The Mangrove was a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, London, England. It was founded in 1968 and run by civil rights activist Frank Crichlow, eventually closing in 1992. It is known for the trial of a group of British black activists dubbed "the Mangrove Nine", who were tried for inciting a riot at a 1970 protest against the police targeting the restaurant.
A small newspaper, The Hustler, was published on the premises, underlining the community aspect of the restaurant,[3] which also served as an informal head office for the Notting Hill Carnival.[4]
In 1969 the Mangrove restaurant became the target of police attention that seemed designed to close it down. It was raided 12 times between January 1969 and July 1970,[3] and in August that year a protest march was organised, demanding that police stop targeting the Mangrove. The protest ended in violence and the arrests of nine protesters (the "Mangrove Nine"), including Crichlow, Altheia Jones-LeCointe and Darcus Howe, on charges that included conspiracy to incite a riot.[5] Their 1971 trial – which featured an unsuccessful demand by Howe for an all-Black jury – ended with the acquittal of all nine on the incitement charges, and five of the nine, including Crichlow and Howe, on all charges.[6] The trial of the Mangrove Nine drew public attention to police racism, and turned the fight against it into a cause célèbre.[7]
Closure
8 All Saints Road in 2013, with a blue plaque commemorating Frank Crichlow's foundation of The Mangrove at the address
Rapid gentrification of the restaurant's neighbourhood in the 1980s once more led to increased police pressure.[4] The restaurant was raided twice in 1988, once by 48 police officers in riot gear, and Crichlow was charged with supplying heroin and cannabis, despite being known locally for his strong anti-drug stance. Held in custody for five weeks before being granted bail on conditions that prohibited him from going near the restaurant for a year,[2] Crichlow alleged that the police themselves had planted the drugs.[8] He was acquitted of all charges after the year was over, and in 1992 the Metropolitan Police paid him damages of £50,000 for false imprisonment, battery and malicious prosecution.[4][8] But both his year-long absence and changes in economic conditions had caused the restaurant to fail.[8] By 1992, it was closed, and the premises boarded up.[8]
Commemoration
The Little Yellow Door, a late-night cocktail bar and restaurant, now operates from the Mangrove's former address, outside which a blue plaque to honour Crichlow was unveiled on 4 December 2011 by the Nubian Jak Community Trust.[9]
In film
A documentary film, The Mangrove Nine (directed and co-produced by Franco Rosso, John La Rose co-produced and scripted it, and Horace Ové was an associate producer),[10] was made in 1973, and includes interviews with the defendants recorded before the final verdicts.[11]
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966 on the streets of the Notting Hill area of Kensington, over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The 1981 Brixton riot, or Brixton uprising, was a series of clashes between mainly black youths and the Metropolitan Police in Brixton, London, between 10 and 12 April 1981. It resulted from racist discrimination against the black community by the mainly white police, especially the police's increased use of stop-and-search in the area, and ongoing tensions resulting from the deaths of 13 black teenagers and young adults in the suspicious New Cross house fire that January. The main riot on 11 April, dubbed "Bloody Saturday" by Time magazine, resulted in 279 injuries to police and 45 injuries to members of the public; over a hundred vehicles were burned, including 56 police vehicles; almost 150 buildings were damaged, thirty of which were burnt out, and many shops were looted. There were 82 arrests. Reports suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved. The Brixton riot was followed by similar riots in July in many other English cities and towns. The Thatcher government commissioned an inquiry, which resulted in the Scarman Report.
Leighton Rhett Radford "Darcus" Howe was a British broadcaster, writer and racial justice campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, Howe arrived in England as a teenager in 1961, intending to study law and settling in London. There he joined the British Black Panthers, a group named in sympathy with the US Black Panther Party.
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.
Selma James is an American writer, and feminist and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, co-founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, and coordinator of the Global Women's Strike.
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.
Rhaune Laslett was an English community activist and the principal organiser of the Notting Hill Fayre or Festival, that evolved into the Notting Hill Carnival.
Frank Gilbert Crichlow was a British community activist and civil rights campaigner, who became known in 1960s London as a godfather of black power activism. He was a central figure in the Notting Hill Carnival. His restaurant, The Mangrove in All Saints Road, served for many years as the base from which activists, musicians, and artists organised the event.
Race Today was a monthly British political magazine. Launched in 1969 by the Institute of Race Relations, it was from 1973 published by the Race Today Collective, which included figures such as Darcus Howe, Farrukh Dhondy, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Leila Hassan and Jean Ambrose. The magazine was a leading organ of Black politics in 1970s Britain; publication ended in 1988.
The Mangrove Nine were a group of British Black activists tried for inciting a riot at a 1970 protest against the police targeting of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, West London. Their trial lasted 55 days and involved various challenges by the Nine to the legitimacy of the British judicial process. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.
The British Black Panthers (BBP) or the British Black Panther movement (BPM) was a Black Power organisation in the United Kingdom that fought for the rights of black people and racial minorities in the country. The BBP were inspired by the US Black Panther Party, though they were unaffiliated with them. The British Panthers adopted the principle of political blackness, which included activists of black as well as South Asian origin. The movement started in 1968 and lasted until around 1973.
Altheia Jones-LeCointe is a Trinidadian physician and research scientist also known for her role as a leader of the British Black Panther Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Jones-LeCointe came to public attention in 1970 as one of the nine protestors, known as the Mangrove Nine, arrested and tried on charges that included conspiracy to incite a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.
Barbara Beese is a British activist, writer, and former member of the British Black Panthers. She is most notable as one of the Black activists known as the Mangrove Nine, charged in 1970 with inciting a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, west London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.
Mangrove is a 2020 historical drama film directed by British director Steve McQueen and co-written by McQueen and Alastair Siddons, about the Mangrove restaurant in west London and the 1971 trial of the Mangrove Nine. It stars Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes, Malachi Kirby, Rochenda Sandall, Alex Jennings and Jack Lowden.
Leila Hassan Howe is a British editor and activist, who was a founding member of the Race Today Collective in 1973, having previously worked for the Institute of Race Relations. She became editor of the Race Today journal in 1986. Hassan was also a member of the Black Unity and Freedom Party. She is co-editor of a collection of writings from Race Today published in 2019.
Ian Alexander Macdonald QC was a Scottish barrister who was "a pioneer of committed anti-racist legal practice" in the UK. During the 1970s he appeared in many notable political and human rights cases, including those involving the Mangrove Nine, the Angry Brigade, and the Balcombe Street siege. He took silk in 1988 and was leader of the British bar in immigration law for five decades until his death at the age of 80.
Rhodan Gordon was a Black British community activist, who migrated to London from Grenada in the 1960s. He came to public attention in 1970 as one of the nine protestors, known as the Mangrove Nine, arrested and tried on charges that included conspiracy to incite a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.
Benedict Michael Birnberg was a British solicitor and a radical campaigner for human rights. Until his retirement in 1999, Birnberg was senior partner in the eponymous firm he founded in 1962, and he is considered a pioneer fighter against miscarriages of justice, who for more than 40 years "acted for clients ranging from the eccentric to the eclectic" – from high-profile cases to the "unfashionable".
All Saints Road is a street in London's Notting Hill district, best known as being an important centre for the UK's Afro-Caribbean community.
A history of institutional racism, dating back to at least the 1970s, has been acknowledged by the London Metropolitan Police. Statistics on stop and search show a disproportionate number of such searches targeting those from ethnic minorities. Critcism is also levelled at the use of stop and search on children, particularly children from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.
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