It's Black History month and as I said, I'm bombarding you with educational threads all month long.

Let's kick it off with a little foray into the Black British Panthers

Most people associate the Black Panthers with the movement in the US - and rightly so - but the movement also inspired a UK chapter in 1968. Britain's Black population tripled to 1 million in the early 1960s, and racial tensions in the UK popped off in earnest.

Now the Black British Panthers (BBP) was founded by Nigerian Playwright Obi Egbuna, adopting the symbolism of military jackets, berets, and more. When Egbuna was arrested, most people don't know he was succeeded by a woman - Althea Jones Lecointe, a Ph.D. student from Trinidad.

The BPP tackled racial discrimination manifesting in housing, education, medicine, and the criminal justice system. Fun fact - they engaged in legal advocacy in defense of the famous Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill which was constantly harassed and raided by the police.

I'll do a separate thread on the UK criminal justice system and the Mangrove trial soon, but this was an important case as for the first time in UK history, a judge admitted that there was evidence of 'racial hatred' within the London police.

The BPP went on to create a Youth League, the Freedom News newspaper, and a 10,000+ people protest against the 1971 Immigration bill which targetted the reduction of non-white former colonial subjects.

In 1973 the BPP split into several factions and groups but continued to promote anti-racism, pan-Africanism, and black nationalism.

It is important to highlight the BPP because Britain has a long history of denying racism as a non-British problem and an international problem.

For further reading, Check out this paper by Anne-Marie Angelo: http://people.duke.edu/~aa76/Anne-Marie_Angelos_academic_site/Modern_America_files/RHR%20Angelo.pdf

And Obi Egbuna - Destroy this Temple: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000308736