Rebel Haringey: Standing on the shoulders of giants

v4. Feedback and further info requested      

Let's celebrate and be inspired by some of the key grassroots movements in Haringey from the last 60 years. Here’s a list of some of those movements….

 Workers struggles: shop floor organisation, disputes and strikes 100th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike eg. in Tottenham and Wood Green. 1984-5 miners strike support. Sorting Offices strike. Visteon occupation. Bin workers (2006). More recent major industrial disputes (specific ones and an overview). Haringey TUC (1965 -), Tottenham Trades Club (incl Jarrow Marchers visit). + Brabant Rd Club.  A current link: HTUC

 Poll Tax: How residents defied and defeated the Government's poll tax  1989-1992. Grassroots organising, street reps, mass non-registration and non-payment, opposing bailiffs, protests, street stalls, 1000 attend largest ever public meeting, helping coordinate the movement throughout London and nationally. See: Poll Tax Rebellion (Haringey)  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdW3GNM089A  

A current link: Haringey Solidarity Group

 Claimants Unions and campaigns: defending claimants rights and benefits   Tottenham Unemployed Workers Movement in the 1930s.CUs in the 1980s (including occupation of the Civic Centre), related campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, Mothers March 2014.                                         A current link: Haringey Claimant Justice Campaign

Residents Associations: the growth of community self-organisation, mutual aid and a range of activities throughout local neighbourhoods and on estates See: Haringey Tenants Federation 1967. Muswell Hill & Fortis Green Assoc. Broadwater Farm RA estate improvements. Campaigns for safer streets. Street parties. Haringey Federation of Residents Associations doc Community Action - 

[Part 1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cxndtyMBhA  

[Part 2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viVdedjc1yk&list=TLPQMjEwNzIwMjWBDeCZWmNd-g&index=2  Street based mutual aid groups during covid.    

A current link: HFRA

Planning battles: How communities have mobilised against destructive development, and have come up with their own plans Archway Road 1970s victory https://www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-derecki-how-the-archway-motorway-was-blocked/  Parkland Walk saved. Bull Lane Playing Fields. Hornsey Town Hall. Ally Pally STOPP. Wards Corner. Our Tottenham network www.ourtottenham.org.uk.  St Ann's Hospital. Spurs stadium, Love Lane and Nthld Pk. The 2015 anti-HDV campaign/victory. A current link: Our Tottenham

 Parks and green spaces: The rise of Friends Groups to improve, animate and protect local greenspace  Community events and festivals. Lordship Rec community empowerment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjvb9MxxDrw  

Downhills Park saved late 1990s. Demo to save White Hart Lane Rec in 2006 (ish).  A current link: Haringey Friends of Parks Forum

Fighting Fascism  3,000 at the Battle of Wood Green 1977, 1985 Tottenham Hale. 2024's mobilisations   A current link: Haringey Stand Up To Racism

McLibel campaign: how 2 Tottenham activists become the face of a successful global defiance campaign against corporations and censorship An example of anti-corporate campaigning. See documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V58kK4r26yk

Black peoples self-organisation and anti-racism struggles Including around education, and in response to policing. eg. Black Parents Movement 1970s, New Beacon Books / John La Rose, George Padmore Institute, Broadwater Farm - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88QFY7gG1BA  

Black Lives Matter 2020 - https://www.facebook.com/ReelNews/videos/rally-outside-tottenham-police-station-over-the-disgusting-violent-attack-on-a-y/3637769409641015/                                           A current link: New Beacon Books

 Anti-war  From CND in the 1960s to Stop The War over the last 20 years. Conscientious objection.  A current link: Haringey CND

Women's liberation movement   Including 1970s women's groups, Haringey Womens Centre in the 1980s, women's campaigns eg vs Curzon porn cinema. Plus a nod to the suffragettes.            A current link: tbc

International solidarity  Haringey residents solidarity with people's struggles for peace and freedom all over the world. From 1960s/80s anti-apartheid action to Palestine Solidarity today. Political exile networks and migrant solidarity campaigns.                                                                   A current link: Haringey Migrant Justice

Lesbian/Gay liberation movement  Including 3,500-strong ‘Positive Images’ march through North Tottenham (1987).                                        A current link: tbc

Disability movement In 1972 N8 resident launches UPIAS, a founding body of the modern disability rights movement.. Local involvement in the 1990-1995 Telethon protests and the Disability Discrimination Act?  A current link: tbc

Green/sustainability groups and campaigns  eg from Tottenham Friends of the Earth, to Sustainable Haringey network, and Haringey XR   Current links: Sustainable Haringey and XR

Defending Public Services: Resistance to cuts to community facilities and public services Esp 2009-2012. Haringey Alliance for Public Services - eg https://www.counterfire.org/article/video-haringey-council-occupied-over-cuts-to-public-services-24-feb/  Local Post Offices. Youth Services. Save the Whittington Hospital Campaign.   A current link: tbc

Self-managed radical projects, facilities, bookshops and cooperatives  Promoting and showing alternatives to the status quo. + Radical bookshops eg Libertaria Books 1970ish, Reading Matters in 1980s, New Beacon Books, Bookmarks. 

Community centres: Community building in every sense of the word The rise of community-run Centres in the 1980s. Haringey Community Centres Network campaign for lease-justice over the last 10 years. Kurdish Community Centre defence, 2024. Irish Centre. N London Community House. West Indian Cultural Centre. Cypriot Community Centre. And other buildings incl Tottenham Community Project 1980s, Tottenham Community Sports Centre (1970s-now), Haringey Unemployed & Unwaged Centres (1983-1991). Tottenham Law Centre. Current link: HCCN

Policing: resistance to oppressive policing and police killings   Cynthia Jarrett and Broadwater Farm 1985 + Defence Campaign. Joy Gardner 1993. Roger Sylvester 1999. Mark Duggan 2011 riots, and Give Our Kids A Future march -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6_qujh7Fw 

A current link: tbc

Decent homes for all: Housing struggles, including tenants action, squatting etc Including Haringey Tenants and Residents Federation in 1967 (paper 'Tenants Voice'), Haringey Defend Council Housing 1990s-now. Sheltered Accommodation protests. Green Lanes Community Inspectors 2012-3. Ladybird Housing Co-op. Squatting. Short life coops. Current links: HDCH & LRU(H)

Youth subcultures and movements  Hippies (eg 1970 Oz anti-censorship victory), soul, punks, ravers, goths, hiphop, grime...  Incl social events and key local venues?

School students  Walkouts: eg. vs corporal punishment 1971 (leading to national ban)?, vs YTS April 1985, and vs Iraq War 2003

College Students  1968 6-week Hornsey School of Art occupation. 2010-11 protests/occupations?

Local Radical/Community Newspapers  Tenants Voice (1967), Haringey Globe (mid-1980s), Free Tottenham Times (mid-1980s), Haringey Community Action / Totally Indypendent (1992-), Haringey Community Press.

Misc Other  Spouters Corners in Wood Green, Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park (1920s to ?). Alexandra Palace 14hr Technicolour Dream (1967), Thousands attend Reclaim The Streets street party and occupation of Tottenham High Rd (1998). Right To Food March 2023.

Note: The Radical History Network of North East London has documented some of the movements above.  https://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com/search?q=Haringey   They are self-organised grassroots empowerment movements for improvements and change.  Further info & comments welcome – RaHN <davetottenham@gmail.com>

Resisting ID cards in the 1950s and 2000s

As mandatory government-issued ID cards are now back on the agenda, it is worth remembering previous campaigns against this happening.

Many years ago a Radical History Network meeting was held on the topic of opposition to ID cards in North London in 1950 - and how lessons could be learned to tackle the latest attempt by the New Labour government to bring them back. The talk by local historian David King was then published as a pamphlet by Past Tense, which is now out of print. The text of the pamphlet has recently been republished online at Libcom: https://libcom.org/article/opposition-id-cards-north-london-19502006-david-king

Libcom also hosts the following, which may be of interest:

• An archive of material by Defy-ID, a group set up in the 2000s to oppose the introduction of government ID cards. 
• Newsletters by Nottingham Defy-ID
• A reflective article by an anarchist involved with the Defy-ID network.
• Defending Anonymity - a 2006 pamphlet by the Anarchist Federation.

Lincoln's Inn Fields radical history walk Sunday 13th July

 

Radical History Faction presents:

A short drift around the radical history of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

FREE RADICAL HISTORY WALK.

Featuring mantraps, mummers, boghouses and pig’s meat!

Meet 2pm, outside John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields WC2A 3BP.

https://radicalhistoryfaction.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/lincolns-inn-fields-walk-13-july-2025/

Recognising Haringey’s pioneering black protest leaders

 From Haringey Community Press.

Hannah Francis from the George Padmore Institute on the significance of the Black Parents Movement in Haringey 50 years ago.

The Black Parents Movement protest in 1975 with John La Rose at the front right of the group (credit Julian Stapleton)

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Black Parents Movement (BPM), founded in 1975 following the arrest of an innocent West Indian student in Haringey.

On 17th April 1975, 17-year-old Cliff McDaniel and his two friends, Keith and Chris, all students of the Stationer’s Company’s School in Hornsey, were on their lunch break when they were targeted by police officers. McDaniel was well known to the teaching staff, pupils and parents associated with the George Padmore Supplementary School, founded by Trinidadian activist John La Rose in 1966.

Following this incident, many parents and teachers rallied support for McDaniel and formed the Black Parents Movement. At the same time, a group of pupils and young black people formed their own independent but collaborative organisation called the Black Students Movement (later renamed Black Youth Movement). With the unlawful arrest of McDaniel acting as the catalyst, the aims of the BPM were to advance the interests of black working class, unemployed and young people.

John La Rose was a key founding member with early members including local supplementary school teachers Roxy Harris and Albertina Sylvester, as well as educator and campaigner Gus John. Guyanese publishers and activists Jessica and Eric Huntley, who founded the Ealing Concerned Black Parents and Youth Movement in 1976, were also closely affiliated with the activity of the BPM in its most active period.

Current George Padmore Institute (GPI) chair and BPM member Roxy Harris says of the movement: “The BPM played a leading role in developing strategies and action in Britain for black people to fight back against the racism and discrimination in the schooling system and against police corruption and violence and the complicity of the courts.

“John La Rose’s leadership was inspiring and down to earth. One memory is that however urgent and serious a meeting was, John never objected to the presence of children. Indeed he would take persistent fractiousness by the children present as a sign that we had gone on too long and that it was time for the meeting to end!”

BPM grew out of Haringey’s wider history of black radical activism and led to the formation of the Alliance in 1979, a partnership of the Black Youth Movement, Bradford Black Collective and the Race Today Collective. Key campaigns included the Bookshop Joint Action Committee (BJAC) which was formed to campaign against a string of racist and violent attacks on black and progressive bookshops across the country, as well as international solidarity campaigns such as demonstrating against apartheid in South Africa.

The BPM archive collection at GPI is a comprehensive resource preserving the history of the organisation’s founding, key activities, collaborators and organisational principles. Fifty years on, the GPI is marking the occasion by acknowledging this movement’s contributions to campaigning for the rights of black youths and workers against a racist criminal justice system, building alliances and community organising in Haringey and wider British society.

What's This Place?: Stories From Radical Social Centres in the UK and Ireland

 

A useful and inspiring overview (from 2008)...

Available as a PDF at Libcom.

Radical movements have always needed bases and spaces to meet, eat, grow and gather. Recently in the UK and Ireland there has been a conscious effort to link these social centres, info shops and resource centres whether squatted rented or bought, into a loose network that can share ideas and support each other.

In January 2007 a Social Centres Network gathering was held at the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford that was attended by people from all over the UK. There was an idea to try and make the wider project of autonomous spaces more visible and clear to the people who used social centres and the idea of this booklet was born. A call-out for essays, cartoons, reflections, and rants was put out and here are the resulting 27 pieces. Most of them are descriptive of particular places, others discuss more general questions about the idea of social centres. A few of us helped to proof and layout the booklet but the pieces have not been edited.

As these pieces show, there is a huge diversity of projects being built from food co-ops and volunteer run vegan cafes to migrant solidarity and mental health self-help groups. At the same time we are often tackling similar issues as we experiment with self-management, working without leaders and treading the fine line between being a radical, autonomous space and also reaching out into our local communities, providing services and dealing with authorities.

We hope that this booklet will promote debate and action on the need for autonomous spaces in our cities and neighbourhoods. So now we pass over to those involved, to let the stories speak for themselves.

There are copies available FREE in all the social centres we can find and also by emailing us at socialcentrestories [at] riseup [dot] net

Copyleft- feel free to use, copy and distribute.

From https://socialcentrestories.wordpress.com/.