121 Centre

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121 Centre
121 Railton Road in 2023.jpg
121 in 2023
121 Centre
Address121 Railton Road
London
England
Type Squatted autonomous social centre

121 Centre was a squatted self-managed social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London from 1981 until 1999. As an anarchist social centre, the venue hosted a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting space, office space, printing facility, and rehearsal space. Organisations using the space included Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group. Regular events at 121 Centre included punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night. [1] The centre kept a low profile [2] and was one of the longest-lasting squats in London. [1]

Contents

Original occupation

121 Railton Road was first squatted by Olive Morris in 1973. Sabaar Books was established there before moving elsewhere. The centre then became an anarchist social centre. [3]

Activities

During the 1981 Brixton riots, the centre was left untouched. [4] In 1983, the centre hosted people coming to London for the Stop the City demonstration. [5] The Kate Sharpley Library (KSL) was founded at the 121 in 1979 by, among others, Albert Meltzer. [6] From 1993 onwards, the venue hosted industrial, speedcore, and gabber electronic music events, such as the Sate industrial nights. The social centre was a networking centre for these experimental subgenres. [7] The Dead by Dawn club hosted London's hardest and fastest music between 1994 and 1996. Attendees shared aesthetic interests, including zines, lectures by Sadie Plant, and intellectual literature by the Situationists, Deleuze and Guattari, and William Burroughs. Unlike other club or party series, Dead by Dawn was conceived to be unique in its combination of discussions, videos, films, exhibitions, Internet access, and stalls. [8] The first Queeruption festival was held at 121 in 1998.

The centre was set on fire during a rise in right-wing violence in 1993. [9]

Eviction

The Lambeth London Borough Council obtained a court order to repossess the building in early 1999. The squatters responded with multiple actions to rally opposition: modifying billboards, wheatpasting protest fliers, publishing the South London Stress, and occupying Lambeth Town Hall with a "drink-in" protest of a new law against drinking in public. The Evening Standard reported their campaign as "highly efficient". As the eviction date approached, the squatters barricaded themselves inside and held an all-day street party in April. An armed police force later removed the remaining occupants. [10] Rising property values were a core impetus for the building's repossession. [11]

Legacy

The Kate Sharpley Library collection is now held in California. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

Anarcho-punk is ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcore punk, folk punk, and other styles.

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Albert Isidore Meltzer was an English anarcho-communist activist and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infoshop</span> Space that serves as a node for the distribution of political, subcultural and radical information

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Sharpley Library</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Railton Road</span> Street in London Borough of Lambeth

Railton Road runs between Brixton and Herne Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth. The road is designated the B223. At the northern end of Railton Road it becomes Atlantic Road, linking to Brixton Road at a junction where the Brixton tube station is located. At the southern end is Herne Hill railway station.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olive Morris</span> Jamaican-born British community leader and activist (1952–1979)

Olive Elaine Morris was a Jamaican-born British-based community leader and activist in the feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the 1970s. At the age of 17, she claimed she was assaulted by Metropolitan Police officers following an incident involving a Nigerian diplomat in Brixton, South London. She joined the British Black Panthers, becoming a Marxist–Leninist communist and a radical feminist. She squatted buildings on Railton Road in Brixton; one hosted Sabarr Books and later became the 121 Centre, another was used as offices by the Race Today collective. Morris became a key organiser in the Black Women's Movement in the United Kingdom, co-founding the Brixton Black Women's Group and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in England and Wales</span> Occupation of unused land or derelict buildings in England and Wales

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liebig 34</span> Former anarchist squat in Berlin

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">56a Infoshop</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Road</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 McHenry, Keith; Bufe, Chaz (2015). The Anarchist Cookbook. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. p. 243. ISBN   978-1-937276-78-2. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  2. Monroe 2002, p. 151.
  3. Allotey, Emma. "Morris, Olive Elaine (1952–1979)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/100963.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Meltzer, Albert (1996). I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels: Sixty Years of Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation. AK Press. ISBN   9781873176931. Archived from the original on 25 February 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  5. Cross, Rich (2016). ""Stop the City showed another possibility": Mobilisation and movement in anarcho-punk". In Dines, Mike; Worley, Matthew (eds.). The Aesthetic of Our Anger. Anarcho-Punk, Politics and Music. Minor Compositions. ISBN   978-1-57027-318-6.
  6. Goodway, David (2008). "The Kate Sharpley Library". Anarchist Studies. 16 (1).
  7. Monroe, Alexei (2002). "Bread and (Rock) Circuses: Sites of Sonic Conflict in London". In Gilbert, Pamela K. (ed.). Imagined Londons. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. pp. 151–154. ISBN   978-0-7914-5501-2.
  8. St. John, Graham (2009). Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. Studies in Popular Music. London: Equinox Publishing. pp. 228–229. ISBN   978-1-84553-625-1.
  9. Bennett, John (2017). Mob Town: A History of Crime and Disorder in the East End. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 272. ISBN   978-0-300-22195-4.
  10. McHenry & Bufe 2015, pp. 243–245.
  11. Monroe 2002, p. 154.
  12. "Kate Sharpley Library". www.katesharpleylibrary.net. Retrieved 28 December 2021.

Coordinates: 51°27′28″N0°06′27″W / 51.4577°N 0.1076°W / 51.4577; -0.1076