CHERRY GROCE INQUEST VERDICT CONDEMNS POLICE FAILINGS
Police failures contributed to Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce’s death, whose shooting triggered the 1985 Brixton riots, an inquest jury has found. Mrs Groce was shot by police looking for her son Michael and left paralysed from the waist down. She died of kidney failure in 2011. Her son was never charged for any offences in connection with the police raid.
Michael Groce was named as an alibi for an armed robber by Hertfordshire Police Force. Eventually, an alert went out that Michael Groce had fired on police even though he hadn’t. Compare the similarities with the police killing of Mark Duggan in 2011 to see how little has changed.
Hertfordshire Police never informed the Metropolitan Police that they were coming to London looking for Michael leading to disputes and recriminations among the different police forces. Due to the manifest weakness of their position the Met and Hertfordshire forces never really fought the inquest case once it reached court.
The jury at Southwark Coroner’s Court found there were eight failures made by police during the raid on the morning of Sep 28 1985 and Cherry Groce’s “subsequent death was contributed to by failures in the planning and implementation of the raid”. These included not properly briefing police officers that Mr Groce was no longer wanted by police, failing to adequately check who lived at the property or to carry out adequate observations on the house. On the morning of the shooting, four children were inside the home. The jury also concluded that officers should have called off the raid entirely during a police briefing but failed to do so. However, they found there was no failure by police to call off the raid once it had begun. A firearms specialist at the time said the raid on the Groce’s Normandy Road home should have been aborted. There was no surveillance of the address as there was a pub next door and police now claimed they were scared of being spotted by the Afrikan drinkers there.
Cherry Groce, a mother-of-eight, passed away 26 years after the shooting in 2011, at the age of 63, from an illness directly linked to the gunshot injury. Pathologist Dr Robert Chapman said that during a post-mortem examination he found small metal fragments from the bullet still lodged in the base of her spine. Mrs Groce had also become more susceptible to debilitating illnesses as a result of the injury.
Her shooting by Metropolitan Police Inspector Douglas Lovelock sparked two days of unrest in Brixton as the community pressed their demands for justice over the shooting of an innocent woman in her own house in front of her children.
Lovelock was drinking heavily the night before and he himself said he should not have been on the raid. He admitted being responsible for the wound and stood trial in 1987 charged with inflicting unlawful and malicious grievous bodily harm but was acquitted in a manifest miscarriage of justice typical of the British legal system.
In Mrs Groce’s statement, heard by her family for the first time after 29 years, she said that as she lay bleeding, police continued to shout at her asking if she knew where Michael was. It only emerged later that he was not even a suspect but his name had been given as an alibi but there was no further need to speak to him. The family were not involved in Lovelock’s criminal trial apart from Cherry Groce as a witness. As a sample of the contempt for which the police have for Afrikan life the police left Cherry Groce shot on the floor and went to comfort the shooter instead and an officer at the time said being shot was just like having a baby!!!
After the hearing, Mrs Groce’s son Lee Lawrence, who was 11 when he saw his mother shot, said: “After that shooting, my mum was left paralysed and we suffered in silence. The inquest has given us the only opportunity to get down to the truth about what really happened the day she was shot. She couldn’t feel her legs. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she was going to die,” said Mr Lawrence, 29 years on. I’ll never forget - we were at the window as children - crying, watching her go into the ambulance.
“We have always known that the shooting of our mum was not an accident. For 29 years the police have had a copy of the report which clearly identifies the multiple, serious failures behind the shooting. However, that report was not shared with my family until the run up to this inquest.
The verdict of this jury serves to break the silence in which we have suffered since the shooting in September 1985. My mum is the hero in this: she inspired us as a family to fight for the truth. Today the truth is our victory.”
The children became carers for their mother. “There was no manual. No support. No counselling. We had to roll up our sleeves.” Lee Lawrence, Mrs Groce’s son, said:
Mr Lawrence led the campaign to get legal aid for an inquest into his mother’s death, including taking a petition with 131,000 signatures to 10 Downing Street. Ministers eventually overturned the decision to block legal aid. Now the inquest is over, Mr Lawrence said he planned to channel his energy into the Cherry Groce Foundation.
Through the charity, which supports people who have become disabled and their carers, he says he hopes his mother’s legacy will live on. “She was loving, caring and understanding, so our house was a welcoming place. She had a big collection of vinyl and was always playing music in the house. She listened to Al Green, Otis Redding and Percy Sledge - these were the characters we grew up with. My mother had long enough to nurture us.”
Garden Court’s Barrister Dexter Dias for the Groce family highlighted how serving Met officers unnecessarily put life at risk. During the course of two intense weeks in the Southwark coroner’s court the jury heard police statements read out denigrating ‘coloured’ youth and perpetuating their lies about the innate criminality of Afrikans. Afterwards Dias pointed out that the drastic reduction of access to public funding for inquests is but part of a campaign of devastation and despoliation of legal aid that this government has unleashed on the justice system.
This fundamental assault on access to justice is deeply injurious to the public interest and protects perpetrators of wrongdoing and malfeasance in public office. As such, it is an affront to our nation’s international obligations to ensure the effective scrutiny of the contentious death of citizens at the hand of the state.
Deborah Coles, co-director of INQUEST said: “The shooting of Cherry Groce was devastating for her and her family. Their 29 year struggle for accountability included a lengthy battle to obtain public funding to be represented at the inquest, in circumstances where apparently unlimited funds are available to the Commissioner and individual police officers. Legal aid ensured the first and only rigorous public examination of the evidence which has resulted in today’s welcome conclusion.
“It is vital both for the family and public interest that when citizens are shot by police officers, there is a robust and fearless inquiry into the appropriateness and lawfulness of that use of force. However cuts to legal aid mean that similar cases may well not receive this kind of vital public scrutiny.
“Cherry Groce’s shooting also raised important concerns about the oppressive policing of the black community and the use of lethal force by the police generally: concerns as pertinent now as they were three decades ago.”
Acquired by Tomas E. Gaston
THE POLICE KILLING OF ERIC GARNER
Eric Garner, an Afrikan-American has been killed during an arrest in New York on Thurs 17 July after being held in an illegal neck chokehold by an NYPD officer from the 120th Precinct. Garner, 43, is said to have suffered a heart attack while struggling with five officers who slammed his face into the concrete while forcibly trying to handcuff him. Garner, an asthmatic, repeated at least eight times that he couldn’t breathe as he was forcibly detained on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on Thursday but the police ignored his pleas until his body went limp.
Garner was sitting down outside Bay Beauty on Bay St. and Victory Blvd in Staten Island just before 5 pm having just broken up a fight between two other men when police approached him and said they had observed him selling loose cigarettes.
“Before they even grabbed him, he told them he wasn’t feeling good and that’s why I pulled the camera out and started recording,” witness Ramsey Orta said. “They jumped him and they were choking him. He was foaming at the mouth and that’s it, he was done. The cops were saying, ‘No, he’s OK, he’s OK.’ He wasn’t OK.”
The New York Daily News
In the video of the incident, obtained by the New York Daily News, Garner can be seen arguing with officers as they attempted to detain him, saying: “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today,” Garner shouts. “I’m minding my business please just leave me alone.” An officer put his arm around Garner’s neck and several other men forced him down on to the sidewalk, where he could be heard saying: “I can’t breathe.”
Staten Island prosecutors and detectives from the internal affairs division have opened probes, the New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said. A spokesman for New York Police Department declined to comment. A post-mortem examination was scheduled for Friday, though results have yet to be announced.
Garner, who was married and had six children, died of a heart attack confirmed on his arrival at Richmond University Medical Center. “When I kissed my husband this morning, I never thought it would be for the last time. They harassed and harassed my husband until they killed him.”
Garner’s wife, Esaw said. Her husband was unable to work because he suffered from a host of ailments, including chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea. She got no details from police until after she had gone to the hospital to identify his body, she said. “I saw him with his eyes wide open and I said, ‘Babe, don’t leave me, I need you.’ But he was already gone,” she said.
The mother of Eric Garner’s youngest
child, Jewel Miller, and their 3-month-old
baby on Friday on Staten Island. Credit
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
The investigation will be led by Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, with assistance from NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau. At the center of the inquiry is the officer’s use of a chokehold that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago. “As defined in the department’s patrol guide, this would appear to have been a chokehold,” the police commissioner, William J. Bratton has directed a review of the NYPD’s policy on the use of chokeholds. He referred to police rules that forbid chokeholds and define them as including “any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.”
The Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent city agency that investigates allegations of police abuse, logged 233 allegations involving chokeholds in 2013, making up 4.4 percent of the excessive-force complaints it received. Of those, only two cases were substantiated, and for the vast majority – more than 60% of the allegations from that year – it was claimed there was not enough evidence to determine what happened.
For years Mr Garner condemned police harassment. In 2007, he filed a handwritten complaint in federal court accusing a police officer of conducting a cavity search of him on the street, “digging his fingers in my rectum in the middle of the street” while people passed by. More recently, Mr. Garner told Legal Aid lawyers that he intended to take all the cases against him to trial. “He was adamant he wouldn’t plead guilty to anything,” said Christopher Pisciotta, the lead lawyer at the Staten Island office of Legal Aid.
A post by kjohns2001 clearly reflects the concern of Garner’s family, Afrikans in general and all right-thinking people worldwide: “Just in case anyone is keeping up with the comments. Please note that while the charge was selling cigs, the man claimed he wasn’t, and witnesses on the scene said he was not selling cigs, but only broke up the fight the cops had originally been called about. Once they had witnesses saying he was not selling, and finding him with none on him, it went from a legitimate arrest to harassment and then murder. THAT is why so many are mad over this, they read the article and comprehended what had happened.”
SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIANS
We at Nubiart Diary repeat our solidarity with the Palestinians who have faced four millennia of ethnic cleansing, land expropriation, assaults, incarceration and exile as a result of the colonisation of their land and property by the Habiru / Hebrew / Yehudi / Israelites / Israelis and the British. This is the second longest anti-imperialist struggle in world history. We, as Afrikans, know what they are facing as we have faced similar yet even more wide-ranging assaults on our well-being, culture and spirituality by the people who claim a manifest destiny to travel through any land and claim ownership of all on it regardless of any competing ownership claims, better use or any notions of first ancestor on the land.
As Afrikans we have faced the Hebrew propaganda when they denigrate us threw their invention and propagation of the Hamite / Canaanite Myth and their unfounded claims that they built the pyramids and other monuments while they were enslaved in Egypt / Kemet under the Ramesside period. There is no historical or literary evidence that such events occurred in the way the Hebrews claim. Indeed, there are even payslips for the workers who were engaged on building projects when the Nile would not allow for agriculture or related trades. The only time when Hebrews were recorded as playing any major part in Egyptian life is as the Hyksos and all genuine views on that period is that it was an overwhelmingly negative time that regressed the dynastic progress Egypt made under Afrikan rule.
The Hebrew imperialism that they have expressed both militarily and culturally since they left Ur of the Chaldees and its adoption by Christians, Muslims, Yehudi and ‘atheists’ as their core reference points has led to the ongoing crises in the world. It was the Hebrews who brought the concepts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, mass rape, land expropriation and despoliation - as expressed in their ‘fantastical’ creation mythology - into the region claiming it was a unique vision they were given by their ‘God’. It was from this that the idea that other human beings are less of a human and other spiritual beliefs could be denigrated came into being. There are only two real concepts in the world: the ‘Afrikan Worldview’ which is also shared by many other pro-humanity indigenous cultures across the world; and the opposing often called the ‘European Worldview’ which is a combination of the Hebrew creation fiction, Graeco-Roman imperialism, European medieval madness and ‘scientific racism’.
Anti-imperialist solidarity for the Palestinian people is not support for Islamism as our relations with the Palestinians and the other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean go back 6.000 years before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad and several millennia before even the Hebrews claim their God invented the world. Under the Hebrew mythology their first ancestors meet other people – that is the beginning of spreading the view that other humans are less than human, sub-human. Their spiritual and cultural beliefs are never given due consideration. Even though we have had periods of differences with the Palestinians / Philistines we never considered them less than human and never sought the complete dispossession and removal of a people in the way that has become a trademark of Israeli imperialism. Humanity, justice and world progress demands this of us.
Okwiri Oduor
OKWIRI ODUOR WINS 2014 CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING
“And yet it was not my father I was mourning. I was mourning the image of myself inside the impossible aura of my father’s death.” – Okwiri Oduor, ‘My Father’s Head’
Nairobi-based author Okwiri Oduor has won the 15th Caine Prize for Afrikan Writing for her short story ’My Father’s Head‘ from ‘Feast, Famine and Potluck’ published by Short Story Day Africa.
We attended the first readings of the Caine Prize nominees in Brixton. Now in its fifteenth year, the annual £10,000 award is for English-language short stories written by Afrikan authors. Oduor had been shortlisted along with South Africa’s Diane Awerbuck for her short story ‘Phosphorescence’, Efemia Chela from Ghana and Zambia for ‘Chicken’, Zimbabwe’s Tendai Huchu for ‘The Intervention’, and Kenya’s ‘Billy Kahora’ – who was unable to attend the first reading - for ‘The Gorilla’s Apprentice’. The runners-up will take home £500 prize money. The panel of judges was chaired by author Jackie Kay MBE and included the novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, Zimbabwean journalist Percy Zvomuya, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Georgetown Nicole Rizzuto and the winner of the Caine Prize in 2001 Helon Habila.
Oduor’s story begins with the narrator’s attempts to remember what her father’s face looked like as she struggles to cope with his passing and looks at the themes of memory, loss and loneliness. The narrator works in an old people’s home and comes into contact with a priest, giving her the courage to recall her buried memories of her father.
Oduor will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. She directed the inaugural Writivism Literary Festival in Kampala, Uganda, in August 2013. Her novella, ’The Dream Chasers’ was highly commended in the Commonwealth Book Prize, 2012. She is a 2014 MacDowell Colony fellow and is currently at work on her debut novel.
FORTHCOMING NUBIART PROFILES
NUBIART: Focus on arts, business, education, health, political developments and the media.
JULY PROMOS
~ ‘THE ROUGH GUIDE TO AFRICAN BLUES’ – Various Artists [Riverboat Records / World Music Network – Out Now] Following on from last month’s promos of Noura Mint Seymali’s ‘Tzenni’ and Corey Harris’ ‘Fulton Blues’ we are sticking in that groove. This is not the first Rough Guide CD with this title but this is the most recent and features a free bonus album of Etran Finatawa’s frontman Alhousseini Anivolla’s 2012 solo debut ‘Anewal / The Walking Man’. The 14-track Disc One sets its stall out from early doors kicking off with Ali Farka Toure’s ‘Yer Mali Gakoyoyo’ then alternating between Senegal and Mali with Amadou Diagne’s ‘Jef Jel’, Ali’s sideman Samba Toure’s ‘Dam Dou’, Nuru Kane’s ‘Niang Balo and Tamikrest’s ‘Tamiditin’. Next up is the West African Blues Project led by Modou Toure’s vocals on ‘Lalumbe’. Then back to the Saharan blues with Bombino’s powerful ‘Adounia (Life)’.
Just when you feel like it’s all revolving around the Sahel the second half of the album stretches out to the opposite end of the continent with Malagasy singers Nogabe Randriaharimalala’s ‘Miraisahina (Unity)’ and Lala Njava’s ‘Blues Song’, the title track of her album that was a Nubiart Promo of the Month earlier this year. Back on the mainland Zambia’s Dominic Kakolobango chips in with some fine finger-picking guitar work on ‘Gueza Tabiya’. Mozambique’s elder Dilon Djindji tells of meeting a woman who looks just like his wife on ‘Sofala’. The album then heads north to Ethiopian Menelik Wesnatchew and the classic ‘Tezeta’ from the Ethiopiques catalogue. From next door Sudan Amira Kheir gives us ‘Ahel Allel’. The album rounds of with La Reunion’s greatest maloya artist Danyel Waro with ‘Naile’.
The bonus album from the Nigerien Alhousseini Anivolla is classic desert blues with more emphasis on acoustic reflection than standard rockout and electronic distortion throughout the 11 tracks. Anivolla had wanted to return to his roots after travelling the world with Etran Finatawa hence the title as he remembers his nomadic past traversing the Sahel. He plays all the instruments here – guitar, bass and percussion. The album kicks off with ‘Immousan’, a message to the elders to pass on their wisdom to the younger generation. The instrumental ‘Attareach’, originally appeared in the documentary ‘Endless Journey’, which tells how Anivolla and several other musicians toured Nigerien schools and youth centres. Anivolla released a video for ‘Imadanan Id’Madiaka’ which addresses the land disputes between farmers and nomadic shepherds. Our favourite track is ‘Aiytma’ featuring the ethereal voice of South African songbird Malebo Mothema.
NUBIART LIBRARY – JULY MEDIA
We will only review books we have read and DVDs we have seen and that are available at reasonable prices online or in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and film production there may be books and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
~ ‘LOOK HOW FAR WE’VE COME: THE RACE / RACISM PRIMER’ – Kwaku [African Histories Revisited. ISBN: 978-0-9928564-2-7] This wide-ranging resource book grew out of a conference - ‘Look How Far We’ve Come: Getting Racism Back on the Agenda’ – organised by BTWSC. As well as including the presentations there are thought-provoking articles on education, employment, police brutality, institutional racism, local authority provision, business, music, culture, religion and the effects (often damaging) of legislative changes. The touchstones are the Bristol Bus Boycott of the 1960s, the rise of the Labour Party Black Sections in the 1980s and the origins of ‘Black History Month’ in the late 1980s. Midway through the book there is a helpful glossary of terms and events that reveal how history and language have been abused, misused, undermined and hidden to perpetuate the cynical oppression of people of colour and the negation of their history and agency.
We know that the editor’s special focus is on the music industry - some of which is touched on here - and as well as pushing for June to be designated Black Music Month in Britain he has also campaigned to ‘Get A Brit on the Bill’ when international artists from abroad perform here. He runs courses to educate aspiring musicians about all aspects of the business side of the music business to ensure that Afrikans get proper rewards for their efforts and are properly represented in all areas of the music industry not just as performers creating product for others to live off.
With a wide range of contributors many of the discussions, concerns and challenges we face as Afrikans are well-reflected. ‘Look How Far We’ve Come’ is an essential resource for those who want to know the contribution Afrikans have made to improve the quality of life in Britain and point the way forward for the work that still needs to be done.
~ BRITISH BLACK MUSIC MONTH 2014 MUSIC BIZ EMPOWERMENT HALF-DAY COURSES. Accessible, affordable, short courses to empower and drive your music industry plans. Small classes, where you can get answers to your questions, improve your knowledge base and confidence. Led by seasoned music industry tutor Kwaku. Elements culled from BTWSC’s ONC level 2 accredited Music Industry Overview course. In association with BTWSC and Akoben Awards.
- Thurs July 24
10.30-1pm: Record Label Management
2-4.30pm: Music Marketing
At Voluntary Action Westminster (VAW), 37 Chapel Street, London, NW1 5DP. Adm: £25 per course. Booking: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-biz-empowerment-half-day-courses-tickets-11821447267?aff=eorg Web: www.BBM.eventbrite.com / www.BritishBlackMusic.com
~ CHI CREATIONS EVENTS
- The Family Retreat. On Fri 25 - Mon 28 July at Etherly Farm, Dorking, RH5 6PA.
- The Griot Way Storytelling Training. On 17-19 Oct, 13-15 Feb 2015 and 15-17 May 2015 at Etherly Farm, Dorking, RH5 6PA.
E-mail: Info@shanti-chi.com Web: www.shanti-chi.com
~ FIND YOUR VOICE PROUDLY PRESENTS ‘YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR WEALTH: INCLUDING THE POWER OF WATER & THE POWER OF YOUR MIND’. Panel members: Sister Diane Powell, entrepreneur, business consultant & lecturer; Brother Abeng, well-known motivation speaker through his workshops on body energy; Brother Sunny, lecturer & expert on the psychology of money and investment; Minister Robert, specialist on the power of the mind in fulfilling your potential; Hesketh Benoit, well-known lecturer & expert in encouraging youth entrepreneurship; and Herold the Angel: international motivational speaker - focusing on the power of water. On Sat 26 July at 4.30–7pm at Park View Academy, West Green Road, London, N15 3RB. Adm: £5. Tel Brother Dougie on 07960 239 493 or 07882 403 871. E-mail: findyourvoice@hotmail.co.uk
~ BLACK HISTORY STUDIES UNIA-ACL CENTENARY EVENTS
- ‘Sankofa Saturdays’ screening of ‘Stepping Razor: Red X’. On Sat 26 July at 5-8pm at the Marcus Garvey Library, Tottenham Green Centre, 1 Phillip Lane, Tottenham, London, N15 4JA. Adm: Free. ‘Stepping Razor: Red X’ explores the life of the late Peter Tosh, reggae artist, Jamaican folk hero, prophet and radical political activist. Based on his personal taped diaries, the Red X tapes, the film reveals the inner thoughts of this volatile musician. Told by interviews with his mother, father and friends it charts the meteoric rise to fame of Peter from ‘The Wailing Wailer” to ‘The Wailers’ his disillusionment with Marley career and his fights with various record labels. Archival interviews with Tosh and rare concert footage fill out this picture of the Rasta visionary.
- ‘Crisis In The Village: Restoring The Black Family’ presentation. On Wed 30 July at 7-9pm at the PCS Headquarters, 160 Falcon Road, Clapham Junction, London, SW11 2LN. Adm: £5 / Under 16 - Free. In this interactive and thought provoking presentation, Empress Jai will be exploring and discussing the Black family. Black families have been diagnosed, judged, criticized, and stereotyped. At times branded as the root source of many problems in our community. Now let’s tell it like it is.
For all events tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ UNIA-ACL @100 (CENTENNIAL) CELEBRATION AND INTERNATIONAL REPARATIONS AND EMANCIPATION DAY MARCH TO PARLIAMENT. The 1833 Abolition Act gave enslavers £20 million in compensation; enslaved Africans in the Caribbean got nothing! About half of the compensation was paid directly to absentee holders in Britain. They included over 100 MPs who sat in Parliament between 1820 and 1835; also included were more than 110 Church of England ministers. They were identified in the records of the Compensation Commission as either owners, trustees or executors. The compensation money, the final pay-off to the enslavers, helped to build railways and country mansions, to fund art collections, charities and to build modern Britain. On Fri 1 Aug at 11am at Windrush Square, London, SW2 1RW. Tel: Prophet Jah B – 07904 632 430 / Gabre Wolde - 07404 980 529 / Jachin McKoy – 07904 281 542. Web: https://evbdn.eventbrite.com/s3-s3/eventlogos/46952395/addraper18513.jpg
Sign the “WE CHARGE GENOCIDE” Petition NOW!!! http://www.change.org/petitions/the-british-state-including-the-monarchy-parliament-and-the-government-to-establish-an-all-party-parliamentary-commission-of-inquiry-for-truth-justice-and-reparations?recruiter=24063277&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm
~ ALKEBU-LAN REVIVALIST MOVEMENT PRESENT THE MOSIAH MONTH NATIONAL TOUR OF SENGHOR JAWARA BAYE, PRESIDENT GENERAL OF THE UNIA-ACL.
- ‘Mosiah Opening Ceremony’. On Fri 1 Aug at 6.30-10.30pm at Chestnuts Community Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN.
- ‘ACSHO 50th Anniversary’. On Sat 2 Aug at 6pm at 104 Heathfield Rd, Handsworth, Birmingham, B19 1HU.
- ‘100 Years of Garveyism and the UNIA-ACL’. On Sun 3 Aug at 3-9pm at Karibu Education Centre, 7 Gresham Road, London, SW9 7PH.
- ‘Mosiah Tuesdays’ at 7-10pm at 282 High Road Leyton, London, E10 5PW.
- ‘Mosiah Storm’. On Fri 29 Aug at 7-11pm at the Phoenix Center, 73 Oxford Street. London, W1D 3EP.
For all info tel: 020 8539 2154 / 07908 814 152. E-mail: arm6227@yahoo.co.uk
~ THE GREAT AFRIKAN BOOK SALE! Every book and CD is on sale at 50% off or more! There are over 5000 titles in the sale - never before have so many Afrikan interest books been offered on this scale in a sale. The finances raised will go towards the development of the MAA MAAT Project. On Fri & Sat at 5-10pm and Sat & Sun at 12- 8pm at Maa Maat Centre, 366a High Road, Tottenham, London, N17 9HT. Tel 07956 052 821.
~ KISKIRINE EVENTS PRESENT AFRICAN SHOWCASE MARKET & FESTIVAL. The market promises to have on display the best of Afrikan artifacts, music, food, dance and other cultural memorabilia. There will be live performances by artistes from North, East, South and West Afrika: We will also have drum workshop, acoustic, Kente workshop, choreographer. And head-gear wrapping seminar, drumming workshop crash course and many other Afrikan cultural classes. There will be over 40 market stalls all displaying authentic Afrikan products and services. Be sure to be part of the fun-filled event. And let us use the opportunity to showcase the inherent beauty of Afrikan cultures to the Afrophiles who live in the great borough of Barking and Dagenham. On Wed 13 Aug at 10am-7pm at Market Square, Town Centre, Barking, IG11 8DQ. Adm: Free. Tel: 020 8904 4514 / 07956 675 412. E-mail: info@kiskirineevents.org Web: www.kiskirineevents.org / www.africanshowcasemarket.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9097817831
~ BFI AFRICAN ODYSSEYS PRESENT ‘WE LOVE CARNIVAL’. Films being screened: ‘Looking for Claudia Jones’; Mas in the Ghetto: Notting Hill Carnival 1973’; ‘Interview with Leslie Palmer’; ‘Summer ‘76 Carnival’; and ‘Panorama: Festival of the Pans Part 1’. Plus talks by Alex Pascal, Nia Reynolds, Donald Hinds, Anthony Perry, Dalton Narine, Leslie Palmer and Corinne Skinner-Carter. On Sat 16 Aug at 11am-5.30pm in NFT3 at BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, South Bank, London, SE1 8XT. Adm: £8. Box Office: 020 7928 3232.
~ BUNDU DIA KONGO (BDK). Afrikan cultural and spiritual group working towards the spiritual and psychological growth and development of Afrikans all over the world. Let us make a positive change now. Learn about Afrikan prophets, Afrikan history and Afrikan spiritual practices at our weekly Zikua.
- Sun at 1.30–4.30pm at Chestnuts Community & Arts Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN. Tel: Makaba - 07951 059 853.
- Sun at 12.30–3.15pm at Malika House, 81 George Street, Lozells, Birmingham, B19 1Sl. Tel: Mbuta Mayala – 07404 789 329.
~ THE AUSAR AUSET SOCIETY GI GONG CLASSES. Every Monday at 7.30–9pm at Hazel Road Community Centre, Hazel Road, Kensal Green, London, NW10 5PP. Adm: £5 per class. Tel: 07951- 252-427. E-mail: Tauinetwork.europe@gmail.com
Contact: Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165, London, SE5 8WU. Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read at www.ligali.org
External Links
Afrikan Quest International
Police failures contributed to Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce’s death, whose shooting triggered the 1985 Brixton riots, an inquest jury has found. Mrs Groce was shot by police looking for her son Michael and left paralysed from the waist down. She died of kidney failure in 2011. Her son was never charged for any offences in connection with the police raid.
Michael Groce was named as an alibi for an armed robber by Hertfordshire Police Force. Eventually, an alert went out that Michael Groce had fired on police even though he hadn’t. Compare the similarities with the police killing of Mark Duggan in 2011 to see how little has changed.
Hertfordshire Police never informed the Metropolitan Police that they were coming to London looking for Michael leading to disputes and recriminations among the different police forces. Due to the manifest weakness of their position the Met and Hertfordshire forces never really fought the inquest case once it reached court.
The jury at Southwark Coroner’s Court found there were eight failures made by police during the raid on the morning of Sep 28 1985 and Cherry Groce’s “subsequent death was contributed to by failures in the planning and implementation of the raid”. These included not properly briefing police officers that Mr Groce was no longer wanted by police, failing to adequately check who lived at the property or to carry out adequate observations on the house. On the morning of the shooting, four children were inside the home. The jury also concluded that officers should have called off the raid entirely during a police briefing but failed to do so. However, they found there was no failure by police to call off the raid once it had begun. A firearms specialist at the time said the raid on the Groce’s Normandy Road home should have been aborted. There was no surveillance of the address as there was a pub next door and police now claimed they were scared of being spotted by the Afrikan drinkers there.
Cherry Groce, a mother-of-eight, passed away 26 years after the shooting in 2011, at the age of 63, from an illness directly linked to the gunshot injury. Pathologist Dr Robert Chapman said that during a post-mortem examination he found small metal fragments from the bullet still lodged in the base of her spine. Mrs Groce had also become more susceptible to debilitating illnesses as a result of the injury.
Her shooting by Metropolitan Police Inspector Douglas Lovelock sparked two days of unrest in Brixton as the community pressed their demands for justice over the shooting of an innocent woman in her own house in front of her children.
Lovelock was drinking heavily the night before and he himself said he should not have been on the raid. He admitted being responsible for the wound and stood trial in 1987 charged with inflicting unlawful and malicious grievous bodily harm but was acquitted in a manifest miscarriage of justice typical of the British legal system.
In Mrs Groce’s statement, heard by her family for the first time after 29 years, she said that as she lay bleeding, police continued to shout at her asking if she knew where Michael was. It only emerged later that he was not even a suspect but his name had been given as an alibi but there was no further need to speak to him. The family were not involved in Lovelock’s criminal trial apart from Cherry Groce as a witness. As a sample of the contempt for which the police have for Afrikan life the police left Cherry Groce shot on the floor and went to comfort the shooter instead and an officer at the time said being shot was just like having a baby!!!
After the hearing, Mrs Groce’s son Lee Lawrence, who was 11 when he saw his mother shot, said: “After that shooting, my mum was left paralysed and we suffered in silence. The inquest has given us the only opportunity to get down to the truth about what really happened the day she was shot. She couldn’t feel her legs. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she was going to die,” said Mr Lawrence, 29 years on. I’ll never forget - we were at the window as children - crying, watching her go into the ambulance.
“We have always known that the shooting of our mum was not an accident. For 29 years the police have had a copy of the report which clearly identifies the multiple, serious failures behind the shooting. However, that report was not shared with my family until the run up to this inquest.
The verdict of this jury serves to break the silence in which we have suffered since the shooting in September 1985. My mum is the hero in this: she inspired us as a family to fight for the truth. Today the truth is our victory.”
The children became carers for their mother. “There was no manual. No support. No counselling. We had to roll up our sleeves.” Lee Lawrence, Mrs Groce’s son, said:
Mr Lawrence led the campaign to get legal aid for an inquest into his mother’s death, including taking a petition with 131,000 signatures to 10 Downing Street. Ministers eventually overturned the decision to block legal aid. Now the inquest is over, Mr Lawrence said he planned to channel his energy into the Cherry Groce Foundation.
Through the charity, which supports people who have become disabled and their carers, he says he hopes his mother’s legacy will live on. “She was loving, caring and understanding, so our house was a welcoming place. She had a big collection of vinyl and was always playing music in the house. She listened to Al Green, Otis Redding and Percy Sledge - these were the characters we grew up with. My mother had long enough to nurture us.”
Garden Court’s Barrister Dexter Dias for the Groce family highlighted how serving Met officers unnecessarily put life at risk. During the course of two intense weeks in the Southwark coroner’s court the jury heard police statements read out denigrating ‘coloured’ youth and perpetuating their lies about the innate criminality of Afrikans. Afterwards Dias pointed out that the drastic reduction of access to public funding for inquests is but part of a campaign of devastation and despoliation of legal aid that this government has unleashed on the justice system.
This fundamental assault on access to justice is deeply injurious to the public interest and protects perpetrators of wrongdoing and malfeasance in public office. As such, it is an affront to our nation’s international obligations to ensure the effective scrutiny of the contentious death of citizens at the hand of the state.
Deborah Coles, co-director of INQUEST said: “The shooting of Cherry Groce was devastating for her and her family. Their 29 year struggle for accountability included a lengthy battle to obtain public funding to be represented at the inquest, in circumstances where apparently unlimited funds are available to the Commissioner and individual police officers. Legal aid ensured the first and only rigorous public examination of the evidence which has resulted in today’s welcome conclusion.
“It is vital both for the family and public interest that when citizens are shot by police officers, there is a robust and fearless inquiry into the appropriateness and lawfulness of that use of force. However cuts to legal aid mean that similar cases may well not receive this kind of vital public scrutiny.
“Cherry Groce’s shooting also raised important concerns about the oppressive policing of the black community and the use of lethal force by the police generally: concerns as pertinent now as they were three decades ago.”
Acquired by Tomas E. Gaston
THE POLICE KILLING OF ERIC GARNER
Eric Garner, an Afrikan-American has been killed during an arrest in New York on Thurs 17 July after being held in an illegal neck chokehold by an NYPD officer from the 120th Precinct. Garner, 43, is said to have suffered a heart attack while struggling with five officers who slammed his face into the concrete while forcibly trying to handcuff him. Garner, an asthmatic, repeated at least eight times that he couldn’t breathe as he was forcibly detained on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on Thursday but the police ignored his pleas until his body went limp.
Garner was sitting down outside Bay Beauty on Bay St. and Victory Blvd in Staten Island just before 5 pm having just broken up a fight between two other men when police approached him and said they had observed him selling loose cigarettes.
“Before they even grabbed him, he told them he wasn’t feeling good and that’s why I pulled the camera out and started recording,” witness Ramsey Orta said. “They jumped him and they were choking him. He was foaming at the mouth and that’s it, he was done. The cops were saying, ‘No, he’s OK, he’s OK.’ He wasn’t OK.”
The New York Daily News
In the video of the incident, obtained by the New York Daily News, Garner can be seen arguing with officers as they attempted to detain him, saying: “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today,” Garner shouts. “I’m minding my business please just leave me alone.” An officer put his arm around Garner’s neck and several other men forced him down on to the sidewalk, where he could be heard saying: “I can’t breathe.”
Staten Island prosecutors and detectives from the internal affairs division have opened probes, the New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said. A spokesman for New York Police Department declined to comment. A post-mortem examination was scheduled for Friday, though results have yet to be announced.
Garner, who was married and had six children, died of a heart attack confirmed on his arrival at Richmond University Medical Center. “When I kissed my husband this morning, I never thought it would be for the last time. They harassed and harassed my husband until they killed him.”
Garner’s wife, Esaw said. Her husband was unable to work because he suffered from a host of ailments, including chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea. She got no details from police until after she had gone to the hospital to identify his body, she said. “I saw him with his eyes wide open and I said, ‘Babe, don’t leave me, I need you.’ But he was already gone,” she said.
The mother of Eric Garner’s youngest
child, Jewel Miller, and their 3-month-old
baby on Friday on Staten Island. Credit
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
The investigation will be led by Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, with assistance from NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau. At the center of the inquiry is the officer’s use of a chokehold that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago. “As defined in the department’s patrol guide, this would appear to have been a chokehold,” the police commissioner, William J. Bratton has directed a review of the NYPD’s policy on the use of chokeholds. He referred to police rules that forbid chokeholds and define them as including “any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.”
The Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent city agency that investigates allegations of police abuse, logged 233 allegations involving chokeholds in 2013, making up 4.4 percent of the excessive-force complaints it received. Of those, only two cases were substantiated, and for the vast majority – more than 60% of the allegations from that year – it was claimed there was not enough evidence to determine what happened.
For years Mr Garner condemned police harassment. In 2007, he filed a handwritten complaint in federal court accusing a police officer of conducting a cavity search of him on the street, “digging his fingers in my rectum in the middle of the street” while people passed by. More recently, Mr. Garner told Legal Aid lawyers that he intended to take all the cases against him to trial. “He was adamant he wouldn’t plead guilty to anything,” said Christopher Pisciotta, the lead lawyer at the Staten Island office of Legal Aid.
A post by kjohns2001 clearly reflects the concern of Garner’s family, Afrikans in general and all right-thinking people worldwide: “Just in case anyone is keeping up with the comments. Please note that while the charge was selling cigs, the man claimed he wasn’t, and witnesses on the scene said he was not selling cigs, but only broke up the fight the cops had originally been called about. Once they had witnesses saying he was not selling, and finding him with none on him, it went from a legitimate arrest to harassment and then murder. THAT is why so many are mad over this, they read the article and comprehended what had happened.”
SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIANS
We at Nubiart Diary repeat our solidarity with the Palestinians who have faced four millennia of ethnic cleansing, land expropriation, assaults, incarceration and exile as a result of the colonisation of their land and property by the Habiru / Hebrew / Yehudi / Israelites / Israelis and the British. This is the second longest anti-imperialist struggle in world history. We, as Afrikans, know what they are facing as we have faced similar yet even more wide-ranging assaults on our well-being, culture and spirituality by the people who claim a manifest destiny to travel through any land and claim ownership of all on it regardless of any competing ownership claims, better use or any notions of first ancestor on the land.
As Afrikans we have faced the Hebrew propaganda when they denigrate us threw their invention and propagation of the Hamite / Canaanite Myth and their unfounded claims that they built the pyramids and other monuments while they were enslaved in Egypt / Kemet under the Ramesside period. There is no historical or literary evidence that such events occurred in the way the Hebrews claim. Indeed, there are even payslips for the workers who were engaged on building projects when the Nile would not allow for agriculture or related trades. The only time when Hebrews were recorded as playing any major part in Egyptian life is as the Hyksos and all genuine views on that period is that it was an overwhelmingly negative time that regressed the dynastic progress Egypt made under Afrikan rule.
The Hebrew imperialism that they have expressed both militarily and culturally since they left Ur of the Chaldees and its adoption by Christians, Muslims, Yehudi and ‘atheists’ as their core reference points has led to the ongoing crises in the world. It was the Hebrews who brought the concepts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, mass rape, land expropriation and despoliation - as expressed in their ‘fantastical’ creation mythology - into the region claiming it was a unique vision they were given by their ‘God’. It was from this that the idea that other human beings are less of a human and other spiritual beliefs could be denigrated came into being. There are only two real concepts in the world: the ‘Afrikan Worldview’ which is also shared by many other pro-humanity indigenous cultures across the world; and the opposing often called the ‘European Worldview’ which is a combination of the Hebrew creation fiction, Graeco-Roman imperialism, European medieval madness and ‘scientific racism’.
Anti-imperialist solidarity for the Palestinian people is not support for Islamism as our relations with the Palestinians and the other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean go back 6.000 years before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad and several millennia before even the Hebrews claim their God invented the world. Under the Hebrew mythology their first ancestors meet other people – that is the beginning of spreading the view that other humans are less than human, sub-human. Their spiritual and cultural beliefs are never given due consideration. Even though we have had periods of differences with the Palestinians / Philistines we never considered them less than human and never sought the complete dispossession and removal of a people in the way that has become a trademark of Israeli imperialism. Humanity, justice and world progress demands this of us.
Okwiri Oduor
OKWIRI ODUOR WINS 2014 CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING
“And yet it was not my father I was mourning. I was mourning the image of myself inside the impossible aura of my father’s death.” – Okwiri Oduor, ‘My Father’s Head’
Nairobi-based author Okwiri Oduor has won the 15th Caine Prize for Afrikan Writing for her short story ’My Father’s Head‘ from ‘Feast, Famine and Potluck’ published by Short Story Day Africa.
We attended the first readings of the Caine Prize nominees in Brixton. Now in its fifteenth year, the annual £10,000 award is for English-language short stories written by Afrikan authors. Oduor had been shortlisted along with South Africa’s Diane Awerbuck for her short story ‘Phosphorescence’, Efemia Chela from Ghana and Zambia for ‘Chicken’, Zimbabwe’s Tendai Huchu for ‘The Intervention’, and Kenya’s ‘Billy Kahora’ – who was unable to attend the first reading - for ‘The Gorilla’s Apprentice’. The runners-up will take home £500 prize money. The panel of judges was chaired by author Jackie Kay MBE and included the novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, Zimbabwean journalist Percy Zvomuya, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Georgetown Nicole Rizzuto and the winner of the Caine Prize in 2001 Helon Habila.
Oduor’s story begins with the narrator’s attempts to remember what her father’s face looked like as she struggles to cope with his passing and looks at the themes of memory, loss and loneliness. The narrator works in an old people’s home and comes into contact with a priest, giving her the courage to recall her buried memories of her father.
Oduor will take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. She directed the inaugural Writivism Literary Festival in Kampala, Uganda, in August 2013. Her novella, ’The Dream Chasers’ was highly commended in the Commonwealth Book Prize, 2012. She is a 2014 MacDowell Colony fellow and is currently at work on her debut novel.
FORTHCOMING NUBIART PROFILES
NUBIART: Focus on arts, business, education, health, political developments and the media.
JULY PROMOS
~ ‘THE ROUGH GUIDE TO AFRICAN BLUES’ – Various Artists [Riverboat Records / World Music Network – Out Now] Following on from last month’s promos of Noura Mint Seymali’s ‘Tzenni’ and Corey Harris’ ‘Fulton Blues’ we are sticking in that groove. This is not the first Rough Guide CD with this title but this is the most recent and features a free bonus album of Etran Finatawa’s frontman Alhousseini Anivolla’s 2012 solo debut ‘Anewal / The Walking Man’. The 14-track Disc One sets its stall out from early doors kicking off with Ali Farka Toure’s ‘Yer Mali Gakoyoyo’ then alternating between Senegal and Mali with Amadou Diagne’s ‘Jef Jel’, Ali’s sideman Samba Toure’s ‘Dam Dou’, Nuru Kane’s ‘Niang Balo and Tamikrest’s ‘Tamiditin’. Next up is the West African Blues Project led by Modou Toure’s vocals on ‘Lalumbe’. Then back to the Saharan blues with Bombino’s powerful ‘Adounia (Life)’.
Just when you feel like it’s all revolving around the Sahel the second half of the album stretches out to the opposite end of the continent with Malagasy singers Nogabe Randriaharimalala’s ‘Miraisahina (Unity)’ and Lala Njava’s ‘Blues Song’, the title track of her album that was a Nubiart Promo of the Month earlier this year. Back on the mainland Zambia’s Dominic Kakolobango chips in with some fine finger-picking guitar work on ‘Gueza Tabiya’. Mozambique’s elder Dilon Djindji tells of meeting a woman who looks just like his wife on ‘Sofala’. The album then heads north to Ethiopian Menelik Wesnatchew and the classic ‘Tezeta’ from the Ethiopiques catalogue. From next door Sudan Amira Kheir gives us ‘Ahel Allel’. The album rounds of with La Reunion’s greatest maloya artist Danyel Waro with ‘Naile’.
The bonus album from the Nigerien Alhousseini Anivolla is classic desert blues with more emphasis on acoustic reflection than standard rockout and electronic distortion throughout the 11 tracks. Anivolla had wanted to return to his roots after travelling the world with Etran Finatawa hence the title as he remembers his nomadic past traversing the Sahel. He plays all the instruments here – guitar, bass and percussion. The album kicks off with ‘Immousan’, a message to the elders to pass on their wisdom to the younger generation. The instrumental ‘Attareach’, originally appeared in the documentary ‘Endless Journey’, which tells how Anivolla and several other musicians toured Nigerien schools and youth centres. Anivolla released a video for ‘Imadanan Id’Madiaka’ which addresses the land disputes between farmers and nomadic shepherds. Our favourite track is ‘Aiytma’ featuring the ethereal voice of South African songbird Malebo Mothema.
NUBIART LIBRARY – JULY MEDIA
We will only review books we have read and DVDs we have seen and that are available at reasonable prices online or in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and film production there may be books and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
~ ‘LOOK HOW FAR WE’VE COME: THE RACE / RACISM PRIMER’ – Kwaku [African Histories Revisited. ISBN: 978-0-9928564-2-7] This wide-ranging resource book grew out of a conference - ‘Look How Far We’ve Come: Getting Racism Back on the Agenda’ – organised by BTWSC. As well as including the presentations there are thought-provoking articles on education, employment, police brutality, institutional racism, local authority provision, business, music, culture, religion and the effects (often damaging) of legislative changes. The touchstones are the Bristol Bus Boycott of the 1960s, the rise of the Labour Party Black Sections in the 1980s and the origins of ‘Black History Month’ in the late 1980s. Midway through the book there is a helpful glossary of terms and events that reveal how history and language have been abused, misused, undermined and hidden to perpetuate the cynical oppression of people of colour and the negation of their history and agency.
We know that the editor’s special focus is on the music industry - some of which is touched on here - and as well as pushing for June to be designated Black Music Month in Britain he has also campaigned to ‘Get A Brit on the Bill’ when international artists from abroad perform here. He runs courses to educate aspiring musicians about all aspects of the business side of the music business to ensure that Afrikans get proper rewards for their efforts and are properly represented in all areas of the music industry not just as performers creating product for others to live off.
With a wide range of contributors many of the discussions, concerns and challenges we face as Afrikans are well-reflected. ‘Look How Far We’ve Come’ is an essential resource for those who want to know the contribution Afrikans have made to improve the quality of life in Britain and point the way forward for the work that still needs to be done.
Eric Garner’s family are mourning the loss of him. (Sam Costanza, New York Daily News)
Nubiart Diary
~ BRITISH BLACK MUSIC MONTH 2014 MUSIC BIZ EMPOWERMENT HALF-DAY COURSES. Accessible, affordable, short courses to empower and drive your music industry plans. Small classes, where you can get answers to your questions, improve your knowledge base and confidence. Led by seasoned music industry tutor Kwaku. Elements culled from BTWSC’s ONC level 2 accredited Music Industry Overview course. In association with BTWSC and Akoben Awards.- Thurs July 24
10.30-1pm: Record Label Management
2-4.30pm: Music Marketing
At Voluntary Action Westminster (VAW), 37 Chapel Street, London, NW1 5DP. Adm: £25 per course. Booking: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-biz-empowerment-half-day-courses-tickets-11821447267?aff=eorg Web: www.BBM.eventbrite.com / www.BritishBlackMusic.com
~ CHI CREATIONS EVENTS
- The Family Retreat. On Fri 25 - Mon 28 July at Etherly Farm, Dorking, RH5 6PA.
- The Griot Way Storytelling Training. On 17-19 Oct, 13-15 Feb 2015 and 15-17 May 2015 at Etherly Farm, Dorking, RH5 6PA.
E-mail: Info@shanti-chi.com Web: www.shanti-chi.com
~ FIND YOUR VOICE PROUDLY PRESENTS ‘YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR WEALTH: INCLUDING THE POWER OF WATER & THE POWER OF YOUR MIND’. Panel members: Sister Diane Powell, entrepreneur, business consultant & lecturer; Brother Abeng, well-known motivation speaker through his workshops on body energy; Brother Sunny, lecturer & expert on the psychology of money and investment; Minister Robert, specialist on the power of the mind in fulfilling your potential; Hesketh Benoit, well-known lecturer & expert in encouraging youth entrepreneurship; and Herold the Angel: international motivational speaker - focusing on the power of water. On Sat 26 July at 4.30–7pm at Park View Academy, West Green Road, London, N15 3RB. Adm: £5. Tel Brother Dougie on 07960 239 493 or 07882 403 871. E-mail: findyourvoice@hotmail.co.uk
~ BLACK HISTORY STUDIES UNIA-ACL CENTENARY EVENTS
- ‘Sankofa Saturdays’ screening of ‘Stepping Razor: Red X’. On Sat 26 July at 5-8pm at the Marcus Garvey Library, Tottenham Green Centre, 1 Phillip Lane, Tottenham, London, N15 4JA. Adm: Free. ‘Stepping Razor: Red X’ explores the life of the late Peter Tosh, reggae artist, Jamaican folk hero, prophet and radical political activist. Based on his personal taped diaries, the Red X tapes, the film reveals the inner thoughts of this volatile musician. Told by interviews with his mother, father and friends it charts the meteoric rise to fame of Peter from ‘The Wailing Wailer” to ‘The Wailers’ his disillusionment with Marley career and his fights with various record labels. Archival interviews with Tosh and rare concert footage fill out this picture of the Rasta visionary.
- ‘Crisis In The Village: Restoring The Black Family’ presentation. On Wed 30 July at 7-9pm at the PCS Headquarters, 160 Falcon Road, Clapham Junction, London, SW11 2LN. Adm: £5 / Under 16 - Free. In this interactive and thought provoking presentation, Empress Jai will be exploring and discussing the Black family. Black families have been diagnosed, judged, criticized, and stereotyped. At times branded as the root source of many problems in our community. Now let’s tell it like it is.
For all events tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ UNIA-ACL @100 (CENTENNIAL) CELEBRATION AND INTERNATIONAL REPARATIONS AND EMANCIPATION DAY MARCH TO PARLIAMENT. The 1833 Abolition Act gave enslavers £20 million in compensation; enslaved Africans in the Caribbean got nothing! About half of the compensation was paid directly to absentee holders in Britain. They included over 100 MPs who sat in Parliament between 1820 and 1835; also included were more than 110 Church of England ministers. They were identified in the records of the Compensation Commission as either owners, trustees or executors. The compensation money, the final pay-off to the enslavers, helped to build railways and country mansions, to fund art collections, charities and to build modern Britain. On Fri 1 Aug at 11am at Windrush Square, London, SW2 1RW. Tel: Prophet Jah B – 07904 632 430 / Gabre Wolde - 07404 980 529 / Jachin McKoy – 07904 281 542. Web: https://evbdn.eventbrite.com/s3-s3/eventlogos/46952395/addraper18513.jpg
Sign the “WE CHARGE GENOCIDE” Petition NOW!!! http://www.change.org/petitions/the-british-state-including-the-monarchy-parliament-and-the-government-to-establish-an-all-party-parliamentary-commission-of-inquiry-for-truth-justice-and-reparations?recruiter=24063277&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm
~ ALKEBU-LAN REVIVALIST MOVEMENT PRESENT THE MOSIAH MONTH NATIONAL TOUR OF SENGHOR JAWARA BAYE, PRESIDENT GENERAL OF THE UNIA-ACL.
- ‘Mosiah Opening Ceremony’. On Fri 1 Aug at 6.30-10.30pm at Chestnuts Community Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN.
- ‘ACSHO 50th Anniversary’. On Sat 2 Aug at 6pm at 104 Heathfield Rd, Handsworth, Birmingham, B19 1HU.
- ‘100 Years of Garveyism and the UNIA-ACL’. On Sun 3 Aug at 3-9pm at Karibu Education Centre, 7 Gresham Road, London, SW9 7PH.
- ‘Mosiah Tuesdays’ at 7-10pm at 282 High Road Leyton, London, E10 5PW.
- ‘Mosiah Storm’. On Fri 29 Aug at 7-11pm at the Phoenix Center, 73 Oxford Street. London, W1D 3EP.
For all info tel: 020 8539 2154 / 07908 814 152. E-mail: arm6227@yahoo.co.uk
~ THE GREAT AFRIKAN BOOK SALE! Every book and CD is on sale at 50% off or more! There are over 5000 titles in the sale - never before have so many Afrikan interest books been offered on this scale in a sale. The finances raised will go towards the development of the MAA MAAT Project. On Fri & Sat at 5-10pm and Sat & Sun at 12- 8pm at Maa Maat Centre, 366a High Road, Tottenham, London, N17 9HT. Tel 07956 052 821.
~ KISKIRINE EVENTS PRESENT AFRICAN SHOWCASE MARKET & FESTIVAL. The market promises to have on display the best of Afrikan artifacts, music, food, dance and other cultural memorabilia. There will be live performances by artistes from North, East, South and West Afrika: We will also have drum workshop, acoustic, Kente workshop, choreographer. And head-gear wrapping seminar, drumming workshop crash course and many other Afrikan cultural classes. There will be over 40 market stalls all displaying authentic Afrikan products and services. Be sure to be part of the fun-filled event. And let us use the opportunity to showcase the inherent beauty of Afrikan cultures to the Afrophiles who live in the great borough of Barking and Dagenham. On Wed 13 Aug at 10am-7pm at Market Square, Town Centre, Barking, IG11 8DQ. Adm: Free. Tel: 020 8904 4514 / 07956 675 412. E-mail: info@kiskirineevents.org Web: www.kiskirineevents.org / www.africanshowcasemarket.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9097817831
~ BFI AFRICAN ODYSSEYS PRESENT ‘WE LOVE CARNIVAL’. Films being screened: ‘Looking for Claudia Jones’; Mas in the Ghetto: Notting Hill Carnival 1973’; ‘Interview with Leslie Palmer’; ‘Summer ‘76 Carnival’; and ‘Panorama: Festival of the Pans Part 1’. Plus talks by Alex Pascal, Nia Reynolds, Donald Hinds, Anthony Perry, Dalton Narine, Leslie Palmer and Corinne Skinner-Carter. On Sat 16 Aug at 11am-5.30pm in NFT3 at BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, South Bank, London, SE1 8XT. Adm: £8. Box Office: 020 7928 3232.
~ BUNDU DIA KONGO (BDK). Afrikan cultural and spiritual group working towards the spiritual and psychological growth and development of Afrikans all over the world. Let us make a positive change now. Learn about Afrikan prophets, Afrikan history and Afrikan spiritual practices at our weekly Zikua.
- Sun at 1.30–4.30pm at Chestnuts Community & Arts Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN. Tel: Makaba - 07951 059 853.
- Sun at 12.30–3.15pm at Malika House, 81 George Street, Lozells, Birmingham, B19 1Sl. Tel: Mbuta Mayala – 07404 789 329.
~ THE AUSAR AUSET SOCIETY GI GONG CLASSES. Every Monday at 7.30–9pm at Hazel Road Community Centre, Hazel Road, Kensal Green, London, NW10 5PP. Adm: £5 per class. Tel: 07951- 252-427. E-mail: Tauinetwork.europe@gmail.com
Contact: Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165, London, SE5 8WU. Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read at www.ligali.org
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