July by a series of similar disturbances in more than 35 cities and town especially in Liverpool in London these included delston Stoke Newton Clapper huno and actor Kenneth Lee the race relations field officer of the church of England’s board for social
Responsibility noted here these are not race riots riots between races rather the conflict was with the police as symbols of white Authority with State racism and criminalization of black community these riots in areas of high unemployment brought to the government’s attention that strategies for helping young people into work were not working
The youth training scheme and similar schemes were brought into school for levers the association of chief police officers who developed police policy in England produced their public order manual in response to the riots this was subsequently used in training by police forces throughout Britain the UK government commissioned the scarman
Report 2 days after the brickton riots the terms of reference for the inquiry were to inquire urgently into the serious disorder in Brixton on the 10th and 12th of April 1981 and to report with the powers to make recommendations Lord scarman was concerned with the plight of the ethnic communities in the
UK inner city and their relationship with the rest of the national Community he concluded that it was essential that people are encouraged to secure a stake in feel a pride in and have a sense of responsibility for their own area he called for a policy of direct coordinated attack on racial
Disadvantage as a consequence of the the Lord scarman report a new code for police Behavior was put forward in the police and criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the ACT also created an independent police complaints Authority established in 1985 to attempt to restore the Public’s confidence in the police the
Sus law was replaced on the 27th of August 1981 when the criminal attempts Act of 1981 received Royal asent while there were common root causes for tension in each area the triggers for each individual Riot were completely different I was very very surprised at the verocity of the riots
Um I didn’t believe that that sort of thing would happen in my country on one day of rioting alone at least 45 members of the public and nearly 300 policemen were were injured the last thing I wanted was after it was over to find a police officer hanging from one of the
Lamposts the Brixton riots were not the first in a city disorders but they were the first to get a political response the Home Secretary William whitew immediately summoned the Metropolitan Police Chiefs commissioner lross T said he said he said the Home Secretary would like to come to visit Brixton Mr White said
I’ll come about 5:00 and the commissioner said yes okay and I I just quickly wh the commissioner here I please Ry might start at five so he said well we might start at five so Mr wat said well I better come at three then white law was accompanied by
Timothy raisen the minister responsible for race relations what you got was a very strong sense of enormous tension you get smoldering the sort of aftermath of it obviously the police were on very high alert I have seen enough damage to convince me that a serious breakdown of
Law and Order occurred I’ve also seen enough to convince me that the police have in a very difficult task and I want to say this again again and again deserve the support of every law-abiding citizen in this country when of the interesting things about all this episode is that it was in
Fact the Home Secretary who made the running the basis of the Thatcher government at that period was that Margaret Thatcher would pursue things to do with the economy and so on but that there was a kind of tacet or maybe not even tacet deal between Margaret and
Willie um by which she in effect agreed not to interfere with his department and that was absolutely crucial the events of this weekend called for the most thorough examination I have therefore decided to appoint an inquiry under Section 32 of the police act 1964 I have invited Lord scarman to
Undertake this inquiry and I am glad to say he has accepted he had a reputation both as a highly intelligent man very distinguished judge and all that and also for being an independent-minded person very important if you had that inquiry not to have somebody who could be accused of being a
Stoe but scan’s appointment came at a time of high unemployment black youths were particularly hard hit because the opposition blamed the job losses on Thatcher’s economic reforms scarman and his team would have to tread warily I think we all knew that the remit would have to embrace social and economic
Issues um but we also knew that to say that up front would be to frighten some of the horses uh to upset some people in government who might see this as you know um far more dangerous kind of operation than uh they thought it was supposed to Be only 3 months later a weekend of rioting in tox highlighted the fact that the government was facing a problem on a national scale there at one point with casualties mounting the police almost lost control they were given permission to use CS gas the first time it had been used on Mainland
Britain the explosion of violence hadn’t been predicted hadn’t been expected which came with quite extraordinary ferocity it shook certainly the political system in in in whiteall and Westminster indeed the Prime Minister determined to see Toth for herself and to talk to members of the local community at Liverpool City
Hall I can see it now I was sad faing Mr stat I’m s facing you I was the middle of our team and she was the middle of a team so I was facing like that and she was leaning forward and she was saying nothing can justify this Behavior
Nothing can justify this violence um we cannot have this this this this situation it it was that that that kind of a tone she never felt that unemployment was a very convincing uh reason for um uh trouble of that kind bearing in mind that far higher degrees of
Unemployment had been born earlier in this nation um but social problems yes and among the social problems were of course a breakdown in respect for authority breakdown in Family Life a breakdown in respect for elders and a lack of pride in the [Applause] area she really did listen and I have to
Give a tribute to that for that she did listen but you know I think what she heard was so much outside of her experience that I feel she would be unable to in what was being said and act on that but Margaret Thatcher did act when she returned to London by sending a
Special task force to Liverpool headed by the environment secretary Michael hasseltine David Edmonds one of his top civil servants was with him it was the days of course before Spin Doctors um but I knew Liverpool a bit so I said for the next uh the next
Part of the trip let’s let’s walk down to the the harbor tremendous this view of Michael heslin as uh a politician of depth by Joe I think she was impressed by his presentational and his political abilities on Mery Side when we first went to the area of the riots there was a lot of Destruction there was still smoldering Timbers there were people who came to talk to us who had bruises Cuts who’ clearly been involved in it memorable occasion when hestin met black youth who had clearly
Been involved in in in in in in the rioting they said that they were discriminated against in terms of jobs and employment they were discriminated against in terms of Housing and and they were discriminated against by the police Michael htin allowed himself to um to observe the
Situation he allowed himself to to look at what was taking place what do you make of all this well that’s not good news is it any understand that’s 5 years that’s been like that I think he was visibly shocked which contrasts with with the view of Margaret Thatcher that there’s no deprivation Here in London scarman was busy conducting his own inquiry into the causes of the brickton rides His official terms of reference meant that his main focus had to be on police behavior and relations with the black community one of the Prime causes of discontent was saturation policing and
The use of the notorious sus law to stop anyone thought to be acting suspiciously much of the criticism was leveled at Young police officers the majority are they’re youths man they’re kids they’re not qualified police officer who can talk to people they don’t know how
To talk to people the 1819 1819 just cut out C school and show The Bigs like them let’s have respect man of course you don’t show no respect respect they don’t show us no respect we going to show them any respect my recollection is that the percentage of
Street robberies um committed by black youths and Men was something in the region of 80 to 90% And the victims were mainly white as they say they’re doing their job yeah but at the same time I mean you have to compromise in a sense in the sense where you can’t arrest
People every day day and day out because of this in is black you are they really doing are they really harassing people every day day and day everybody will back me up everyone will back the anger on the street spilled over into the inquiry itself all these people at the back in the
Audience who were shouting at us and it was quite intimidating I had the impression that we were on trial that we were the defendants and uh that uh the riers were the defendants we were the defendants in this particular case halfway through his inquiry scarman had an opportunity to see for himself
What was alleged to be an example of insensitive policing officers had wreaked havoc whilst raiding 11 houses in Brixton in a fruitless search for bomb making equipment scarman decided to visit the site of the houses which had been raided and as we approached we had to pass through a police Cordon because the
Police were standing back at a distance expecting um that there could well be trouble we approached on foot and there was a very large crowd a couple of hundred or more with the lone figure of the local community Bobby PC Brown uh standing in the midst of them and as we approached
Uh sort of chant went up scarm scarm scarm and we were swept on a wave into these houses um and taken Round what you had was a well-meaning liberal judge doing uh his his level best but you sometimes felt watching him at work that it was a bit like sort of the district commissioner uh out on Trek uh and I’ve got some experience of District Commissioners and they were some very
Good ones but they were never going to be the Agents of radical change but at the time of its publication the scarman report marked a watershed by drawing attention to the depth and an extent of racial discrimination a new generation of black Britain who’ grown up here felt deeply
Alienated it’s available only at 8 deprived youngsters who believed that they were deprived because of the colors of their skin unable to get what they thought were Fair opportunities of Education or jobs and suffering as they thought harassment took to the streets because they saw no other way of airing their
Grievances one of them scarman proposed reforms to improve police relations with the black community and to weed out individual officers whose Behavior was racist nothing to say he also identified more General racist attitudes among the police scarman did say that one had to look at the informal culture of the police and of
Other institutions the canteen culture for example um which is a powerful um influence on the way people behave in Practice scarman made clear that good policing would be of no avail unless it was accompanied by measures to improve jobs education and housing but politically he was realistic I’m conscious that I’m a judge I’m not responsible for the finances or the economy of the country all I can do
Is to analyze the social conditions indicate areas where improvements could be made and ought to be made and then leave it to the politicians in Parliament to decide whether the money is to be made available I hope the money will be made available on his return from liverpol
Heseltine had written a minute for his cabinet colleagues it took a riot the title at least was provocative the report that heseltine put to Mrs Thatcher was not a thatcherite document but it was very carefully couched it made very clear that violence as a means of securing economic or political ends
Couldn’t be countenanced and it t a very delicate line between saying we have to do something we have to respond to violence but at the end of the day that underlying message was it took a riot to make us consider what best to
Do later in ‘ 81 hestin had to go to the Conservative Party Conference I’m delighted to introduce the Secretary of State the right honorable Michael heshin he was extremely concerned about the speech that he had to make there I vividly remember sitting next to his office for several days while he wrote
Sheath after she of paper in his totally unintelligible manuscript trying to get the tone right what he wanted was a tone that conveyed the real concern that actually said that we needed to change self-help has a limited meaning in an inner city Community where 40% of of the
Young kids may be without work and if you’re black it may be 60% I know those problems I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father he didn’t Riot he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking till he found it our inner cities are just a signpost
Of a journey of Despair and there will be no recovery without more resources I am not willing to throw away the prospects of lasting recovery in an orgy of self-indulgence force sentimentality and self justification and no one in this government is tbit was speaking for the government Thatcher held firm to her economic
Reforms this meant that the solutions advocated by both heseltine and scarman were not taken up wholeheartedly I think it would be a mistake to think that money can solve the problems money can’t buy either trust or racial Harmony the F government did very little in actually putting in real
Jobs improving the housing improving the the quality of life for black people in SOI as far as policing in London was concerned some of scamman’s recommendations were accepted there has been some change certain certainly in the rhetoric of senior police officers and indeed in terms of institutional change the
Development of liaison committees but in terms of what actually happens on the street the impact of policing particularly on the black community remains completely unaltered the same abuses occur the same tensions exist and indeed there’s a growing alienation and bitterness the Tottenham RI tonight police say a revolver as well as a
Shotgun was used London’s top policeman has given notice that his men are ready to use plastic bullets and tear gas the warning came after last night’s frenzy of violence on a housing estate in North London during which a policeman was hacked to death the murder of PC Keith blakelock
The only policeman to die during these inner city disorders remains Unsolved the horror of the violence and the fact that there were other disturbances that year LED some people to fear that rioting was becoming a feature of British life what happened after 1985 uh was uh a growing sense uh on the part uh of the police and the
Public that the end of the road had been had been reached that unless uh there was some modus vendi some accommodation reached as between police and public in those areas then the outcome would be one that was absolutely catastrophic black People British that is what I once said they’re burning our children this is All That Remains of the three-story house where nearly 100 young West Indians were celebrating at an allight birthday party for two young friends but 1981 Brixton Riot or Brixton Uprising was a series of clashes between
Mainly black youths and the Metropolitan Police in Brixton London between the 10th and 12th of August 1981 it resulted from racial discrimination from the black community by the mainly white police force especially the police’s increased use of stop and search in the area and the ongoing tensions result
Resulting from the deaths of 13 black teenagers and young adults in the suspicious new cross house fire that January the main Royer on the 11th of April dubbed bloody Saturday by Time Magazine resulted in 279 injuries to police and 45 injuries to members of the public over 100 Vehicles were burned
Including 56 police vehicles almost 150 buildings were damaged 30 of which were burnt out and many shops were looted there were 82 arrests reports suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved the brixon riot was followed by similar riots in July in many other English cities and towns the fcha government
Commissioned an inquiry which resulted in the scarman report Brixton in South London was an area with serious social and economic problems the whole United Kingdom was affected by recession in 1981 but the local African and Caribbean Community was suffering particularly with high unemployment poor housing and a higher
In an average crime rate in the proceeding months there had been growing unease between the police and the inhabitants of Lambo the B of London in which brickton is located on the 18th of January 1981 13 black youth died in a fire during a house party in New cross
In the nearby burrow of Le although authorities stated that the fire started inside and was accidental the public public believed it was an arson attack and criticized the police investigation as inadequate black activists including darkus how organized the March for the black people’s day of action on the 2nd
Of March accounts of the turnout vary from 5,000 to 20,000 to 25,000 the matchers walked 17 miles from depford to High Park passing the houses of Parliament and Fleet Street while the majority of the March finished in High Park without incident there was some confrontation with the police at
Blackface according to Professor Les black while the local press reported the match respectfully the national papers unloaded the full weight of racial stereotyping the evening standards front page headline had displayed a photo of a policeman with a bloody face josed with darkus how’s quote about the March being
A good day a few weeks later the police arrested some of the March’s organizers and charged them with an offense of Riot but they were later acquitted in 1980 the number of crimes recorded in Lamb bough was 3,85 with 10,626 of those taking place in the Brixton division between 1976 and 1980
Brixton accounted for 35% of all crimes in the buau and 49% of all robbery and violent theft offenses police recognized the rising crime at the beginning of April and the Metropolitan Police began operation swamp a plane closed operation to reduce crime named after prime minister migrant factures 1978 assertion
That the UK might be rather swamped by people of a different culture and ununiform patrols were increased in the area officers from other Metropolitan Police districts and special Patrol groups were dispatched into brickton and within 5 days 943 people were stopped and searched 82 being arrested through
The heavy use of what’s conically known as the suw this refers to powers under the vagrancy Act of 182 24 which allowed police to search and arrest members of the public when it was believed that they were acting suspiciously and not necessarily committing a crime the African Caribbean Community accused the
Police of disproportionately using these Powers against black People public disfavor came to a head on Friday the 10th of April at around 5:15 p.m. a police Constable spotted a black youth named Michael Bailey running towards him apparently away from three other black youth Mr Bailey was stopped and found to be badly bleeding but broke
Away from the Constable stopped again on Atlantic Road Mr Bailey was found to have a 4in stab wound he ran into a flat and was helped by her family and the police Constable there by putting kitchen roll on his wound a crowd gathered and as the police then tried to
Take away the wounded boy to a waiting mini cab on Railton Road a crowd tried to intervene thinking the the police did not appear to be providing or seeking the medical help Mr Bailey needed quickly enough as the mini cab pulled away at speed a police car arrived and
Stopped the cup when an officer from the police car realized Mr Bailey was wounded he moved him into the back of the police car to take him to a hospital more quickly and bound his wound more tightly to stop the bleeding a large group of 50 yous began to shout for Mr
Bailey’s release thinking that the police were arresting him look they’re killing him wling the crowd descended on the police car and pulled him out rumors spread that a youth had been left to die by the police or that the police looked on as the stab youth was lying on the
Street more than 200 youth black and white with predominantly afro Caribbean Heritage reportedly turned on the police in response the police decided to increase the number of foot Patrols in Railton Road despite detention and carry on with operation swamp 81 throughout the night and into the following day
It was believed by the local community that the stab youth died as a result of police brutality fueling tensions throughout the day as crowds slowly gathered tensions first erupted around 400 p.m. as two police officers stopped and searched the mini cab of Railton Road by this time Brixton High Street
Was reportedly filled with angry people and police cars were pelted with brick at around 5:00 p.m. the tensions escalated and spread and the 9 PM BBC News Bulletin that reported 46 police officers were injured and five seriously injured shops were looted on Railton Road M Road Leon Road a lane and
Brickton Road the looting in Brixton reportedly started around 6:00 p.m. at 6:15 p.m. the fire brigade received their first call as a police van was set on fire by riers in Railton road with the fire brigade being warned a riot was in progress as the fire brigade approached the police quarter they were
Waved through without warning driving down Railton road towards 300 youths armed with bottles and Bricks a fire brigade met the crowd at the junction between Railton Road and Shakespeare Road and were attacked with stones and Bottles the police put out emergency calls to police officers across London asking for assistance they had no
Strategy and only had inadequate helmets and none fireproof plastic Shields to protect themselves while clearing in streets of riters the police reportedly also had difficulties in in radio communication the police proceeded in clearing the Atlantic realtor M area by pushing the riers down the road forming deep Shield wall the riers responded
With bricks bottles and petrol bombs by 5:30 p.m. the violence further escalated n rioting members of the public attempted to mediate between the police and the riters calling for a deescalation by withdrawing police out the area the destructive efforts of the riers peaked around 8:00 p.m. as those
Attempts at mediations had failed two pubs 26 businesses schools and other structures were set Al light by the riers by 930 p.m. over 1,000 police were dispatched into brickton squeezing out the riers by 1:00 a.m. on the 12th of April 1981 the area was largely subdued with no large groups except the police
On the streets the fire brigade refused to return until the following morning police numbers grew to over 2,500 and by the early hours of Sunday morning the rioting had fizzled out during the disturbances 299 police officers were injured along with at least 65 members of the public 65
Private vehicles and 56 police vehicles were destroyed 28 premises were burned and another 117 damaged and looted 82 arrests were made between the 3rd of July and the 11th of July that year there was more UNR fueled by racial and social Discord at hansworth in Birmingham Southall in London Tux in
Liverpool heison Green in noton and Mosside in Manchester there were also smaller pockets of unrest in Leeds Leicester Southampton Halifax Bedford Gloucester wolver Hampton centry Bristol and Edinburgh racial tensions played a major part in most of these disturbances although all the riots took place in areas hit particularly hard by unemployment and
Session the then Home Secretary William White Law commissioned a public inquiry into the riot headed by Lord scarman the scarman report was published on the 25th of November 1981 Lord scarman found unquestionable evidence of disproportionate and indiscriminate use of stop and search Powers by the police against black people and as a
Consequence a new code for police behavor Behavior was put forward in the police and criminal Evidence Act of 1984 and the ACT also created an independent police complaints Authority established in 1985 to attempt to restore public confidence in the police Lord scarman concluded that complex political social and economic factors created a
Disposition towards violent protest the 1999 mcferson report an investigation into the murder of Steven lawence and the failure of the police to establish sufficient evidence for prosecution of the charge suspects found that recommendations of the 1981 scamman report had been ignored the report concluded that the police force was
Institutionally racist this report which did not cover the events of the Brixton Royals disagreed with the conclusion made by Lord scum on the 25th of March 2011 BBC Radio 4 broadcast the reunion a program featuring reminiscences by participants including the police and black brickton residents September 28th 1985 stands out in my
Mind and it stands out in all londoners but especially black londoners fires are still burning in Brixton in South London after an evening of rioting it began as a demonstration of anger after police had shot and seriously wounded a woman while searching her house it was a dawn
Raid the police broke down the door suspecting that there was a an armed gunman in the house police had been looking for her son Michael Gross described as extremely dangerous a black mother innocently sleeping at home in front of her four kids she was shot let’s just be
Very clear here a mother is shot in her own home in front of her children by armed police officers for no reason she she running back to towards our bedroom and police shoot her in our back doctors have confirmed that Mrs Cherry gross is paralyzed from the waist down the
Immediate after math of that event was a community that were enraged they took to the streets and the streets lit up with flames the brickston riots this story is not yet over there was an internal investigation which never saw the light of day not until the inquest some 29
Years later the police officer in question is acquitted and it takes another 8 years for Cherry gross to receive any form of compensation and what happened in 2011 was that a woman died a premature death on the basis of that shooting I’ll use the word Crusade
Uh I believe that is what the family embarked upon following Cherry’s death a crusade to hear truth well it’s yet another case from the past that has come back to embarrass the Metropolitan Police New Scotland Yard today offered a public apology for the accidental shooting of cherry gross nearly three
Decades ago an inquest will take place this summer my daughter approached me and said that one of her very good friends was going through a pretty difficult time and mentioned Cherry gross’s son and an inquest was coming up within 10 minutes of speaking to Lee I
Had to help it was too compelling he was too honest he was too authentic and honestly he was a little bit lost the first time I’ve been in this room since I don’t think I’d ever get over what happened that day whenever I think about this situation I’m like an 11y old kid Again hi my name is Kevin S and I’m a record specialist at the national archives today we’re going to be looking at a document from our home office record collection this document is from 1981 but was opened or made available to the public in January 2012 and that’s
Because of the 30-year rule where records are transferred to the National Archives after a period of 30 years although the rule has now been changed to 20 years so the home office describes itself as the lead government department for immigration and passports drugs policy crime fire counterterrorism and
The police well the home office was formed in 1782 and so the records of the home office stretch way back to the 18th century and even further if one includes the Departments that predated it so obviously with records stretching back this far one can find all sorts within it including letters reports minutes
Photographs newspaper cuttings many of which appear within the particular file that we’ll be looking at today so so before we look at our example from this collection notice that our document has a unique reference number so we can use our catalog to find it ho which stands for home office and then 266
S89 so let’s take a closer look at our document and work out what it’s about so what type of document is it well some might remember what we called the London Riots of 2011 of course as his historians we know that these weren’t the first incidents of disorder
Or protest in London or Britain’s streets 30 years before the so-called London riots there was what some have referred to as the brickton riots and others the Brixton uprisings and these were a series of clashes between multi-racial groups of mainly young people and the Metropolitan Police in brickton London between the 10th and
12th of April 1981 and you might want to think why some might choose to call the event def in Brixton riots and others uprisings here we have a file of papers that were used to put together what was called the scarman report or to give it its full title the scarman report the
Brixton disorders 10th to the 12th of April 1981 report of an inquiry now this was the official government commissioned report into the disturbances the file has the title inquiry into the 1981 bricks and disturbances scarman inquiry evidence and papers and this means that it’s comprised of evidence and papers that
Were used to write the report so it’s not the final report in itself which we do actually have a finished copy of however it’s certainly worth looking at this file of evidence and papers because not all of the material within it made it into the final document so who has produced it well
It’s a home office file with a ho reference because the Home Secretary at the time responded to calls for a public inquiry which will be chaired by Lord scarman who was a respected judge and this is why it’s widely known as the scarman report although the decision to
Make him the chair wasn’t supported by everybody so if we open it up and it’s often important to put down some some weights so the flaps don’t get in one’s way so this includes a brown envelope labeled Ordinance survey maps of Brixton of course this took place before Google
Maps we have a red folder labeled exhibit 6 which includes numerous photographs a leaflet entitled police and public complaints against the police which explains the procedure for members of the public who consider they have grounds for complaint against the conduct of a member of the police force
And hints at one of the key causes of the disturbances which was the provocative policing of many officers in the area particularly under what was called operation swamp 81 and the clues in the title here as the police swamped Brixton with extra numbers of officers who used what were called called the sus
Laws shorthand for suspicious Behavior to stop and search young black people in disproportionate numbers and there’s a lot more evidence in the file as well so what does it say so this is evidence gathered for the inquiry so the file doesn’t reach a conclusion in itself and it’s perhaps worth saying
That the National Archives often holds the documentation which contributed to to the creation of official or government papers and reports however the scarman report itself is known for arguing that the disorder emerged out of political social and economic disadvantage it was however criticized for ignoring or downplaying accusations
Of police misconduct and taking the position that institutional racism did not exist in Britain which the mcferson report which followed the butched investigation into the RAC murder of Steven Lawrence would highlight almost two decades later so is this document useful for understanding the brickton uprisings absolutely the photographs alone for
Instance provide a powerful visual record of the disturbances and this was in a time when people didn’t have smartphones or walk around with high-spec cameras in their pockets the photographs provide an insight into the damage caused on the Saturday which was was the high point of the disturbance there were 82 arrests
Made 279 officers and 45 members of the public were reported injured 117 Vehicles including 56 police vehicles were damaged or destroyed and 145 properties were damaged the photos also provide an insight into police tactics we can certainly see evidence of what’s been turned the militarization of the police where the police increasingly use
Military equipment and tactics which might have previously been used in Britain’s colonies to police her inner city communities this has led some commentators such as Robert Riner to describe the police as looking more like Darth Vader than the traditional Bobby so why does the National Archives have it the National Archives is the
Official Archive of the UK government government departments and some Law Courts select and then transfer records that now are at least 20 years old to be archived here here for future Generations as this was compiled by a home office commission it is held at the National Archives so don’t forget we’ve
Only looked at one document on this period of history and remember as Government archive the National Archives is not always the best place to come for a community perspective although the file does contain important documents such as this press release from the council for community relations in Lambeth which begins with this
Paragraph ccrl sees the events of last weekend as the inevitable result of longstanding and consistently provocative policing policies in the area this combined with persistent official neglect of the community and the refusal time and time again to meet well articulated demands meant that the weekend’s violence was the only way
People could express legitimate resentment a persistent Injustice black youths were at the front of this demonstration just as they are at the front of the states assault on black people but it was overwhelmingly a whole Community response to an intolerable situation so nonetheless and although this document is included it is really
Important to mention that many Community groups such as the brickton defense Campaign which was established to support those arrested in Rel to the disorder actually boycotted the inquiry as they thought it would be a whitewash meaning it would effectively absolve the police of any wrongdoing and any evidence submitted would be used against
Black defendants the records of the brickton defense campaign are actually held at the black cultural archives in Brixton which highlights how important it is to visit other community archives as well and this must be borne in mind when evaluating this particular file and thinking about how much it can take tell
Us so this is just one of many documents to be found in our home office collection which can be used to find out more about the brickton uprisings children have been burned not West Indians black British that is what I once said they’re burning our children this is All That Remains of the
Threeory house where nearly 100 young West Indians were celebrating at an allight birthday party for two young young friends that night we were there at the party and for people outside looking in I mean you know maybe they can just imagine just before 6:00 this morning the singing and dancing gave way
To panic as flames shot through the upper floors and screaming teenagers began to LEAP from the windows the feeling was that it had been another racist attack racist attacks were happening on a daily basis in that area there had been a great amount of farri activity in depford Immigration National is white
Joal they attacked the youth clubs they attacked the Albany Center 3 years ago the old Albany theater was gutted by fire places of entertainment for black people there was another firebomb at the moonshot youth club both literally a stone throw from 439 new Crossroad Paul’s family home was 439 new
Crossroad Paul was fun free outgoing that’s a picture with his sister ion Evon had actually said to me and Paul I’m going to ask Mom if I can have a birthday party what do you think Mom will say Paul said we’ll see what we can do we got there just after about half
Our state everybody was running around and people were being served drinks food was being cups the party was great you had Generations coming in at different times so you had the younger ones who were there from the beginning and then you had the older ones who were coming
In at like 12:00 so loads of people were there the Elder adults were having their sort of own little party in the kitchen at 5:30 in the morning I could still see people dancing I started to smell something like burning the ground floor front room was
Totally a blaze people run out into the street and Paul was next to me he said to me where’s Evon have you seen ion I said no I think she’s still in there Paul with that he says stay and he just ran straight into the house everything’s gone out there’s no
Electric I can’t see anybody I don’t know what’s going on and all hell broke loose there were some guys trapped in I think they must have run up to the top floor and they were having trouble getting the windows open and I can remember these guys kicking the windows out and literally
Taken a run and jump it was just horrific a girl and a boy they just sort of fell right down to a basement I just remember kids lying on stretches burnt today were pink and the smell of burning flesh what go to my grave it was just smoke everywhere and then afterwards
People were telling me that some white man had thrown a petrol bomb through the window I saw this block standing up in the pavement then he made this throwing movement with his right hand the fire had started within the ground floor front room the smoke would have been
Very hot would have reduced their visibility to near zero within seconds and they would have inhaled the fire fumes and succumbed very quickly Witnesses had seen a car and a man go to the door and they’d seen his arm raised the investigative team were aware that a
Fire bomb was possible but there was nothing found inside the house so there was no forensic evidence that a missile had come through the house it wasn’t there one of the things that we were trying to ascertain was whether a pro projectile that entered the room
Typically you find the neck and the base of the bottle and the remains of the wick stuck in the neck that’s very common we didn’t find any of that evidence secondly it was discovered the man who went to the house and drove off quickly he had seen the fire he stopped
His car he ran to the house banged on the door or whatever I think the heat was so Fierce it it kind of he went like that he raised his the his right arm above his head in a protective movement and possibly um Carl Wright has got this particular action mixed up with
What he described as a throw a throwing movement the police they didn’t like the theory of it being a racist attack so suddenly the finger was pointed at the party goers and the media was pandering to police Prejudice Vil in the young people as if they somehow were involved
In this horrific fire there were contradictions and what people were saying and because of the Clash within people’s statements that weren’t being cohesive there were reconstruction interviews of a certain number of people that were contradicting each other the police make choices people were being led by particular forms of questioning
Particular lines of questioning to commit themselves to saying all kinds of things that they didn’t even know about the police came shortly after I’d come out of hospital I’m only 11 and it was scary it was not how I expected it to be it just seemed like they already had
Their version of what their saying happened they were saying well other people said they saw you here other people said that you were here so if other people are saying it then must I think in the climate of the times attitudes were too polarized and there were individual police officers whose
Attitude left a lot to be desired as far as I was concerned one day police arrived knocked on the door and said we’d like you to come down for an interview as I sat in the car one of them turn around the one in the front passenger seat turned around looked at
Me and he said as a boy like you get mixed up with these bunch of using the nword what Clues have you asked to the motive for this fire I don’t feel that there is any uh racialism and neither do I feel that there is any aspects of any
Outside political extremist there was just a lot of hate at that time it seems very tense very tense but I’ll tell you this that every one of us every one of us tried our hardest to get to the bottom of it and to find out how that fire was started
And who did it after 13 days in court and more than 80 hours of evidence from nearly 60 Witnesses it took the jury just 2 hours to come to an open verdict Mrs arms AR rck who gave the party and lost two children in the fire was in no
Mood to accept it an open verdict verdict was what I expected but it is not what it should be it should be murder the verdict signal to the black community that the police the media courts basically all felt that those lives didn’t Matter I was unfortunate to lose my brother Andrew at a very young age and lose a lot of friends there’s some friends that I had at that party that i’ started secondary school with T I mean he escaped from there but after about a year and a half he you know it was
Really sad that fight had a massive massive impact on Tony Tony was all right before Tony was all right before whatever Justice we get it still doesn’t bring back I just want Andrew my friends back on the 13th of April Margaret faer dismissed the notion that unemployment and racism lay beneath the Brixton
Disturbances claiming nothing but nothing justifies what happened overall unemployment in brickton stood at 13% with 25.4% for ethnic minority unemployment amongst black youths was estimated at 55% rejecting increased investment in Britain’s inner cities Mrs fer added money cannot buy either trust or racial Harmony Lamberth London bough Council
Leader Ted Knight complained that the police presence amounted to an army of occupation that provoked the ryots Mrs fer responded what absolute nonsense and what an appalling remark no one should condone violence no one should condone the events they were criminal criminal small scale disturbances continued to s
Throughout the summer after four nights of rioting in Liverpool during the tox of riots beginning on the 4th of July there were 150 buildings burned and 781 officers injured CS gas was deployed for the first time on British Mainland to qu the rioting on the 10th of July there
Was fresh rioting in Brixton it was not until the end of July that the disturbances began to subside the recommendations of the scarman report to tackle the problems of racial disadvantage and inner city de Clin were not implemented writing would break out again in 1985 and 1995 in
Brickton as you can see the whole places in shs you know and how do you explain that well unemployment everything well unemployment har unemployment har this is for the people what you saying when we want the jobs to be black policemen in a 72 73 74 they never want
To give us a job now they’re offering the jobs the kids don’t want the jobs yeah it’s a mental problem it’s not just an ordinary problem man never make it look like it’s an ordinary problem look at it no it’s a ordinary problem it’s going to happen again and it can’t stop
The 1981 handsworth riots were three days of rioting that took place in the hands withth area of Birmingham England in July 1981 the major outbreak of violence took place on the night of Friday the 10th and 11th of July with smaller disturbances the following two nights the riots were characterized by
The scarman report into the 1981 riots in England as a copycat riots taking place after the Brixton riots in London and around the same time as the tox riots in Liverpool and the Mosside riots in Manchester though some have argued that it is an oversimplification the
Immediate flash point was an attack on a locally well-known Police Superintendent who was trying to calm down rumors of an impending mat by right-wing National front members the following disturbances resulted in21 arrests with 40 injured police officers alongside widespread damage to property before the riots hansworth had
Been considered to be a good example of successful community policing though local black British yous later disputed the claims that relations between them and the police had been amicable around 40% of them had been stopped and searched over the previous 12 months hansworth had a mixed population of
White black and Asian residents but surveys after the riot showed little evidence of significant racial tension a week before the riots during the weekend that saw CS gas being used against riers for the first time on British mainland in tox Liverpool a reporter from the times had visited a festival in
Hansworth park and found 8,000 people black and white in spirit as amicable and peaceful the most common reason for the riots reported by participants were unemployment boredom and the imitation of events elsewhere the first riot in hansworth took place on the 10th of July 1981 the second Riot which will prove to
Be more serious took place in an area 4 years later the riots were reportedly sparked by the arrest of a man near the aapo C in Laal but I don’t think this is fundamentally a racist issue and while it may well damage relationships between colored people and white people and between colored and white and the police to an extent I certainly look to the future with a certain amount of confidence Chapel town in Leeds is calm
Today after two nights of Street violence the chapel toown Riots of 1981 took place in the Le District of Chapel toown in West Yorkshire England during a time when many other areas of the UK were suffering similar problems such as London Birmingham and Liverpool the riots unfolded in July 1981 from a
Background of racial tension inner city poverty poor housing and high unemployment which was Rising rapidly as a result of the recession at the time this brought high tension particularly amongst the areas Caribbean community cumulating in the attacks on the police the Yorkshire Evening Post reported only events from a Law and Order perspective
Quoting police and Council sources the leads of a paper reported on social and community aspects of the of the disturbances including the root causes these were not to be the last riots in the area in 1987 there was further rioting in Chapel town and in 2001 there was widespread rioting nearby hair Hills
The exact trigger for the riots is unclear although much speculation took place in the local and national press by 1981 chapl toown was experiencing a high level of violent crime tensions were high particularly amongst the areas Caribbean majority the high crime brought brought the police Purge and the riots took place in July
1981 the black community in Chapel toown leads as a history of riots and disturbances in 1975 young blacks clashed with police officers in a show of defiance then again in 1981 Chapel Town joined other black communities throughout the country in that long hot summer since 1981 the question continues
To be during the summer month when and where will it begin this year 1987 Chapel town has opened the account shattering predictions of confidence in the Future made by the police 6 years ago but I don’t think this is fundamentally a right issue and while it may well damage relationships between
Colored people and white people and between colored and white and the police to an extent I certainly look to the future with a certain amount of confidence Chapel town in Leeds is calm today after two nights of Street violence overnight gang the fighting started as always in almost all the
Black communities on what locals refer towards the front line here unemployed blacks spend their days hanging about in efforts at making a living in whatever ways they can or merely just hanging about police patrol these areas regularly and there is constant conflict between the frontliners and patrolling officers it takes a simple incident
Usually minor to provoke clashes between both sides it happened on lamp par Grinch Terrace um two police cars came down with a driver in each and they went into an Asian house and we were sat on the wall next door and I decided I was going home now and I heard a
Bang and when I turned around I seen policeman running out of the house and said that I didn’t eat the car so I was I wasn’t going to work on by myself and so I rejoined the crowd so the crowds it just to move off while there was only
Two of them so they couldn’t get to hold me yeah so we crossed Chapel Town Road and by the time I looked again there was more of them so I crossed over the next little road to see whether they was come directly at me to see if they was coming
For me which they did so I decided to run in which I run 100 yards and then stopped which was only one policeman chasing me and I stopped because I’ve got asthma and I couldn’t handle it um the policeman grabbed me and a speed patrol car came around around the corner
And pulled up and the back doors opened and the um opened the back doors and I grabbed the door to stop him from pushing me in after young Skellington’s arrest on the Sunday afternoon his mother visited the local police station I used to see Marcus when I saw him I could see you
Know from his face Etc that he’d been beaten um I asked him what’s wrong with your face and he said ask ask them you know indicating to the police so he was having difficulty breathing because he’s an asmatic and I told the officers that I wanted a doctor
To look at him I asked to speak to the man in charge up there um who later I found out was inspector hemworth and he just didn’t want to know you know I mean I’m a reasonable person you know I was upset that my son’s being treated
In that manner but I wasn’t going to go in there shouting and balling because it doesn’t get you anywhere and I just simply asked him if he was happy with the way the officers had handled situation and uh he turned around and pointed his finger in my face telling me
That my son has damaged three police vehicles you know which I just said to him well that’s a matter for the courts you know what about Marx’s face and um IMA said well the self-inflicted you know what’s happened to Marcus is self-inflicted and uh then I just sort of told him that
There’s going to be trouble on the street and that he should contact some you know Community workers or some influential people in the community CU there’s going to be trouble and he just kept saying to me is that it is that it and trouble there was tension had
Been rising during the week as rumors spread through the community about two violent arrest there was a black youth I’m not calling no names he was in the telephone but making a phone call and just as he came out a police came up to him and
Started to hustle him for no reason this was on the Friday the Sunday the Sunday and then he was boxed in his eye by the woman so he boxed her back and then the policeman hassled him so he hassled him back and he was arrested and beaten up
And there was another youth on Sunday he was arrested for something he did not know about about a car being mashed up he was put in the back of a black car and he was beaten he has bruises all over his body bruises on his face and
All over his body on Monday morning just the same thing again they started to go around look in trouble just as usual so the youth just had enough and started to Riot some trouble around there with the police just chasing these guys so there was about three cars and they’re coming
You know with the tance they’re running about chaptown road so the guys just had enough of it then that night all the you got together and started you know throwing bricks at police cars cuz they’re just going down here causing trouble shouting at the youths for no
Reason at all they wanted trouble so the you shot it back and that’s how it started there was very little destruction on the Sunday night unsuccessful attempts were made to burn down the Latvian Social Club the youths did succeed in putting the local sex shop to the
Torch the sex shop on chapl toown road has very particular significance in two ways there is a history of great Community distaste um for that establishment because nobody wanted such a place in Chapel town which the city is already pleased to call the redik district um and to denigrate and black
People living in the area um have no need or wish for that particular sort of shop to be um plucked from somewhere else and and and put on chapl toown road with all that it attracts and there has therefore been opposition to the very status of it and there has been a
History um of protest particularly by women’s organizations and groups attempts to burn it down demonstrations in front of it um attempts to take material out of the out of the shop and destroy that material and so on um and so I’m not at all surprised in that
Context um that that it was chosen as a focal point but there is um further significance in that the community believes that it was above the sex shop that the police positioned themselves in order to carry out surveillance um dating from over 18 months ago now of
The car park of the Hayfield public house um which the police had decided was a den of cannabis dealing um and they chose to spend their time um observing this over a long long period rather than looking at heroin or hard drug use in other parts of Yorkshire
This is where they concentrated um position themselves um as I say the community believes on top of the sex shop despite the fact that the sex shop for a period of that time was operating illegally anyway because the city council had refused it a license so the
Police weren’t trying to to close it down for legal reasons they were actually utilizing it and I think there was a a great deal of anger about that the youths gathered in large numbers on the following day Youth and Community workers interv and stopped the escalation of violence we were very
Concerned about the way in which the police handled the situation on Monday night and we had two impromptu meetings on Mon on Sunday night rather and we had two impromptu meetings on Monday when we decided that we have got to actually get to the press to say
Something um give our own version of what we we knew happened because by Monday morning it was all over the place place that um the police had a difficult time and we know that the police came back into the community when it was pretty quiet on Sunday night and how they handled the
Situation was very unsatisfactory so we decided to invite the police to one of our meetings and ask them not to come back into the community on the Monday night that we will go out there and see how best we can calm the situation and that’s what
We did on on the street that particular we we majority of the time we spent um in small groups actually because there were quite a considerable amount of youths out there um all of them very much hot-headed at the time and not really quite conscious of what they were
Actually going to do and would achieve by creating um a situation or a confrontation with the the police at that particular time cuz I believe that’s where the animosity lies um so we we virtually worked continuously um till about 5 6: in the morning to make sure and try and contain
The situation and working closely with him talking to him in groups and um even um putting guyses to one side and you know starting starting to trying to trying to give them some kind of idea of why we thought it was best not to um destroy our own Community cuz it was
Destroying our own backyard really that um would have happened that that would have taken place if we didn’t go out there and and C the situation we have a responsibility towards our young people right and the way in which the police were provoking people um by calling them
Monkeys and Wags and they were all young you know 14 to 16 17 year old and we know that if we’d allow them to have a a a confrontation with the police what would have happened and as a result of small little small confrontation I wholy
Put them up there in police station and they’re crying like kids you understand so we we forese uh what would what would actually happen and that is the reason for our intervention can you tell me what was the attitude um of the youths to to what you were trying to
Do I think they welcome us actually being on the street that night um we went around quite a few of them talking to them and at that time when we first entered um we we start talking and mixing with the young people and we was getting a lot of um feedback from that
In terms of you know say well in a way that we’re glad that you’re here right and we was in in that way we was able to reason with a lot of them to leave the streets these Youth and Community workers are concerned to show that they
Are not on the side of the police the reasons why we don’t meet regular with the police is um one of the main reason is that um we’re capable of losing our credibility within the community that we work especially as youth workers um if we seen working and relating with the
Police um it’s all all it’s going to do is just going to take one you to say well he’s an Informer an arrest will follow and that alone would make us lose our credibility as youth workers who are supposed to be representing in the youths in in issues like for instance
What happened on Monday night and so for um if it was seen to be working with the police having to do a job like we did on Monday night would make that more difficult because they wouldn’t acknowledge us or wouldn’t um look at us as youth workers they look at us as
Pleasing farmers at the Mandela Center here right we have a policy for instance that um we don’t allow police to come into the center and that’s quite clear because for young people to to feel comfortable in these surroundings there can’t be police officers walking and patrolling around the building they’ve
Tried various methods are coming into the building through football coaching and we’ve got the support of the community and what we actually did was ballot the people in the center because there were a lot of um opposition against us not letting policemen in the in the center and when we ballot the
People you want to hear something out of 200 of people that were bot at the center not one single person said they want a policeman at the center you understand and it it is that basis why we have survived as a as as a center
And why we have a good raer with the young people right and many other black people in Chapel toown who work with young people the um the police within the community has lost whatever credibility they had they didn’t have a lot to start off with but um um they
Don’t hold much credibility in the community not with a lot of the adults and with a very very small minority of the youths um in order to restore some of that credibility I think they try and get in through the youth workers um youth projects and establishments such as here so that they
Can get the foot in the door for uh as a matter of speech and um be seen to be actively participating um on a social basis within the community in so far as breaking the I but at the same time they don’t recognize the youngsters in the community as an ordinary youngster when
He’s out on the street so if we can’t treat the people of the community myself or any youngster that they might meet on the street if they’re going to continue with this sus attitude and um this bullying attitude then it’s no use them then coming to um youth projects
And open to come in through the back door there are two things that I noticed about this recent um event one is in 1981 when we having this same sort of um events in this community we were actually having young people from 16 upwards as Rosie explained earlier on we’ve got younger
People now who are actually involved in this type of behavior they’re from 16 downwards and one of the things that came over to me quite strongly when Rosie and I saw a group of youngsters going behind some residential houses and try to stop them and find out what they were going to do
They were telling us things like for instance when we said to them why do you want to be doing the things that you’re doing why don’t you go home to your parents and youngsters like these who are saying to us why are they treating our brothers in
South Africa like that we’ve got young people in South Africa at our age our own age who they are actually ill treating them why are they doing it and they’re coming in here to do the same thing to us now that the riot is over the arrests have begun bringing with them new
Feelings of hostility I was sleep in bed and I heard him knocking on the door and I thought it was someone so I looked at the window and there was this policeman Cid in the back Garden on the front so I want and I heard on the radio
You know the walkie-talkie they said smash the door down so I got up and I open the door and they put me in the room and they search all the room they’re looking for Petro bombs I said they’re looking through books in the pockets everything I said listen what
You’re charging with they said Burgery petrol bombs everything they said where’s the petrol bombs I saids I don’t know where any petrol bombs I said I was in the street that’s all I was doing just watching cuz we couldn’t get to sleep I was sleeping and my dad went out
And um around 6 C came knocking on me down they just came in my house cuz the door was open and they came into my bedroom and it says they’re arresting my young brother Lor so 50 s says no you’re not not unless you can show me a search warrant when I came
From work yesterday about half 9 the door was open I noticed that police was at the end of the street at the back banging off the door m mom told me and M were crying and balling the police just shoved the P walking and went straight
Up the steps and they said we could search a flower B if we wanted to and they’re saying could you have the receipt for that throwing down the telly throwing down the high five stack and they’re saying to her where’s the receipt for this could we looking this
They were going on so terrible and they said anyway we’re out for them and we got them now only through the police coming down and driving down the Vans and winding down the windows and dropping little comments and teasing the youth basically just teasing them you
Know how long has this been going on for for ages for a long time a long long time Bandung file put all the allegations in this program to the West Yorkshire police they replied with the following statement we would refute such allegations but if anyone does feel AG
Grieved then of course they can complain in accordance with the provisions of the police act their complaint will be fully investigated as you’ll appreciate this is not just an internal inquiry but it will also involve the independent police complaints Authority it started when we attended a domestic incident
And whilst dealing with this routine incident a minor disturbance ensued and this escalated we have several people in custody and before court and these matters are concerned now with court proceedings and it would not be right for me to go further into these details it has returned to calm in the area and
We have had very full and useful discussions with the community and their leaders in the area and we hope that things are back to normal now there’s always tension between the police and um young people and it’s the black people themselves that are trying to calm everything down and the police
Are making it worse because they’re over policing the area you know and they seem to come like the it’s a zoo here you know what I mean that have to watch this species I mean nobody condones um hooliganism no but we’re talking about little kids you know kids that live in
This area that have got nothing you know they leave school they’ve got no jobs no nothing here you know and they frequent cafes and street corners and this that and the other and the police are inciting them and they’re growing up you know with this thought of uh resentment
Towards the police and the suffering by it firsthand the brothers their uncles the fathers the grandfathers and it’s been gone a long time and it’s not going to go Away [Applause] July 1981 8 days of rioting saw more than 70 buildings demolished or burned down in Liverpool as tensions boiled over between the black community and the police the tox of Riots of July 1981 were a civil disturbance in tox inner city Liverpool which arose in apart from
Long-standing tensions between the local police and the black community they followed the brickton Royal earlier that year and were part of the 1981 England riots the merys side police force had at the time a poor reputation within the black community for stopping and searching young black men in the area
Under the sus law and the heavy-handed arrest of Leroy alfons copper ready Yeah here we are in L Lane 5 minutes away from gry streets Lodge Lane this is the area where really my art has been accepted and people have had opportunity to see there several of the bars here so there’s a bar up there CL I’ve got some
Work in there and this is the bar I’ve got me Exhibition at the moment which is Keith rber that’s been here probably over 30 years it’s where the Bohemian charm of Liverpool and South Liverpool can be [Applause] Found the exhibition’s been up now nearly a year and really it’s the first time I’ve really showed me work uh in exhibition format really I did one show and tell after the T 2007 so some of the work was on show there this has been my first proper established exhibition back
In the day one of the first uh art pieces was went around and P the street signs in toxon as was a way of basically making statement about identity Community I was using paint as a weapon in the fight in the struggle to raise people’s Consciousness this is the
Culmination of your 20 OD years with of of applying myself to uh paper and canvas and board where this is the work that I feel proud of that I feel good enough to show and say yeah I am an artist and not yeah not everybody from
To is a thug or a this piece is called Faulty Towers spelled f a u l t y it’s a representation of the 9/11 incident but um this is my way I said I’ve shown my respect to those people whose lives were lost in this incident Faulty
Towers when I got to school art was never a subject that I particularly was drawn to in me kind of like Teenage formative years I had a friend Andrew John who was an artist one day Andrew invited me to go to uh his college where
He was doing an art uh course and while I was there I kind of got on to the photography Department I felt that photography was something that I could actually do obviously the politics social politics real politics just Community politics have all formed my Outlook towards life I think that’s expressed in
Me art so they’re not just pretty pictures with pretty colors and pretty shapes there often is a message and uh a deeper subliminal context and content to the way this picture is called all about the Glamour and it points a finger at those shallow and vain people who would
Sell their souls to designer labels would bow down to superficial Celebrity Status would invest money in plastic surgery I think that money is more important than love people and then life itself as I say who the designer cap fits let them wear it one of the things
I would like to do is uh eventually establish some sort of Art Gallery stroke Workshop place within art community because still 30 years later we still haven’t got our own Gallery it’s it’s 30 years since the riot and if I want to tell me lero don’t go out
Tonight because this will happen and it’ll lead to this that and the other and the likelihood is that I would never have gone out but I did go out in the rest they say it’s history but that was a spark by accident there was an atmosphere and my energy provided the
Spark but at the moment I think there’s a an energy of creativity and talent in Liverpool where there’s loads of talented unrecognized uh deep in Liverpool and I think that my artwor and what I’m about could be a spark to a massive artistic and cultural Evolution and revolution in [Applause] Liverpool on Friday the 3rd of July near gramby Street watched by an Angry Crowd led to a disturbance in which three policemen were injured the existing tensions between police and people had already been noted by local magistrate counselor and chair of merys side police committee Margaret simy who was frequently
Critical of the Hardline tactics used by then Chief Constable Kenneth Oxford she said of the riers they would be apathetic fools if they didn’t protest although she was unprepared for the personal criticism that followed with the economy in recession unemployment in Britain was at a 50-year high in 1981
With meride being one of the worst hit regions for unemployment with talks of being one of the worst hit districts in the city of Liverpool over the weekend that followed disturbances erupted into fullscale rioting with pitched battles between police and uses in which petrol bombs and paving stones are thrown during the
Violence milk floats were set on fire and directed at police lines riers were also observed using scaffolding tubes to charge at police lines the meride police had issued its officers with long protective Shields but these proved to be inadequate in protecting officers from missile attack and in particular
The effects of petrol bomb the overwhelming majority of officers were not trained either in using the shields or in public order tactics the sole offensive tactic available to officers the Baton charge proved increasingly ineffective in driving back the attacking crowds of riers at 2:15 on Monday the 6th of July 1981 merys side
Police officers fired 20 to 30 CS gas canister gas grenades first occasion on which these had been used in the UK other than in norn Ireland the gas successfully dispersed the crowds the rioting lasting 9 days during which Mery side police said 468 police officers were injured 500 people were arrested
And at least 70 buildings were damaged so severely by fire that they had to be demolished around 100 cars were damaged and destroyed there was extensive Looting of shops later estimates suggested the numbers of injured police officers and destroyed buildings were at least double of those of the official
Figures such was the scale of the rioting in tox that police reinforcements were drafted in from forces across England including greater Manchester police Lancashire Cumbria Birmingham and even as far a field as Devon to try and control the unrest the second wave of writing began on the 27th
Of July 1981 and continued into the early hours of the 28th of July with police once again being attacked with missiles and a number of cars being set Al light 26 officers were injured however on this occasion merys side police responded by driving Vans and land Rovers at high speeds into the
Crowd quickly dispersing them this tactic had been developed as a riot control technique in Northern Ireland by the Royal uster constabulary and had been employed with success in quelling the Mosside riots by the greater Manchester police a 23-year-old local Man David Moore died after being struck by a police vehicle trying to clear
Crowds two police officers were charged with his manslaughter but cleared in April 1982 dozens of senior citizens were evacuated from Prince’s Park Hospital during the riot the subsequent scarman report although primarily directed at the brickton riot of 1981 recognized that riots did represent result of social problems such as poverty and deprivation
The government responded by sending Michael hesselton as Minister for merys side to set up the merys side task force and launch a series of initiatives including the Liverpool International Garden festival and the merys side bassing campaign government papers from 1981 made public for the first time today show that Margaret Thatcher’s government
Considered allowing a so-called managed decline of Liverpool in the wake of the toxi riots the document show the then Chancellor Jeffrey how suggesting that regenerating merys side would be like trying to make water flow uphill today Lord how said he didn’t recall that discussion Danny Savage joins us in Li report tonight
D well Sean back in 1981 Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister and over the 30 years since the skyline of Liverpool has changed a lot particularly here in the city center where there’s been a lot of development but according to government documents released today some of that development may never have taken
Place July 1981 8 days of rioting saw more than 70 buildings demolished or burnt down in Liverpool as 10 ions boiled over between the black community and the police now it’s been revealed that the prime minister at the time was advised that funding regeneration of right hit communities was a waste of
Money blocks off the road I’m we having the compensation with the police about 100 150 years it’s a revelation which is of little surprise to many who live in the area and remember the trouble it reflects a sou attitude to this city but also you got to remember it this pered
In time the Tor government was having to deal with militancy and the dock strikes you know so in their eyes they were on a losing ground no matter what they did in Liverpool and not only that they couldn’t get votes in Liverpool anyway so to them there was nothing to
Lose government papers just released say the then Chancellor Sir Jeffrey how said I cannot help feeling that the option of managed decline is one which we should not forget altogether we must not spend all our limited resources in trying to make water flow uphill but today the chancellor at the
Time said economically abandoning Liverpool was never seriously considered I wasn’t in any sense advocating managed decline the hold of that is founded on some misunderstanding of a short letter with specific objectives I was very C cautiously warning that we shouldn’t therefore deprive other areas of resources of might go to Liverpool and
Following the riots the conservative leader did visit Liverpool and support regeneration and the efforts were championed by Michael heseltine who became known as the minister for merys side I think we should be judged not by all the correspondence and all the arguments and all the classic sort of
Responses you get from the treasury the the Judgment should be about did we do the right thing and I haven’t the slightest doubt we did do the right thing and we learned a lot of lessons and modern day Liverpool has received substantial investment especially in the city center but what today’s cabinet
Documents do reveal is that financially abandoning a British City over a period of time was discussed at the highest level now of course there are probably plenty of things discussed at cabinet level that don’t come to fruition but the idea of not investing in a city like Liverpool after the riots has certainly
Struck a nerve here here Sean Danny thanks very much Danny Savage in Liverpool the Pacific this year is the 40th anniversary of the Liverpool eight uprisings and writing on the wall and Anthony Walker Foundation I’ve been out talking to activists from that period and community members and we’ve been
Talking about lessons and Legacies of those events in 1981 growing up in the S was all right until you went outside the area you subjected there to be beaten up that’s when it’s stoping nice around there I love this area there you know where I was born there I was only born
In the next streets down here was like used to get the trams and things and go to the park and things used to be used to be all right but it’s when I got a bit old there I starts to seeing things that I never seen when I was a kid the uprising
Happened and the reason we needed a defense committee was that over many years and Alan’s already said that over many years and Granby and Liverpool eight um was actually cordoned off uh by boundary so if you were black you couldn’t go into town to the do without
Having to be chased H by groups of white men you couldn’t get um go out of the boundaries without the police wanting to know why you were there and being stopped and searched you couldn’t even go onto a dingle or Park Road um and even in Liverpool one for the black
People who live there we couldn’t go on to Park Lane so the whole thing was about defense all the time but people are individually defending themselves this was a massive Uprising where people got together and said we’ve had enough and it was about not about people said
Oh they’re against police we were never against police we were against Bad police we were against being battered we were against being abused H these were young black men and women standing up to white men in uniform and that was effectively what we were defending Against there’s lots of synergies internationally with America and civil rights movement and South Africa and the apart regime um and Liverpool e in particular um being quite oppressed and having really bad socioeconomic conditions such as poor hous and postcode Blacklist and uh Financial poverty uh where people
Couldn’t get credit you couldn’t get a job if you lived in in Liverpool 8 um you know the housing conditions were really dire um and employment opportunities were AB absolutely nil um if you came from this postal code area um and I think this community has shown
Its resilience in R and together um to address some of those challenges so we’ve seen initiatives around access to law and education and and some real improvements we had a Law Center on this very Avenue that supported our community members um not only to address some of
The problems they were facing with the police um and other issues cuz I think it’s really important to understand the relationship with the police which was really really negative at that time uh you know and I think the 1981 Uprising really highlighted the institutional structural racism uh not only within the
Force but right across the city one of the most significant legacies that came out of the 1981 uprisings was the development of community-led organizations and I came about as a result of taking ownership of the political and intellectual base of Liverpool 8 otherwise it couldn’t have happened the establishment was never
Involved in many respects in relation to the development of those organizations something like 20 25 organizations came out of that including uh initiatives like tox to community radio black links Liverpool black Media Group Charles won Charles won itch Steve beo Housing Association Mary C Cole house Liverpool black sisters a whole raft of
Organizations um came out that and they were there for the generation and they impacted them in the most significant way possible after the 81 off rizons black women in Liverpool a organized for themselves because it was the first time that we could actually say that we W part of any structure within
Liverpool um our first campaign was around um women access and Sexual Health um advice and assistance in that a black woman was raped and um Telephone the r the Rape Crisis Care line and for advice and assistance and was asked what the color of her paper tracer was and because he
Was black the um person at the other end of the phone said to her oh well what do you expect so from that we rolled on to other things we took over the P chist the sav us at that time um and we got prayed and for black women um to
Actually be telephone counselors even prior to the uprisings in ‘ 81 there was great initiatives going on within the community I remember leaving school 1980 going to the rotto and joining a dance troop from um from uh West Africa you know the group was made up of people from the
Black diaspora you could say from we had people from from the Caribbean from America from Africa and they were doing a lot of traditional stuff from the Caribbean from Africa and as young black youth growing up in Britain we gravitated to this kind of thing you
Know and this is prior you know pre- rots so there’s a lot of creativity going on within the community already you know um and that’s what inspired us to you know search for our culture and just have a positive outlook about our lives and the city in
General and you can see from this picture which I think needs always to be said the this was about the working class of Liverpool ace black and white standing up against a police brutality you can see how many thousands and thousands of people came out came out
And that was invol that was the source of campaigning Pat would do in the Trade union movement and trades Council and whever to make sure that we all get thingy together you can’t do anything without allies that’s the blending of different organizations sticking together and fighting together yeah
Being in this community you can’t be not active you can’t be not involved and you know it’s just something that comes natural I I think you know lessons to be learned from this period of time in relation to Black lives matter and so forth is is not a direct quote but to
Paraphrase um Angela Davis is that the victories we canot live on the lles of the victories that we made 20 30 years ago and still expect to survive off them now we’ve got to keep our eyes on the ball our eyes on the prize you know what
I mean and keep on fighting and keep you know so activism needs to rise again cuz it’s somewh hasn’t gone but it has faded a bit and it is on the rise again and it needs to to keep that momentum going going to be able to not lose not lose
Sight of of of what of past victories and think we can live off them forever cuz the fight is endless the forces that we’re up against are constantly changing their tactics and and you know we’ve got to be aware of that so for young people you need to know your history because
Your history is your roots and your roots is your strength because just like any tree it must stand with strong roots so the legacies of 1981 are the Regeneration of Liverpool without those events I don’t think that what we see today would be here and sadly there’s been a bit of sweet aspect
Of that as well because the events of 1981 L to the led to the gentrification of Liverpool 8 and the dispersal of the community that were so key to those events so one of the legacies of the uprisings to Liverpool was the total gentrification and Redevelopment of our
Waterfront if you think about where the maritime museum is now in the tape Gallery they probably wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for the events that had taken place here in 19 1981 the establishment of the M side Development Corporation came directly off the back of the 1981 disturbances I think our
Young activist today can take a lot from the events of 1981 I think it was a real upsurge of interest in our community off the back of that and it led to a lot of young people becoming activists I mean me myself you know I my activism comes
Directly out of that and coming out of the family that was so involved in the events that took place both prior to 1981 and during and after 1981 in Africa in Ghana they have a bird called a sanova and his head looking at its tail remembering it past to go
Forward to the future so just like Patrick has explained the Youth of today and the people of today we need to look back at what is being achieved and how we can achieve even more and learn some of the lessons of the past and what is beneficial to our future and prosperity
There was always a lot of bad bad publicity about Liverpool and again especially about Liverpool L um again with it being the oldest black community in Europe it was always targeted we never had any identity um in in a way no one recognized us as being black liver pudan
You know there was always a a very low level of respect for us she have put it that way um and we were sort of all shoved into one area when I was working in the’ 70s just lead them up from the’ 70s uh there was little or no
Opportunities for black people in the community educationally employment was so so we were suffering generational generationally of um lack of opportunity and so you can only take so much coupled with there was a heavy police there were heavy police problems they could just do what they wanted it was out of control
And no one ever questioned them the police um um Behavior was very much aimed at the youth all black youth were regarded as as something of a problem I was AC method at the time and we were involved on a regular basis with issues and we we I was shair the communiations
Council I used to meet with the police we used to meet with the police to to raise concerns we would say about the issues in relation to the police action on the street stopping young people fitting them up and you know and we said there’s going to be problems you knew
Something was in the air but you didn’t know what was in the air you get what I’m saying you know what I mean you know there was little sporadic breakouts of little arguments with Poli and things like that but I don’t think anyone realized what was about to happen tell
You the truth there there was a family in Liverpool who were constantly being harassed I think everybody knows that that was the Cooper family it was a man named Lester CPR he had four sons and on a on a ritually regular basis you know these guys would be walking the streets
And they’d be constantly picked up they’d be identified as belonging to the Cooper Clan and they’d be constantly picked up and and and and and put on false charges my dad suffered a lot of harassment in our like teenage years as a result of our Behavior but equally how
The police then took his approach to complaining against him and taking the numbers and just always being ready to document the harassments even the father himself ended up being harassed when he was making complaints that he felt his family would being harassed um and basically the incident that led to to
The rides kicking off um was one early evening when one of the brothers was stopped on a motorbike and by police and he was being questioned and one thing led to another and they were trying to arrest him and it was happening outside the community Cent over there was quite a few black
People in attendance I think it was Wally Brown who came out he was working at that particular Community Center he came out at the time and he tried to pacify things but things just got out of hand one of the lads Chris Brown said to me while he come down there’s problems
Down the B he down there there was four or five police fans it’s police everywhere and they had this guy I’m not going to mention no name of this St but he’s well know is but he had they had him in in in in um in the van and so people started Milling
Shouting and begin to S to throw some little bricks at the at the police and in this situation the guy got away and there was an arrest made ironically I think it was the other brother who was arrested and not the brother who was on the motorbike and um and that basically
Sparked you know a a pretty bad situation as he resisted um more and more young black people came to his assistance and more and more police came into the area and that’s SP and and then they brought in the um the riot Vans part of the a myth that has grown up
Around the the r and the start of the r was that I was the person on the bike I was not the person on the bike I turned up in the crowd you know people were shouting you know do your job properly the B stolen what he’s going on
With and at some point they’ already taken the driver the rider into the van and somebody again it wasn’t me opened the van door and the rider jumped out and disappeared into the crowd and as the police kind of made a move towards like trying to grab hold of him that was
The moment where the crowd the police kind of physically met and by the end of it you know three or four policemen were injured I was being held on the floor and suddenly in the background I heard sirens people disappeared next thing I know I’m in the van and I’m being taken
Off to the local police station I remember arriving about 10 or 20 of us uh going into Parliament streets and it was it was only fairly minor then it was only just a few bricks getting from we came back to um the office to warn the staff
That you know we needed to be out there because you know the lads were getting agitated and the police were all coming in and vans um and it was starting to look like as though the area was being closed off it’s clear that things wen’t settled down on a fright things were
Wrong things were good things were were there was there was action on the streets I went to the adal street police station to see the commander there to to discuss what’s going on whatever they do you know because the police had these vans on the streets which did each of on
The streets so what we were saying was that the police need to get these Vans off the street so while we’re talking to the to to the commander um the chief cons came in Kenne Oxford now he must have been to a dinner somewhere because he had the
Dinner jacket on and he was all dressed up and he comes in the room he say say the um officer what’s the problem now it turns out that the because there was so many police the reason was and this is what he said this is what the what the guy to O said
It’s the same problem Chief he said um the there’s been an over uh reaction to the call out so what happened there been a call that there was somebody in a motorbike but apparently where that incident was was in was in the the intersection of two police areas so you
Get two two responses from different areas plus the traffic police also but there not far from where P used to be and they also reacted so he got three reactions that’s why I had all these vs so police were admitting that they had a problem about Communications um and what we then said
To look you need to get the Vans off the street because if you get the Vans off the street kids will go home that’ll be dead of it if you leave the vans on the street you’ll be trouble a few friends of mine and um I there about various
People getting arrested and beaten by the police so we we come from a a youth center which was the Methodist Center and the next thing um a police ramp pulled up and uh police jumped out all messed up imagine then the way he was dressed it
Was it was it was frightening it was like a futuristic and helmet and these long batons and they just started whacking out on us I got hit on the Ed H knocked to the ground and a few my friends got knocked to the ground and quickly realized that we had to defend
Ourselves so in that state of mind uh we were forced to defend ourselves and that’s when the onslaught began I was watching the evening news and suddenly they announced that the were rights in talkx with Liverpool I then saw images coming on to my TV screen that’s when it it stly
Became real and I couldn’t quite um understand what was actually happening I kind of remember seeing the same day the fringes of little things happen it it sort of spread like wildfire throughout the community and people just basically SN I can see bright you know like a bright glow like in the parliament
Streets above the rooftops and I was a bit confused it was clearly a fire and but I couldn’t hear fire engines and but as I was moving closer and closer I could hear voices getting louder and louder and clearly there was a Malay of some sort of some kind of trouble going
On and so I bypass the friends once enter the housing estate and on the edge of the housing estate separated from Parliament street there’s an earth Banking and as I got closer and I started Mar the Earth banking I could just see the full drama of like a front
Line situation I just I couldn’t take in what was going on and the first reaction was I’m not too sure this should be going on I thought this was like really heavy you know was this was our community and there was this kind of like mad situation around the lik of
Which I’ve never seen before on the sidelines there were a number of community people running around like what you have when a disasters just happened I remember there was a a priest there was a number of people from local community organizations and there was a TV Camera there and people were running
Backwards and forwards not really going anywhere in a state of confusion you could hear the noise from Air on Sali and that’s why I said I better get down and see what’s happening you know what I mean and wow ride on you know what I mean when the people arrived and got
Tired maybe 2 3 in the morning went home that’s when the police started to to do something cuz now people are going home no one’s throwing any more bricks the police now trying to address people and they’re trying they arrest anybody get their hands on it it doesn’t
Matter doesn’t matter who what because a lot of people are watching you know not every less people more people were watching them actually were throwing bricks the next day we found out people with in police stations all over maing side you know people who I you mild young women being charged with rioting
So it was nonsense so that made people more more Angry for the second night the first broke out by the Caribbean Center on the corner by the Caribbean center with Parliament streets and M gra street at the time there was some Workman had been doing some work in the area so it
Was like um uh a mobile I always remember um people M messing up and they check this on fire check this mobile on fire I remember saying listen you better you better get go because the police are going to be here and they’re going to be picking people up when the police
Come they couldn’t they couldn’t do anything because when they come people by then started attacking the police and then they start to barricading barricading the um the junction stopping cars hijacking cars tear them over loads of police and they giv it all a monkey chance and that but I don’t see them
Moving anyway you know what I mean see the kids Lush them with bricks you know what I mean and whatever they could get and they they was backing up and then the some of them just threw the Shields and got off you know what I mean these
Are the brave policemen aren’t they get paid D your money you’ve got to imagine if you’ve got a a milk float on fire going at the police of 30 m hour and going right into the it’s it’s it it’s a it’s a pric it’s a pric scene and besid the
Bricks the bottles uh the hatred the atmosphere uh it was a violent situation put it this way he did not want to be getting caught by the police during that time there’s people who driving up from town didn’t know what was happening all of a sudden they come
Down especially down down Grove Street and they get hit with this barricade we were quickly tear around and get out the way frightened you know he was contained within where the actual fighting took place which was St Nathaniel estate and of parliament he was contained in the
Like zone right Zone and they had no way to move so most people are trying to battle to get out of the situation not ble to stay there if anything it was the it was the the F of the major side police that this rot escalated because of their
Overreaction uh to the to to the situ that they actually then came with shields and armed up so obviously you respond accordingly to that I would say probably 80% of people there they had so much anger and it needed to be released you know is the best releasing on the
Enemy as opposed to each other people R across the area Liverpool e and Beyond will come into sort of I I I where I could say extract their own revenge on what they seen as the enemy that’s what it was we was classed as an enemy in some
Regard and um that’s the way it was seen in in the locality back then it really was a matter of life and death the idea that there was supposed to be a legal process going on you know to kind of like restrain you know a fired up
Community and restore you know peace and calm again was like ridiculous it was it was really like a war situation at one point there was a road Digger which is being used to go into the to to to to to break the front line and literally just
Strike and and and and harm as many police obis as possible um it may sound like a really immoral thing to say but at the time a lot of people didn’t have any concern about what would be the consequences of something like that I do
Have one image of um a guy who was driving I think it was a JCB um down up a Parliament street he was just going up and down the Pavements on on this JCB with with this pole sticking out the wind screet and it that
Was uh so people were just um it wasn’t just AED at the police cuz people all around were just diving out of the way I remember what this night I’m not sure which night it was but the police decided we’re going to take control of this area before it starts so what they
Did the police evacuated all of palman street they they cleared it remember nobody’s at this stage go the business there nobody writing this is early early say 6 5:00 6:00 on the night so they cleared the area and they set up barricades by the Charles Bon Center the police set
Themselves up with human barricades the Charles Bon Center but also by the intersections of of of mrave and groy so people couldn’t get into those areas right so that’s how that that was that so we went the Charles W and the police Outsiders to accept that they’re there
Three or four deep stopping people getting down but of course nobody’s out at that stage how about when people started right started coming out when it started getting dark now people come out course he started throwing the bricks and things the police that were started at the Charles W Center were
Pushed right back to past Al they they was worried at then time about the ret club and still fighting them by the shs wouldn’t you you know what I mean and so when when when the riers started to move that’s that’s when they that’s when they started and they panicked and they
Wanted they wanted yeah they just wanted you not to go near the Racket Club the front line was pushed right back down Parliament street very far and right up very far up Parliament street I decided to go down with the Caribbean side and a lot of guys ended up going up towards l
Lane and subsequently what happened from that was that large Lane was raised to the ground and loed and I stayed with the Caribbean Center half and as we went down basically what happened as we headed down Parliament street we were making ground continually throughout the night and in the process um the five
Rackets Club was set a blaze and and and and and and looted we got down as far as um Catherine Street and Princess Road and the bank and the riota was set on fire exactly the same time I didn’t exactly see the start of the fire and that that
Brought the Raa to the ground because I was too busy hanging around still outside of the five rackets Club well I think they were deliberately targeted and they were deliberately targeted because they were held in absolute contempt by the local community I mean the history of the Ry Alto going back to the
1930s and 40s um they had they they used to operate a color bar um and local black people couldn’t use it which is how house Stanley house came into being and that was set up um for black people to have a community center um and then more more recently um in recent years
When Swain bank took the r ala over as a secondhand um furniture warehouse and there was very well there was no evidence of black people working there even though they were located within the heart of the community um the Racket Club stood for um really everything that
The community um aboard um upper class people coming in to use the facilities of the community but giving nothing back yeah they fought for that you know what I mean and once that’s gone that was it and it must have H them and then you bypassed the hospital what we so-called
Trying to B down which wasn’t true and then the I also and and like Dave says that the th this fought at the r also cuz they thought the the eyes was going into town there was no intention of going into town if they wanted to go
Into town did have well gone you know what I mean and they said the reason why we we had to fight so hard to stop them going into town no one tell you to go into town cuz you knew if you got into town you never got out everybody knows
About the time when um the home that had the old people in it was being emptied out and there was kind of like you know um there was kind of like a a bit of calm restored to to allow and the elderly people to be brought out of
The home it was the only time Jordan the riots that we had a pie police front line um moved right back and so there was quite a gap between sort of like where the youths were and where the police were and at that moment I just
Saw a line a bright line come across the sky and something landed on the corner of Catherine Street I wandered over towards it and as I was moved towards I didn’t get a chance to get right on off of so and make out the details of what
It was but it was some sort of canister step it just kind of like made a small poof but a lot of smoke started coming from it and at that point I realized it was a smoke bomb and suddenly the smoke caught me and within a flash my eyelids
Just started turning inside out or that’s how it felt and my nose was just like running everywhere there was tear streaming everywhere and I remember the burning feeling the burning sensation of like bleach getting getting in your eyes or your nose or something we could smell it even though we lived in englefield
Cuz we lived directly behind Rialto um and you could smell it in the a I remember you know I won’t say you with it with his name but he’s he’s predominant young youth Mentor but really good man now in the area I remember him running in our block and we
Had a set of railings which is the power station so as you run in you have to go that way or that way and he run right into the railings cuz you couldn’t see where he was he had gas in his eyes you know what I mean and smashed his head in
On the railing you know we had to pick him and drag him in into the house it’s a matter of record that the police were firing CS canisters directly into the bodies um of Riot and udes saw um somebody with the back blown out and somebody with the inside of their leg
Here blown out and the actually 13 people shot with the canisters I think the official figure was much less than that but I know there were 13 because we because we dealt with them if people don’t understand these things the thing to be made clear about using canisters
Like that what was that they was supposed to be fired on Solid ground or a solid wall so that they’d explode and let off the smoke which was supposed to dispair the crowd but these things were being used like rubber bullets we got in touch with um somebody in the Daily
Mirror and they told us that never on the mainland in Britain except in Northern Ireland during the troubles at these um types of Cs G canisters ever been fired when finally theyig girl the next day especially where we live because we live behind Realto as soon as
You come out you had the delicates in and all the shops at the front they were all gone they were destroyed the bank on the corner than that West Bank that’s right by where where we l now that was gone that was Daylight but it was a
Shell the aftermath of it the place really look bad I mean there was no shops there was only one or two shops you know you had maybe one or two little corner shops that were left even some of the corner shops our little corner shops destroyed normally when you’ve seen like
The toxic rights portrayed in the media it’s usually kind of like reported was like a single incident that happened over a number of days but in actual fact the riot itself was split into two separated events and I remember that the first half the riot was over 3 days and
In early July and then there were a number of weeks I think it was about two or three weeks during which time Margaret thater and William W came to the city and then towards the end of the month when I was arrested join the riots and that was the most damaging part A
Lot of the you for Arrested uh a lot of the youth were in rley a lot of the youth would go through through the courts so we had a Mee St the house and and hence the defense committee was formed just came from from the people themselves well we need to get these
People out of jail we need to get solicitors who were our friendly solicitors who could be go to for assistance we never didn’t have any um chair person we didn’t have the treasure there’s no actual structure cuz everybody was a member of the defense committee the place where people
Gathered was in the Charles weeding Center you know they were letting us use their phones it was a big ask on you know an an organization and they let us use their basement I was asked to come in and and trying to give some support
To keep it to keeping the Charles Wen um organization going the El defense were in there the defense committee started to uh find out exactly who’ been arrested where he were like with the parents even went down and had a demonstration outside said if you knew someone was
Arrested you ring goes and say look such a body’s being arrested I don’t know what court they’re in and we’d go and sit in the court all day we had court spot us and anyone could volunteer to be that knows you did you went in the court
Took the name down saw what they were thinking if they were reminded where they went to what the next Ace in court was who the solicitor was and we did that to follow things up to Jo on the situation it’s not it’s not happen in a cocoon it’s not happen in a vacuum
There’s there’s um you look at the Press at the time there’s all kinds of press about about these Savages and and all all the Press was is going on about um uh how bad people are we we had our old press people CH to acting try and
Rebalance that there was clearly um you know a lot of discussion going on during the interim about you know what have been coming out of the RS and some people including myself w’t happy about what had been going on and and subsequently the rids K flared up again more violently and definitely more
Organized it became more organized in the sense of people were able to to clearly see what the police tactics were so it became organized in that sense it was disorganized in another sense because while somebody maybe was breaking into the tire place of nor Pary
To get tires somebody was on a JCB in in in Gro Street and somebody was Hansen’s daries so it wasn’t coordinated in the s s but it was organized if if you could say disorganized organization I went through a number of experiences and I was arrested and I was arrested I think
It was the 27th or the 28th of July and that was quite a violent Affair and everybody knew that to be arrested was not the D thing you got the beaten of your life and and I got that I suffered that I had to I I could barely walk after my beating
Certainly when Parliament street went up in Flames when Lodge Lane was looted and when gramby Street went on fire I mean it really did Dawn on you at that time that there was something really powerful going on the Vivid image of seeing kind of like Flames going high
Up into the sky in your own community and the idea you know we did this ourselves was a pretty powerful one there was loting going on um and people just have like a free for all in that regard and which you know which I can’t
Say it’s good or bad it’s just one of those things that happen and we had to fight Lads off with um mops and brushes in the in the lawn dress who was trying to get into to Lo break the lawn dress up well the lawn Dr was a community
These were Community things that didn’t need to be smashed to Pieces it wasn’t what it was about I think one of the things that never leaves you is the extent to which people on both sides of the front line police and youths were determined to hate each other I remember
See them Jimmy Phillips in a van in a police vanim got phips in police van when I went there his teeth were mashed the blood was hanging out of his face they mashed him the police had mashed him and of course there’s no question the violence from the the
Riting was bad but men thrown bricks and petol boms um but the police you know the police killed somebody the police killed somebody a young lad and who was totally innocence of any crime whatsoever and he was subject to um to death basically cuz he was killed
David Moore was a young white man who was was murdered the day after I was arrested and I actually saw that happen and I was on bail at the time and I saw that happen and I will never ever forget that and nobody ever talks about David
Mo but he was a true casualty of what happened and I think if there was a memorial to him it would be the ideal sort of like way to reflect on what happened in terms of the violence because he was mowed down by a police
Vehicle and I say mowed down I saw it with my own eyes and you know that’s no exaggeration he was mowed down by the police every so often the polican would re rev up and come chasing down chasing people when in the police man in the Land
Rovers and one night he did this and again young man had a had a bad leg he couldn’t run as fast as anybody else please kill them they was just riding around and aiming at the riots to disperse them but obviously we in being disabled couldn’t
Get out the way and it hits him and it dragged them subsequent L people were charged with death by dangerous driv and I think the charge was but obviously in the courts and the law as it seen was um they were found uh pronounced not guilty another occasion police violence
Another another guy was uh the police call him against the wall and pinned him against the wall then he then broke his back if you treat somebody like a human being then they won’t rise if you give them the same opportunities as the white man
Next to them or the white woman next to them then you don’t feel that you are being oppressed in any way so of course rides can be avoided because you tweet people equally um you tweak them for who they are what they are the gifts talents
And knowledge that they have you do not oppress them as a night finished of course the government then started to to to to to get involved and marget fact came to the we saw the town hall we you know we we told the situation but she wouldn’t she wouldn’t
She wouldn’t have it she wouldn’t wouldn’t listen she just was um saiding you can’t no people can’t write you can’t do that the council had tried to get thater down for months and months and months so what goes to show the seriousness of what happened she made it
Very clear that she wasn’t going to do anything she did actually then send up um her created what was called the minister for Mery Michael heseltine um and his secretary a guy called senson actually spent several months in Liverpool he thought that if you improve the physical environment um everything
Else would improve he didn’t address the essential issue was still uh the relationship between the black youth in particular because of the likes of the sus laws and L of the assassins and the police recently we lost father Austin Smith and at the Time Michael helzel time was drafted into Liverpool um from
U margar Mater’s um government to actually see um the state of play cuz they’ve stripped out a lot of resources to cities like Liverpool and um Michael helzel um said um to a meeting um uh you won’t get anywhere rioting or no one will no one will you know will will look
At you if you’re rioting or come near you if you’re R iting and what Austin said to well you’re here so obviously it did force them out to blondon to come to Liverpool people ask me about the riot I always say that I don’t really know what
The riot was about because I wasn’t there I didn’t feel that anger or that rage when there’s a thousand people standing beside you and there’s you know a th policeman in the side and I didn’t actually experience that for those people who did experience that I can
Only presume he must have felt like one of these you know medieval war situations like Romans versus barbarians and the police all there with the Shields and people throwing whatever the thrown and you know but it must have been an intense experience I think just made me realize that you have to stand
Up against things that are wrong no matter what um and it gave me great admiration for my own Community me own you know who I am as a Liverpool Bor black because it took great great what it did do is again is it put Liverpool a on on the map in regards to
People knew then all that well we can’t mess with them because they are going to stand up for themselves and they are prepared to go to those L to defend themselves among be friends there was a certain sense of yeah we’ve shown them and a certain sense of empowerment which was obviously
For was a good thing after you know years and years of being oppressed but now with hindsight I think I can say that yeah basically we smashed our own home and if you were to see if you to be at home and saw your neighbors suddenly freak out and smash
Their own home you know that there was definitely something wrong in the home we we we lost them up we at the time he saying you know old the woman you know what I mean look what you have done you know she was like you know big old woman
She she just looked at it as it was disgraceful Behavior you know what I mean you know people carried on like animals well maybe we did you know what I mean you know but I could understand it from her generation looking at it you know look just haven’t done no good for
Yourselves whatever you end up doing destroying your own area and she was completely right you know I mean a lot of the elders were saying it at the time do you know what I mean a lot of us younger ones couldn’t see it but of
Course you don’t do it in Rage in Anger these are the things that happened we took back power we marched and I think one of the marches against Ken Oxford who was the chief Constable at the the time and you would say one of the most racist police officers I’ve come across
Um uh what we galvanized was not just the black community but people from all over the city marched against the oppression of the police with us and so it actually started to um reawake um what was actually happening in our communities uh so you unionists Etc marching with us so politically it it
Woke us up to actually say we don’t have to put up with us we do not have to stand for this police brutality this police harassment we will do something about it this is um a poem that I’d written many years ago after the riots and it it
It just says a few things and uh make a of what you will but here goes It’s called Fury across the Mery this is the place where the riot had been this is the area where the media screened this is the place the council decreed cpos and Al and schemes
Yet this is the place power cultes deem this is the place the riot had been this was the place of the garden team and placing toxic with the riot shields and we were angry young and our teens the final showdown up a Parliament street so they called up the bishop and
Invited the Queen the pope and the Prime Minister all viewed the scene t was invited strawberries and cream then the fat cats and dignities are bow to their scheme meanwhile in toxic they landscaped in trees Monkey Business and employment promises that’s all it’s been action zone eight with a RI of be thank
You they marched to the police station and and I think that it’s quite lucky for M police station the fact that some young people tried to get into uh an earth move a JCB and the problem was that they could not actually get the JCB started because
The plan was to drive the JCB through the front doors of mad police station it started off by just walking along near the brewery and then they all said mide police station let’s charge and that’s what they did and they got to the police station they absolutely surrounded the old place and just
Started to Hur anything that they had inide bottles bricks sticks the lot the old thing was so frightening in July 1981 the inner city district of Mosside in Manchester England was the scene of mass protest the protests at mosid started at the local police station and later moved
Into the surrounding streets over 2 days key factors seen as fuel for the protest were racial tension due to the frequent allegations of police officers racially abusing an excessive force against black youths in the area and mass unemployment brought on by the early 1980 recession unemployment was at a postwar high
Across the Nation during 1981 but was much higher than the national average in M on the 8th of July 1981 a crowd of more than 1,000 yous besieged the police station at M Manchester all windows in the buildings were broken 12 police vehicles were set on fire police reinforcements equipped with riot
Shields and protective crash helmets were deployed around the station a second attempt was made by the crowds to attack the police station and during this a policeman was shot with a crossbow bolt through his leg following the violence Chief const James alerton of Greater Manchester met with the local community leaders
Including Council churchmen and youth workers agreements made in this meeting were later disputed James anderton stated in His official report about the riots that per request from the community leaders he ordered his officers to maintain a low profile and avoid further confrontations to allow the leaders time to ease tensions
Amongst the young people and disperse the crowds the community leaders that attended the meeting denied that they had demanded the police withdrawal from MOS Mr anderton later told greater Manchester police committee but the community leaders had failed to deliver on their promise to restore peace and were simply unable to admit their lack
Of influence over the people engaged in the rioting the lowprofile approach of Greater Manchester police and the efforts of the community leaders failed to stop the protest which lasted for some 48 hours over two nights with much burning and looting of shops all the way down princess Road Claremont Road and
Surrounding areas of rush home the mide protests ended on the night of 11th of July when Mr anderton ordered his officers to advance and clear the streets of protests in a massive show of force James anderton had used the previous two days to build up enough officers trained and equipped in public
Order tactic a mobile task force of 560 officers in 50 Transit Vans and Rovers have been assembled in local police stations around the areas of the protest as part of the plan dispersal operation Mr anderton authorized the use of vehicle-based Rapid dispersal tactics previously only used by the Royal oler
Constabulary iuc and the British Army in Northern Ireland these tactics involved Vehicles containing snatch squads driven at high speeds into groups of protesters with officers then leaping out to make arrests over 2 hours 150 people were arrested with no police Ines reported afterwards the moso section of Princess
Road a main road south from Manchester Center was closed for several days while adjacent buildings and gas Mains damaged in the riots and fires were made safe it had been reported that Mr anderton had earlier given a speech to the assembled officers at moso police station encouraging them to restore order as
Rapidly as possible and promising them his full support in event of any complaints of excessive force anti-racism campaigner Louise da codia helped transport victims of the mosai protest the hospital and later sat at the heightener inquiry panel investigating the causes of the unrest the police response to the riot
Resulted in a new LW inconfidence in the police in the local area the absence of police during the Looting on princess Road followed by large scale police responses afterwards which resulted in the assault and arrest of innocent people including a local reggae band Drew criticism among others a local
Community organizer looking to help the injured was stopped and verbally abused by the police County counselor and vice chair of police Gabriel Cox described the events as the death of the community after the riots there were allegations from local residents Community leaders and lawyers that groups of police offic
Officers in Vans had been observed cruising the streets of mad during the riots racially abusing and using indiscriminate violence against any young people seen on the streets interviewed in a 1992 BBC documentary on his career following his retirement as chief conable of Greater Manchester James anderton described his strategy
During the msai riots when trouble arises and violent occurs on the streets you hit it fast and hard and that’s what we did that following night we hit the riers fast and hard with all the force at our disposal legitimate and lawful force and we crushed the riots in
Manchester in 24 hours outside the affected area Mr anderton’s handling of riots received praise from The Wider media and politicians as well as the public the use of snatch squads and vehicles to disperse riers was unique in British public order policing at the time and the response of Greater
Manchester police was contrasted favor with the preceded loss of control and High police casualties during the earlier tative RS William White Law the Home Secretary at the time described the dispersal operation as a conspicuous success James anderton’s greater Manchester police were the only police force in England at the time equipped
With protective right helmets and visors for use by its officers in public situations this was unlike the Metropolitan Police in Brixton and the merys side police in toxa who sent their officers to face petrol bombs and missile attacks in traditional helmets and tunic in a 2006 retrospective on the
25th anniversary of the riots Manchester’s Central Chief superintendent Dave Thompson said that the police had simply not met the needs of the community academic Gus John said that the police used to criminalize young people for no good reason and that the community saw the hypocrisy of certain officers who stopped and
Searched youths in MOS while on duty but drank and smoked in the areas illegal shabin while off duty in 1998 during the Lawrence review Chief Constable David Wilner of Greater Manchester police stated that there was institutional racism in the force Mr anderton declined to comment on the 25th anniversary
Review in the long term investment totaling £400 million was put into the community’s improved conditions in the area this particularly focused on Alexandria Park estate which had been at the center of the roots the estate had had poor housing and was a focal point for drug dealing in Manchester in 2005
Chief Constable Michael Todd established a communitybased center policing structure for mosa consisting of dedicated staff of an inspector four sergeants and 35 Con This is not an autopsy and we don’t claim that this is the truth this is merely a series of our stories a collection of what’s real to us and of what really happened through our rise follow me to 1981 enter the premises on the premise of peace doors open welcome to
Wall culture elevated over a backdrop of collage lives bite into an ethnic mashup chippy chips Ser a jerk chicken and curried goat wrapped in a n bread Black Grape Appleton’s alvinos the sweet smells of home welcome to the Moss My side had so many positive aspects the people I think were our biggest Assets when I was younger I felt it was an exciting place to live and I think that as a teenager it was even more exciting because everything happened in Mosside we had a seriously close-nit Community you know um if you touch one person in this community to a lot of people in this
Community you could leave your house you could leave your doors open nobody will rob your house because you know the neighbors would be looking out for it to me mosa was refreshingly friendly and I felt that the local police officers were able to tell me of the Rapport that they
Had before 81 you know you had black and white people living in this community quite close we just used to play out all the time there’s lots to kids about you used to play Kick with can all the time and um old old games that you don’t really hear of
Anymore you made your games outside you played kingy you played cursy you played these are the things you had a go car these are the you had your bik at that time we didn’t have the gangs as you have now what we had was young people involved in sound systems
You know and they would compete against each other it was a beautiful place to to Live the ominous cauldron stew slowly simmers armed with a volatile undercurrent ready to Bubble over that fateful week The Ripe July Sun beating down onto crack Pavements economy down unemployment high in a fierce climate of dis mination laws enforced to sus out the cause in a place that’s culturally Rich
Yet financially poor tension ascends piercing through the atmosphere up from the pavement and into the air doomsday looming but not that it’s a secret but nobody wants to instigate that’s why nobody speaks It The young people found that they had the twin problems of bad housing and little chance of of employment and so that’s allied with their relationships with the with the local police force was seemed to be a recipe for impending disaster there was an undercurrent of unhappiness that young black males were
Feeling because there was high un employment people were leaving their secondary schools and not being taken on as apprentices were not being employed um they were being told that they were um living off um the Social Security and that they weren’t going to amount to anything you should be working but you
Can’t be working we don’t want to employ you but we don’t want to subsidize you um we want we don’t want you in in any our buildings but we don’t want you out on the streets the main thing is that they were saying is that there’s too
Many of the black kids on the street you know what you supposed to do you know you come from school 4:00 what you supposed to do there’s no computers computers weren’t invented them you know there’s no internet you know you made games and you played games outside so
You had to play football cook it whatever the the schools themselves had preconceptions about young people particularly young black boys uh in terms of the career choices that they had they were been encouraged to be Sportsmen and women rather than to follow an academic route there was all of that that was going
On 80% of the young people under the young black community under 25 were unemployed at that time so you’ve got that cocktail going on and it’s bound to be building up and waiting to erupt at that time there was a a a huge kind of separation between police and
People the idea of community and the idea of police helping you out wasn’t on the cards at all there was a lot of general feeling in the community that they had bad policing I can remember an elderly white woman who lived not far from me when I
Moved in next to her saying oh we have bad police here they come to mosai because they think with all the clubs and everything that uh there are good pickings so there was a sort of not just young people but generally there was a feeling that we have B policing they
Pick on young people particularly young black men the police felt that they had C blash to stop arrest and cart off people whenever they felt like they tended to ignore any kind of protest from anybody trying to intervene I think when the problem started was when the
Uses get picked up for sauce they haven’t done anything yeah on suspicion of doing what they were picked up held in prison uh in in plat Lane yeah and they used to be physic IAL abuse and mental abuse calling you black bastard you’re this you’re that you know I think
The use got fed with it to be quite honest with you there was this stop and search that was happening to people on such a regular basis building up why are they doing this to me what have I done wrong all I’m doing is going out to mix
Around with my mates and I’m being stopped in search or driving a car down the road and the presumption is that if you’re driving a car as a black person you can’t afford this and therefore we’re going to stop and search you there’s no question about that it was
The S law that caused it in terms of you know you’ll find that there are black officers who will tell you that they themselves had used the SS law because it was the thing to do we weren’t using it as a tools of Oppression um per se we
Were using it as as a police power a necessary police power to stop and detect crime but the perception was that it was actually used more widely against members of the black community but it was a power that was used against black you know people regardless of race color
Creed or background it was a fairly fairly easy law to to inflict because you only had to show suspicion in your mind about somebody going to break into a car or whatever it was and it was also of course an unpopular law for people who were being stopped because they
Didn’t like it and so in a sense I think generally speaking the police service and Robin Oak in particular thought I’d rather we didn’t have this law so I I would discourage its use the superintendent of side police station I believe he was Robin Oak was probably a well-intentioned
Strong Christian who I actually believe wanted the best the problem was that he had no idea what his foot soldiers were doing on the streets in most side they had a boss who actually knew what was going on and I used to go on parade with these Lads
When the sergeant were putting them out on duty and say look this is the latest rumor I’ve heard something about what you’ve been talking about [Â __Â ] bashing and so on I will not stand for it we knew that the police routinely battered young black people the special Patrol
Group was not notorious and frankly I don’t care what Robin Oak says about that he makes the police all of them you know seem as if they were all smelling of roses that was not the experience of young people in the community I would completely refute that the riots were
Actually started and you know I don’t like that word Riot because of anti- police feeling to try and analyze what what caused the riots uh it’s quite wrong to say the police caused it it’s almost as if that is the focal point that’s the bull’s eye that’s what
Started the riots there’s no evidence that whatever mix up oppression with a bit of aggression cinnamon adrenaline hostility beckons effervescent dejection depressing Impressions the unemployed all rise with thep spirited weapons wielding spirited bottles full of flammable pressure testosterone stamina Fearless aggresses this is the zone of
The war this is the uprise moloto Sor as the sticks and Fs fly cauldon shatters turbulent gush Glides into the scotch and [Â __Â ] with the mixture erupts High then sprinkle clashes screams under the quiet and tastes our very own recipe for a riot it was like electricity you you could
Sense something was going to happen there was a genuine sense of anger building up and building up waiting to erupt here in mide and it just a matter of when it would happen there had been um Rumblings of impending trouble there had been calls
To the paper um and I think we had sent a reporter out that night in that sort of warm night in duly why uh to be on standby because there was talk and there were anonymous calls saying it’s all going to kick off tonight we saw princess Road very much
Ablaze with um fire engines and so on on princess Road and police kind of opposite the crowd and the crowd were out on the grassp by Quinny cres having a look really there were probably 100 150 maybe 200 young people Black and Whites who were massed on on on the
Cresence there were calls to the news desk I remember suggesting that there were um outside influences being brought to bear um and that’s probably because there had been trouble already in toxi and elsewhere um and so uh the following day after the riots I think the police themselves eles talked about Outsiders
Being U if you like to blame uh for stirring it up I saw youngsters there who were from within Shore there was also report that there were youngsters from Liverpool who came along I think you know it was it was a day out for a lot of young people
Let’s go and you know we’ve done Brixton we’ve done you know um St Paul’s let’s try Liverpool in Manchester I can say that I was out and about for most of the nights that the writing took place and I can categorically say there were no outside instigators who set this
Off it’s difficult to know on the first night quite what sparked the kind of immediate trouble but then the aftermath of that when some people got arrested and people couldn’t find out what happened to them there was a kind of growing sense then that well this might well grow into
Something even bigger and and it and it did during the day that’s when we heard the rumor that the police station was going to be attacked in the evening it was not just one rumor several of my Bobbies were out on the street and listening to conversations and in fact I
Had one or two telephone calls from people I know in mide to say that we have heard that they’re going to attack the police station tonight the night of the attack on the police station we were stood outside at a fence watching on bit scared a bit
Eerie a bit was a bit Smokey actually like a foggy night you know like bonfire night that’s you know that sort of feeling you get I remember that a mob I say a mob this again was probably 200 or more young people again black and white mainly male who
Decided to march on Mosside police station green a police station they March to the police station and I think that it’s quite lucky for M police station the fact that some young people tried to get in uh an earth mover JCB and the problem was that they could
Not actually get the JCB started because the plan was to drive the JCB through the front doors of mad police station it started off by just walking along near the brewery and then they all said mle police station let’s charge and that’s what they did and they got to the police
Station they absolutely surrounded the old place and just started to Hur anything that they had in sight bottles bricks sticks the lck the old thing was so frightening when I went along to Green A’s police station and I saw police officers cowering on top of the police station because there were youngsters
Trying to get to them I can only speculate what would have happened if they had got in that police station I think that people would have died that night it’s as it was as serious as that it seemed a mighty long while that we had Windows being Broken Bricks being
Thrown through one or two trying to climb into the police station who the 10 of us were doing what we could to keep them out and in the cars and the vans in the police station yard were attacked and damaged it was quite frightening I have to say
That in in a policing term when an officer requires assistance it means they’re in trouble and they need help quick and you normally expect an individual or two offices or three offices to find themselves in a position where they needed assistance but to hear that a police station need assistance
Was just mind on me and there were molotop cocktails being thrown at it there were bottles there were bricks but when they found that they couldn’t penetrate the police station I indeed break it down they decided to go back towards pinus Road and finish off what they were doing
There all I knew is that within moments the crowd the shouting the whistling the booing and all the hollering that was going on suddenly just died down oh that night all the shops when Princess Road have been looted I’ve seen I’ve seen people running across the grass Verge with television on the head
Televisions one either end of a set running with it on the Reds and they totally emptied the furniture shop the tobacconist the men’s clothes Outfitters the Jewelers on the car everything just got totally empted that night The police for their part were going around with with their Shields baton and and and making monkey noise and when they saw a group of youngsters they would rattle their Shields and they were saying come on the police in the area were obviously spoiling for a fight they expected trouble and their behavior
Tended to sort of provoke reaction from the young People where police officers were on uh were on foot in numbers they were banging on their shields uh where they were in Vans uh they would be banging on on the side of the Vans um and um to intimidate people um horns Sirens going Etc it is it is intimidating people running and
Screaming people being bitten up their police in the vans um they were driving up and down musin east and hitting their clubs at the side of the van shouting [Â __Â ] [Â __Â ] [Â __Â ] oi oi oi I’ve heard the rumors that you’ve mentioned I still refute the fact I’m certain in mosai police policemen were
Not doing it I would I can’t deny or actually affirm what happened with other policemen being drafted in the feeling was that this was an alien occupying Army the way that they were traveling along the roads and they T the area like this and more police came you
Know what I mean so they started to they had the arm gear you know they the riot gear on you know so then they look like they’re going to charge you know couple people pick up things and through and we you know we all joining and back at the
Police Lester had gone outside to have a look what was going on and the dogss was barking and when he went out there was police at one end which was on the grass Verge that surrounded the estate and there was several youth well a couple of
Hundred youth at the opposite end of our street and they built a fire across the street and they was at one side and the police was up at the top and they were just shouting abuse and throwing things over and the police was coming forward with the shield
At that particular moment I remembered seeing the police charged the crowd of riers and they withdrew um when then the riter would charg back again so when the police retreated there was one this one police that was behind he tripped and fell right in front of me to be quite
Honest with you there were shs up let’s kill him you know there was anger at the night something just snapped him in a jumped in front of them and said no you can’t do that you know I won’t let you I won’t let you you killed a man for doing
His job uh Plus what’s going to happen to you when you are locked up for murder what’s going to happen to your families what’s going to happen to your children if you have any sense in your head you’ll break it up and all go home to my
Surprise they all broke up and went home and all the stuff that was going on H Hanley was one of the spokes people at the time coming from a a youth club the Hideway in Mosside it was a very respected youth club by the young black uh Lads in particular and black girls
And he was very definitely somebody that had his finger on the pulse and there he was ushering them into the youth center to stop them from being beaten up and he was beaten up himself five or six coppers were actually kicking the crap out of me and like an idiot now that I
Think about it I said is that the effing best mention man Chester’s MOS side area and you won’t always get a positive reaction some people associate it with gun crime and deprivation but what’s often overlooked is the great sense of community Spirit there something a new initiative led by the Northwest film
Archive is Keen to Promote there’s a real ethnic mix in Mosside and Hume the Potato Famine in the 19th century brought lots of Irish families to South Manchester then a new wave of immigration starting in the late 1950s brought in men and women from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent
The one thing they weren’t prepared for was the weather nor of the river of the river make no difference a tall still shake and a shiver is the English weather make it shake like a feather when they open that door and the airplane and I looked
Outside it was white and I’ve never seen that before in my life first time I came in England 1956 there was a very cold so much cold that you can’t stand at one stage we had to walk from White Field to Manchester here because the bus they couldn’t run
Serious and children from all Races attended Webster Street School Webster Street school that’s where we met for the first time the most unique feature of Webster Street was the playground being on the roof we had a clo room upstairs where you take your jacket off and your scool
Bag off and everything and used to play upstairs I remember playing football and the ball going over the wall oh yes that’s another thing and you you were not allowed to go downstairs you have to get the teacher to go downstairs to get the ball from downstairs because it was too scary going
Downstairs at the end of your your play time a whistle would go and you’d have to line up in a regimental type of style so all the classes would line up and you have to go downstairs you know class at a time had white friends in school got the
First house for tea and actually had chicken soup and bread and they put the bread in the soup and I thought it was the best thing ever because you know we just have West Indian food and I just thought it was this amazing thing I never forget that it was so Funny the biggest threat to that Community Spirit came in the late 60s when the traditional Victorian Terraces were knocked down as part of a massive slum clear C operation people from the West Indies who’ saved up and bought their houses here then they had to sell their house compulsory under compulsory purchase for
A pound they got a pound for it we stood there and watched and pull the house down one of my most viid memories is my mom’s bedroom and you could see the the old wallpaper on the wall and stuff and and you’re looking up and you’re thinking oh my God you know
This big thing you know do with the big ball on was singing back and forth and knocking the house down and and it was like Wow and and it’s it’s something you never forget those who’d come to Britain in search of a better life found that they and their children struggled to
Find work our grandparents were starve our parents were starve and they wasn’t just star of food there was star of Education there was star of everything to do with the growing world out there when my parents came here they couldn’t no way get go to anywhere and get a good
Job it just just wasn’t be the system even here gives the impression that in order to achieve in order to acquire in order to be anything one must be white not not in color if it’s that that’s impossible but in Behavior over 80% of young black men in
This community under the age of 25 were unemployed so they were leaving school just expecting to be unemployed I wanted to be uh electrician engineer when I left school and I couldn’t even get an interview immediately after the riots you you had this curfew thing on where the police
Were stopping everybody and and sort of stuff but the end of the day once it all quietened down we just went back out of our business and everything just as if it never happened I was looking out from great Western Street looking onto princess Road and just thinking what is that I
Was at a friend’s house on the other side of the estate across the road and we heard them stoning the police station I was one of the kids who was out on the street protested you know and I have no regret whatsoever over the entire M side from
Yum right back to the end of Princess Road here all this princess Road was the shops they all got looted smashed up but the various shops on Princess Parkway there was a furniture shop and a bike shop and they were both looted and it wasn’t just let you say it was more than
Just one race of people doing it people will say to us things like oh you destroyed your own shops but to me and my friends these weren’t our shops these were the shops that we walked into and people who Rond those shops call these are the shops that when our parents went
Into we watched our parents get refused to get served because of the black so as far as we were concerned they were in our shops most of us didn’t have any jobs we had nowhere to go all we had was the is and Areno and a couple of pubs there was
Nothing for us to do nobody didn’t care so people were bitter every day you get up and you get stopped you get searched and in the end we had enough and they cast a riot for me I think the breaking point that led to the riots taking place was
Police oppression and also systematic oppression towards black people especially black youth and um what what those black youth seen growing up what their parents had to endure a very lot of really really bad police attitude cuz I had my face share off the police I got battered from them beat up and misident
You know they said they were looking for somebody else and they got me I got beat up from them people don’t know what it’s like to be a 10 year old boy or sixy old boy and seen your dad being called a [Â __Â ] by a police officer and you can’t
Do nothing because you’re just like that holding his hand now many of my friends we went through this so as far as we were concerned we didn’t like the police I don’t ever remember a single black policeman around here whereas now ra well it was rough tough we had police brutality and we
Used to get stop and search on the street regular the SAR was the thing that put it over the edge this is where police could regularly stop you and search you if they suspected that you may for some reason being involved in a alleged crime I remember coming from
Work got off the the bus the riot was on princess Road everybody was robbing the jewelry shop and everything and I just stopped to look I got arrested by the police I didn’t had nothing to do with it but yesterday I was search on the street and then afterwards when they
Find out I had nothing to do with they let me go but I still got a kick in for it from them you got to imagine what it was like then it was normal to accept that a person’s been arrested the been badly beaten or they’ve ended up really
Severely injured and being crippled or what have you and police get away with it you know there was no real real relationship with with with law re enforcement I don’t think there’s been ever a relationship to tell you the truth so these things have not been
Built and you got to remember at the same period as well you had the national front you had all the like General Street racism that you had to deal with you had educational racism and then just to top it off within your community you’d be getting abused by police that were just
Bored what people have to understand why the police were the police were actually very patriotic to this utopus idea of what England’s supposed to be and then these West Indian kids these African kids have come here and they’ve destroyed all that and to touch back on what on What Dominic’s saying regarding
Um education you could choose history and when we was in school the first place they started when it talked about black history is that we were slaves we didn’t get proper education because I had to fight in school instead the learning teacher didn’t teach me not in school talk about Africa mud
Hot My teacher talk like that to me in school about mud Hots I told her back in Jamaica we don’t have M Hots they wouldn’t believe me they show us films about Africans with spare and all that that’s what they was trying to drum into our head yeah and it was rough in School well the generation I live in now kind of feels feels like an opportunity is just around the corner I feel I feel like we’re able to make something out of nothing literally um and I think that’s the one thing for me where kind of differs in generation where we able to
Just make anything out of nothing and actually have a career you know kind of support our families through I don’t know football music and so many careers but that kind of spark for just starting something from nothing is literally the one thing I definitely say is the
Difference from stories back then when I was in my mom’s stomach at the time the RS were going on um it really doesn’t seem like anything’s changed it doesn’t seem like anything changed um police coming down on ethnic black people in around obviously Mosside Hume I think
Some of the challenges are still there in terms of poverty in terms of mental health uh just having a Level Playing Field is uh nothing’s changed over the generations fail facilities are probably improved infrastructure is improved in some aspects on the outskirts but in the core and in the heart of the community
Still it’s still R to the core I think one of the main things that’s changed here is but then there was a lack of information of knowing your rights and knowing what’s the law and what you’re entitled to and what you’re not you don’t have to do if you get pulled over
Or whatever so obviously we had the internet now so like a lot more kids are clued up on no I know my rights I don’t have to get out of this car I don’t have to you know consent to a stop and search I don’t have to so it’s not I don’t
Think the racism’s changed I just think the access to information there’s a lot there’s a lot more information out there a lot more people are clued up what do I think of the police in Manchester I forg got all day personally for me um I haven’t had an encounterment
With the police before but I feel like people that are around me including my friends and family have had count um or hav countered police before end it’s never really been a great experience it hasn’t been the most Pleasant um there have been incidents and cases where the
Police I feel have neglected certain communities you know again from the way we’re being spoken to to the way we’re being treated man handled it’s it’s one of those things which you kind of just think to yourself we are humans right just because we’re A different race I
Mean we’re not you know the same there’s one lad who told me this story which was you had um unmarked police v come over and basically tell the group of lads that were I think Somalian Arab background told them listen we don’t care for you you’re going to go the down
The same route as Donnington or gu went down half you will go either go prison or the other will be dead and makes our job easier I’ll still get my salary and pay my mortgage and take my kids University off the back of you so when when the youth are being
Exposed to that type of policing I think there are issues does that whole Community yeah police report that whole that I think that’s that’s that’s just distance what they’re doing and just like just try and work with the people in the community is it not every single
Black person is bad you probably know a lot of the issues and there a lot of the problems that are happening uh they have the Intel you know but we seem to be having the same issues we’re happening in the riots so what has improved for the communities that have been deprived
For so long we need investment we need jobs um we need entrepreneurship we need businesses to to give opportunities there’s no use putting everything around us but not investing in the communities first of all it’s it’s the why why are these younger kids or why are we in a certain situation
Right now if there’s any way that people the police could help would be great but I feel like it goes back to just understanding the individual first before anything there was also rioting in a number of other English cities and towns in 1981 although most of these riots
Were less serious and attracted less media attention than the highly publicized writing in areas like Brixton and tox roting also occurred in Dingle Liverpool and canel farm District of Liverpool although neither of these riots were as serious as the toxi riots Brixton was not the only part of London
To be affected by rioting disturbances in the districts of sou and basy resulted in fire stations being targeted by riers and ultimately evacuated for the safety of staff there was also rioting in Bradford Halifax Blackburn Preston birkenhead alsir Port Chester Stoke shuby wolver Hampton Birmingham H Wickam Southampton Newcastle ofon time
Nbor Leeds H Huddersfield Sheffield Stockport Nottingham Derby leester Luton Maidstone Aldershot and portsman several of these areas were already known for racial tensions and many of them had high levels of unemployment journeying into the tump tapestry of the 1981 England riots unveils narrative replete with complexity and Nuance the streets once
Scorched by the Flames of civil unrest bore witness to a Confluence of social economic racial and political tributaries that converged in a cade of of discontent as we excavate the layers of his historical malstrom the question looms have the seeds of transformation truly taken root or do they linger
Dormant beneath the surface of our purported progress at the core of this forensic exploration la an examination of the social economic landscape that ignited the unrest the 1981 riots were in many ways an outcry against the Stark disparities that cleave Society along the class line has the intervening period seen a substantive
Reconfiguration of the economic structures that fueled the unrest have policies been implemented to bridge the gaps of wealth and opportunity or does the Spectre of inequality persist in the shadows of modern racial tensions another combustible element in The Crucible of 1981 demand meticulous scrutiny the clashes between marginalized communities and law
Enforcement illuminated deep seated prejudices that demanded in introspection in the intervening years have strives been made to dismantle systematic racism or do we find ourselves grappling with a haunting cont tenuity of discriminatory practices the complexities of the narrative lie not only in the events themselves but in the
Ongoing Legacy of racial Injustice the intricate interplay between the public and law enforcement during the 1981 riots remains a critical subplot in this unfolding drama have police strategies evolved to fostter Community Trust and engagement or do Echoes of historical animosity reverberate in the fraud relationships between authorities and
The public the scene extends beyond the physical unrest to the intangible Realms of policy and perception ception as we embark on this in-depth investigation your your insights become integral to the narrative do you perceive the 1981 riots as a catalyst for substantive change or do you sense a disconcerning
Continuity in the challenges fac by marginalized communities scrutinize the evidence presented by the intervening decades policy reforms social attitude and lived experiences are we witnessing A Narrative of transformation or is the plotline haunted by unresolved conflicts in the Grand Theater of social progress the complexities lie not in just the
Events of 1981 but in our Collective response to them your Discerning Grace is now invited to illuminate the shadows of History are we the architects of change or are we unwitting accomplishes in a tale that remains tragically unfinished The Chronicles of 1981 beckon for your reflection inviting you to
Navigate the Labyrinth of corridors of our shared history and chart the trajectory of social Evolution I don’t think you can compare what happened last year with what happened in in 1981 2011 uh and uh 81 were very different um because at the end of the
Day 19 81 was an uprising true uh there were some there was a criminal element that came along and got involved and tried to take the opportunity to steal some stuff but it was an uprising it was an uprising against an oppressive uh policing system against an oppressive economic State depressed and deprived
Neighborhood where people were not being listened to and when people and where people were not rep represented and it was sparked off by a particular policing operation in 1981 and by the killing uh wounding uh of a particular individual in 19 uh 885 uh 2011 was almost like sort of shopping with
Violence you know there was an element of just pure opportunistic criminality and planned criminality and and and I didn’t feel that the economic circumstances and the circumstances of policing uh were in any way comparable with those that occurred in in 1981 but from all such in incidents you have to
Learn one lesson that something is terribly wrong now I think it’s a different thing in 2011 you know in 19 in 1981 uh black people were not participating in the economy they were not represented on a local Authority in Parliament they were not members of the police force there was no police
Authority to hold the police uh to uh to account young people were disrespected and had nothing it was a bad bad situation 2011 something else is going on and it’s not that but it is something there is a sense of alienation undoubtedly there is a sense of a breakdown of
Community and responsibility one for the other and there is an a totally sort of aoral approach uh to acquisition it seems to be okay just to take if you can uh now that tells us something about the state of our society so we need to
Listen to that and to learn from it and we’ve got to find a response that isn’t just about the criminal justice system and locking people up we got to ask ourselves how we how we build stronger and more respectful communities how we give young people in particular since
They’ve got a stake uh in society but how we take a greater degree of responsibility for our own lives and our relationships with others because what was striking too about 2011 were that there were people taking part who had jobs uh who had careers uh who had a
Whole Heat going for them it wasn’t as if it was a it was a you know action simply by the by the dispossessed it was something else at work that I think is very worrying so we don’t must we shouldn’t just have a knee- jert reaction say well lock them all up uh
That may be the criminal justice system has to be part of it but we also have to ask ourselves you know where as a society are we going how can we recapture our sense of of community and our our values and I was thinking too it’s quite interesting to look at
Communities that didn’t riot last year I mean I happen to to live in one in in Wembley and in Haron you know where are also diverse multi-racial uh uh communities uh where there are a whole heap of of issues um uh but there there weren’t there weren’t riots uh and they
Weren’t people behaving as as they behaved in in Cen so we need to ask what are we doing right as well as what are we doing wrong and how can we do more that is right uh to stop this sort of thing
11 Comments
THE WHOLE POLICE FORCE ARE RACIST A D WOUKD PUT FINES ONTO BLACK MOTHERS WISE PUTTING DRUGS IN BLACK JAMAICA POCKETS WHICH PUT BLACKS I TO JAIL FOR YEARS. WE ALSO HAD POLICE KIDNAPPING BLACK TEENS AND BEATEN THEM UP JUST FOR WALKING STREETS AFTER 8PM
The riots started, because the police arrested a black woman and taped her hands and feet together and gagged, and she died in Brixton 3 days before the so called riot ? More lies from people that weren’t around. U was around an local to the area
You should do one on Whitechapel riots 1993 when 4 of the biggest Asian gangs squashed their beef with each other and had riot with the police instead
It was Black and White People rioting on the same side against the Police.
Is, was and always has been The Brixton Riots, not the english riots.
And still they continue to cause violence…… yes i mean the Police…. yet another rapist metropolitan copper just been found guilty of multiple sexual offences
West yorks Filth are on Par with the Met and let's not forget TSG ..
That poet from Moss Side is brilliant.
The usual suspects obvs
It was down to the new Cross fire
I was born in 1980 and every riot I remember which is a good few was when the torys were in power