The march she led in 1981 helped forge a black British identity. She talks about revolution, police brutality and Black Lives Matter
On Monday 2 March 1981, Leila Hassan Howe led a 20,000-person march through the streets of London. It was designed, she said, to “cause maximum disruption” and so, for eight hours, on a working day, the protesters marched; when they stopped the traffic on Blackfriars Bridge the police were so angry they tried to end it there. When they continued down Fleet Street – then synonymous with the British media – Hassan Howe says that “people were throwing banana skins at us”. Yet neither the police nor overt racism in the home of the press could stop them.
The protest that Hassan Howe helped organise – with her partner, the journalist, activist and publisher Darcus Howe – was dubbed the National Black People’s Day of Action. And it was unlike anything seen in Britain before. Today it is considered to be a turning point in black British identity.
