Black Liberation Front
{{Short description|Black liberation organisation in the UK}}
{{Infobox organization
| name = Black Liberation Front
| logo = Black Liberation Front emblem.png
| logo_size =
| logo_alt =
| logo_caption = Emblem used on BLF publications
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| abbreviation = BLF
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| formation = {{start date and age|1971}}
| founding_location = London, England
| location_country =
| area_served = United Kingdom
| dissolved = {{end date and age|1993}}
| type = Black power organisation
| status =
| purpose =
| headquarters = 61 Golborne Road (until 1986),
71 Golborne Road,
London W10
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| affiliations = {{unbulleted list|Grassroots Newspaper|Fasimbas|Ujima Housing Association}}
| funding =
}}
The Black Liberation Front (BLF) was a Black nationalist, Pan-African and African socialist organisation in the United Kingdom, operating from 1971 to 1993.{{Cite web |last=Sigaud |first=J. |date=2020-10-17 |title=Black Liberation Front, 1971-1993 - A Blue Print for Activism Today |url=https://editionbhm.com/2020/10/17/the-black-liberation-front-1971-1993/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=EDITIONS Black History Month, Magazines, Windrush 75, Newsletters & Publications© |language=en-US}} It was considered one of the most effective Black power organisations in the UK, and was subjected to threats and attacks from the National Front, attacks in the media, harassment from the police, and state surveillance.{{Cite web |title=The Black Liberation Front + Q&A |url=https://blackhistorywalks.co.uk/talks/the-black-liberation-front-qa/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Black History Walks |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=UCL |date=2021-04-12 |title=VIRTUAL: The Black Liberation Front Q&A |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/events/2021/jun/virtual-black-liberation-front-qa |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) |language=en}} It was involved in supplementary schools, affordable housing, support for prisoners, and community bookshops, primarily in London.{{Cite web |title=Black Liberation Front |url=https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/blackliberationfront-old |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=younghistoriansproje |language=en}}
More secretive than the British Black Panthers, most of their members remained anonymous.{{Cite web |title=The Black Power Movement |url=https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-black-power-movement/owVxDSDJDD4gIA |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Google Arts & Culture |language=en}} Tony Soares is known as one of the founders.{{Cite web |title=OLD BLF Exhibition |url=https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/blf-exhibition |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=younghistoriansproje |language=en}} Other known members include Joan Anim-Addo, Jackie Daniel, Lennox Drayton, Terry Rocque, N N A Pepukayi, Desrie Thomson-George, Winston Trew, Tee White and Ansel Wong. Similar to other Black British political groups of the time, but unlike their American counterparts, the BLF embraced political Blackness – representing people of African, Asian and Caribbean heritage.Angelo, AnneMarie (2013).
The BLF had links with Pan-African groups worldwide, often sending money to Africa, and helped organize African Liberation Day celebrations in the 1970s and 1980s. BLF ran street stalls to sell books and posters, including one on Acklam Road, near Westway, North Kensington.{{Cite book |title=Black British culture and society: a text-reader |date=2000 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-17845-7 |editor-last=Owusu |editor-first=Kwesi |location=London; New York |pages=345}} They also published the Grassroots Newspaper, which often featured creative work alongside news on anticolonial movements back in Africa and the Caribbean.
History
BLF emerged from the North and West London branches of the British Black Panthers Movement (BBPM) in early 1971.{{Cite journal |last=Angelo |first=Anne-Marie |date=2018 |title='Black Oppressed People All over the World Are One': The British Black Panthers' Grassroots Internationalism, 1969–73 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jcivihumarigh.4.1.0064 |journal=Journal of Civil and Human Rights |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=64–97 |doi=10.5406/jcivihumarigh.4.1.0064 |issn=2378-4245}} These former BLF members intended to move away from BBPM's rigid Marxist-Leninism towards a general focus on Black working-class concerns, drawing some inspiration from Black cultural nationalism.Wild, Rosalind Eleanor. "Black was the colour of our fight. Black power in Britain, 1955–1976." (2008). 104–5. Tony Soares, who had previously been a part of the BBPM's North London branch, said the Panthers had become "infiltrated by the Marxist and Trotskyite groups" which ordinary people wouldn't relate to.Angelo, Anne-Marie. "'We All Became Black': Tony Soares, African-American Internationalists, and Anti-imperialism." The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States (2015): 95-102. He had previously published a transcription of a Stokely Carmichael speech as the Afro-Asian Liberation Front in London in 1967, and would later help the North London branch of BBPM become the Black Liberation Front. Rather than revolution in Britain, the BLF focussed on "survival for Black people in Britain and socialism in their homelands".
In April 1971, shortly after forming, the BLF held a rally in Methodist Central Hall, Westminster with the BBPM and the Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP). American Panther George Jackson spoke at the event, which raised £2,000 and drew an audience of three thousand. In November 1971, American civil rights activist Robert F. Williams wrote to Soares for support, asking the BLF to protest against his extradition from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to North Carolina. The BLF protested outside the US embassy to raise international awareness of the situation, although Williams was eventually extradited in 1975.Li, Hongshan (2024). Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|9780231207058}}. 289.
In 1972, the Fasimbas ({{lit|Young Lions}}) merged into the BLF. Founded in 1970, the Fasimbas were originally the youth wing of the South East London Parents' Organisation (SELPO), and offered supplemental education, self-defence classes, and performing arts for young Black people.{{Cite book |last=Uk |first=Blam |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003194378 |title=Global Black Narratives for the Classroom: Britain and Europe: Practical Lesson Plans, Worksheets and Activities for Ages 7-11 |date=2024-01-04 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-003-19437-8 |edition=1 |location=London |pages=116 |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781003194378}}{{Cite journal |last=Prescod |first=Colin |date=2011-10-31 |title=Book Review: Black for a Cause … Not Just Because … |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306396811414494 |journal=Race & Class |language=en |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=97–100 |doi=10.1177/0306396811414494 |issn=0306-3968 |via=Sage Journals}}
File:London, North Kensington - geograph.org.uk - 1977.jpg
The BLF was based at 61 Golborne Road until 1986, when it moved to 71 Golborne Road. The Golborne Road site included a shopfront for the BLF's newspaper Grassroots.{{cite web |url=https://collections.blackculturalarchives.org/repositories/2/resources/29 |title=Collection: Black Liberation Front Publications |date=23 February 2022 |website=collections.blackculturalarchives.org |publisher=Black Cultural Archives |access-date=2 April 2025}}
Education
BLF was especially concerned with educational inequalities in the UK. Because Black-authored books were extremely difficult to source in London at the time, the BLF established three book shops filled with Black history, Black politics and Black literature. The Grassroots Storefront on Ladbroke Grove was one of these bookshops, and became a community hub. The Operation Headstart bookshop provided information for young people and at the weekends, volunteers ran maths, English and Black history classes there. It had a sister organisation for young people called the Fasimbas.
Grassroots
Grassroots: Black Community News (sometimes styled Grass Roots)Grass Roots: Black Community News. May–June 1983. London. p. 5. was the BLF's newspaper. It ran from 1978–1986, and was available in cities across the UK.{{Cite book |title=Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women's Group |publisher=Verso |year=2023 |isbn=9781804291979 |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=Milo |location=London |pages=251}}
Welfare and housing schemes
BLF ran prisoner welfare schemes, and schemes to support Black women. In 1977, Ujima Housing Association was established by the BLF to address issues around discrimination in housing, focussing especially on young people and mothers. In 1988, Ujima opened a refuge for Black women fleeing domestic violence.{{Cite web |date=1989-11-30 |title=Positive Action and Racial Equality in Housing |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28327916 |work=Commission for Racial Equality |language=English |publisher=Commission for Racial Equality |pages=30}} By 2008, when Ujima was merged into London and Quadrant, its assets were valued at £2 billion.
Legacy
The group was the focus of the Heritage Lottery-funded project Black Political Activism in Britain - The Black Liberation Front (BLF) 1971-1994 and Steve McQueen's Small Axe.{{Cite news |last=Jones |first=Ellen E. |date=2021-03-25 |title=Black Power: A British Story of Resistance review – a tortuous fight for justice |url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/mar/25/black-power-a-british-story-of-resistance-review-a-tortuous-fight-for-justice |access-date=2024-02-01 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}
Further reading
- Trew, Winston N. Black for a Cause. Derbyshire: Derwent Press, 2010.