In the early Eighties the community of Brixton in the South London Borough of Lambeth rose up and defended itself against racist attack by the police.
it woz in april nineteen eighty wan
doun inna di ghetto af brixtan
dat di babylan dem cauz such a frickshan
dat it bring about a great insohreckshan
Brixton at that time was made up of about 40% people of Caribbean heritage and 40% original inhabitants, the rest of the community being of other diverse cultural backgrounds. There was a good sense of community there. Brixton was very poor then as it is today. Much of the housing was squatted.
In the run-up to the riots there was a lot of frustration in the community. There was little work. The official national unemployment figures were approaching the two-million mark, about 20% of the workforce. The true figures were much higher, certainly much higher in the ghettos. There was double-digit inflation and the dole was abysmally little to live on. The paramilitary Special Patrol Group (SPG) was conducting the brutal SWAMP '81 campaign, harassing and beating mostly but not only black people. My partner Julie and I were grabbed on Brixton High Street by a Special Patrol snatch squad and bundled into one of their vans, our squat was searched, I was beaten, all because we each had the first walkman, the Sony Stowaway. My complexion happens to be white.
The official reason for SWAMP '81 was to stop mugging. The term "mugging" is an American import, it only began being used with regularity by the kept press in Britain in the Seventies. It refers to the robbery of a white by a black, its purpose is to divide working people along racial lines where we traditionally divide along class lines. Because we know who we are as a class in Britain, we're able to organize that way and to get things like a National Health Service.
What sparked the riots was an incident that happened along the Front Line which is what Railton Road is known by. A black man stabbed another black man and ran away. Along came an SPG patrol. To be in the SPG you had to be eight feet tall, white and stupid. While the victim lay badly injured and bleeding on the pavement, these thugs were asking him questions like, "Oi, mush, wot's your noime? Yer wouldn't be telling us any porky pies [rhyming slang: lies] now, would ya?" The crowd that gathered took the victim from the police, got him into a taxi, got him to the hospital. More policemen came down, more people. Brixton blew up
an it spread all ovah di naeshan
it woz truly an histarical occayshan
When Brixton blew ghettos all over England, places like Moss Side, Hyson Green, Chapletown, Handsworth, Toxteth, places that had been similarly oppressed and brutalized by the police, exploded too. Whole communities rose up as one and used what they had to fight back. We fought them with bottles, bricks, petrol bombs, sticks, we overturned and burned their patrol cars and vans
wen wi run riat all ovah brixtan
wen wi mash-up plenty police van
wen wi mash-up di wicked wan plan
wen wi mash-up di Swamp Eighty Wan
fi wha?
fi mek di ruler dem andahstan
dat wi naw tek noh more a dem oppreshan
We barricaded the streets with their burning vans. And when
wi bill wi barricade
an di wicked ketch afraid
we rained them with bricks and showered them with bottles. When the first twelve policemen were wounded, the writing on the wall said, "People: 12, Babylon: 0". When Maggie Thatcher tried to blame the disturbances on Trotskyites and outside agitators, we plastered up posters of officer Friendly's smiling face, one of the thousand policemen drafted into the area to quell the riot, with a caption reading "Outside Agitator". We held the streets for three days. Julie, my friend Likkle Jim and I looted the shops along Electric Avenue, the same one Eddy Grant sings about, but hey
evry rebel jussa revel in dem story
dem a taak bout di powah an di glory
dem a taak bout di burnin an di lootin
dem a taak bout di smashin an di grabin
dem a tell mi bout di vanquish an di victri
The Brixton Riots were a tremendous victory for all working poor people. They smashed the SWAMP '81, the police stopped harassing, beating and occasionally killing us, at least for a while.
The lines of verse I've quoted in this article were written by my old Brixton neighbour Linton Kwesi Johnson and are available on the recent release Independant Intavenshan on Island Records. Check it. One Love.