Darcus Howe papers, 1965-2008

Darcus Howe (1943-2017) was a Black British activist and journalist best known as a defendant in the 1971 Mangrove Nine trial, a founding member of the Race Today Collective and editor of its journal, Race Today, and a producer of television series and documentary films for the British television station Channel 4. Howe, christened Leighton Rhett Radford, was born in Moruga, Southern Trinidad, on February 26, 1943. He was one of five siblings. His parents, Cipriani Nathaniel Howe, an Anglican Priest, and Lucille Howe, both taught at the Eckles Village Anglican School, which Howe attended during his primary school years. In 1955 Howe received an "exhibition" or full scholarship to Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain, one of the oldest secondary schools in Trinidad. He graduated from QRC in 1959 and began work with the Post Office. In 1962, at the age of 19, Howe left for Britain. He resided in London for most of his adult life.

In London Howe worked first, as he had in Trinidad, in the Post Office. He also studied law at London's Middle Temple but abandoned the classroom before completing his degree, for a career in journalism and in activism. Although never called to the English bar, Howe's legal studies paid off handsomely in his many subsequent arrests, trials and brushes with the law. Upon leaving Middle Temple Howe returned briefly to Trinidad, where he edited Vanguard, the journal of the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union, and worked with organizers of Trinidad's 1970 Black Power revolution. By the end of 1970, Howe had returned to London permanently. He became a British citizen in 1988.

During the early 1970s Howe was active in Britain's Black Panther Movement. When the Movement dissolved in 1972, he directed his energies to the work of the Race Today Collective. The Collective separated from the Institute of Race Relations in 1973 in order to transform the publication Race Today from an academic journal into a news magazine covering and supporting radical Black British politics. Howe (1973-1985) and Leila Hassan (1985-1988) served as editors of Race Today. Members and affiliates of the Race Today Collective, which reflected both the geographic breadth of Britain's former colonial reach and the depth of diversity then in London, included: Indian-born British writer Farrukh Dhondy; Zanzibarian co-editor of Race Today Leila Hassan; Jamaican dub—or reggae—poet Linton Kwesi Johnson; Grenada native, and the first Black education director for the London borough of Hackney—or for any borough, Gus John; as well as Howe. Over the years the Collective expanded its editorial operation, publishing pamphlets and books along with Race Today, and co-sponsoring the International Book Fair of Radical, Black and Third World Books. The Collective dissolved in 1991.

Notting Hill's Mangrove Cafe, established in 1968 by Frank Critchlow, served as something of a community center, a home base for West Indian political radicals and as a lightning rod for the London police who raided the cafe with some regularity. After one too many raids, demonstrators marched on the Notting Hill Police Station in August of 1970 protesting "police attacks on Black people's homes and the places [they] frequent." Howe, Barbara Beese, Rupert Boyce, Frank Critchlow, Rhodan Gordon, Anthony Inniss, Rothwell Kentish, Althea Lecointe and Godfrey Millette—the Mangrove Nine—were arrested during the demonstration and charged with "riot and affray," among other charges. Howe and Lecointe chose to defend themselves. It was not Howe's first arrest and it would not be his last trial, but it was his first attempt to defend himself in court. Following a 55 days-long trial in Old Bailey, Howe was acquitted on all counts. In his summary, Judge Edward Clarke noted that the trial had "regrettably shown evidence of racial hatred on both sides." This was the first judicial acknowledgment of racial prejudice existing among the ranks of London's Metropolitan Police. The Mangrove 9 Trial was far from Darcus Howe's only encounter with the police. Throughout the 1970s, he was repeatedly arrested on various charges which were either dropped or concluded with Howe's acquittal in court. The Race Today Collective formed a Darcus Howe Action Committee to organize community support for Howe in response to these arrests.

In January 1981, thirteen young Black Londoners were killed in a catastrophic fire at a birthday party in New Cross. Howe, Leila Hassan, John La Rose, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and other activists organized a New Cross Massacre Action Committee to demand justice for the victims of the fire, which was widely suspected to be the result of arson. On March 2, 1981, thousands marched in a Black People's Day of Action organized by the committee. While the march was catalyzed by investigators announcing that there was no evidence of arson at New Cross, its participants also protested decades of racist harassment and injustice inflicted on Black British people by the police. Youth uprisings against harsh and discriminatory policing tactics occurred in nearby Brixton in April, followed by additional uprisings in Handsworth, Birmingham, Chapeltown, Leeds, and Toxteth, Liverpool in July 1981. Howe reported on these uprisings in Race Today, and published his collected work on the topic in his 1988 book From Bobby to Babylon: Blacks and the British Police.

Howe's journalism ventures expanded into television in the 1980s. From 1985 to 1991, Howe and Tariq Ali co-produced documentaries and interviewed prominent political figures around the globe for the Bandung File, which aired on Britain's Channel Four Television. The program Devil's Advocate, with Howe as a host, followed the demise of the Bandung File. Later documentaries by Howe included White Tribe,Who You Calling a Nigger?,Son of Mine, and in 2009 What's Killing Darcus Howe?, an attempt to raise awareness, particularly among Black men, of prostate cancer.

In print Howe contributed regularly to The Guardian,The Times,The Yorkshire Post and The New Statesman; by the 1990s Howe wrote a weekly column, "Thinking Aloud" for The Sunday Mirror.

Howe was a first cousin, once removed, of C. L. R. James (1901-1989). Their common ancestor, Joshua Rudder, was Howe's great-grandfather, and James' grandfather. Rudder's children included sisters Florrie—Howe's maternal grandmother—and Bessie—James' mother—thereby rendering Howe's mother Lucille and James first cousins. James and Howe had a very close relationship, and frequently referred to one another as uncle and nephew. Howe shared James' politics, activism, and love of the sport cricket. From the early 1980s until his death in 1989, C. L. R. James lived in the rooms of the Race Today Collective in London.

Howe had seven children. In 1989 Howe and his long-time partner, Leila Hassan, were married. Howe was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007, an experience which informed his documentary What's Killing Darcus Howe? Treatment was successful, and the cancer went into remission in 2009. Darcus Howe died at his home in Streatham, London, on April 1, 2017.