Heritage Walk Location 10: Activism

Liverpool 8, the traditional home of the city’s black and racial minority communities for over 100 years, has a long and proud history of political activism, resisting social injustice from the local to the global. Between 1980 and 1981 a wave of uprisings swept inner city areas across the UK in anger at the racist and brutal policing of black communities, social inequalities and entrenched institutional discrimination. In Liverpool, where racism was described by Lord Gifford as ‘uniquely horrific’, battles between the police and both black and white youth, raged for nine days in the longest of the civil disturbances. On the second day, the Liverpool 8 Defence Committee was formed with a mandate to monitor police behaviour, to offer support to those arrested and imprisoned, and assess the decisions of the judiciary. Just one year later, members of that committee had established the Liverpool 8 Law Centre in two Victorian mansions at 34-36 Princes Road. The Law Centre was a vital community service, providing free legal advice and representation, an Access to Law programme, a reference library and leadership in local, national and international campaigns.

34-36 Princes Road also became home to Liverpool Black Sisters which was renamed around 1979 from the Liverpool Black Women’s Group and was part of a national network. They campaigned on issues affecting women in their community and provided child-care and afterschool services, allowing local women to access employment and education. From the basement of the Law Centre they dreamt of developing their own building. The Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre, which opened in 2004, grew out of that dream. Merseyside Immigration Advice Unit (MIAU) was also housed within and supported by the Law Centre. Established in 1988, MIAU was a response to increasingly repressive immigration controls.

In the face of acute racism within the education system Elimu Wa Nane was established in 1979 in the Methodist Centre, providing afterschool activities to meet the needs of young learners from Liverpool 8. Between 1994 and 1998 the renamed Elimu Study School operated from Streatlam Tower as an alternative to mainstream secondary education.

These organisations, housed on Princes Boulevard, evolved from a long involvement in the struggle for racial equality by Liverpool’s black communities. They followed such organisations as the League of Coloured People which formed in 1920 following anti-black race riots that erupted in British seaports in 1919 and the Colonial Defence Committee, formed to raise legal defence funds following further anti-black rioting in 1948.

The Boulevard has been the site of protest in defence of local communities and peoples across the globe, hosting countless demonstrations such as those campaigning for safe crossings to those that stood in solidarity with the people of South Africa against the Apartheid regime.

Gratitude is owed to all those activists who came before us as we continue to strive for equality and justice.