On 18 January 1981, a fire at a house party in New Cross, South-East
London, led to the deaths of 13 young Black people including Yvonne
Ruddock, who was celebrating her 16th birthday. One of the survivors
later took their own life.
Police declared the fire to be an accident, but to this day many
suspect it was a racist arson attack. The authorities failed to
seriously investigate these claims, despite the fact that racially
abusive letters had been sent to the homeowner, and an incendiary device
found outside the house. The police treated the families of the dead
like suspects, rather than victims, and the Daily Mail falsely
suggested several Black people had been arrested in connection with the
fire.
In the days that followed there was little coverage of the terrible
loss of young life in the newspapers.,The cold silence of the white establishment
conveyed a brutally simple message that the loss of young black lives
was simply unimportant. As Johnny Osbourne sang pointedly ’13 Dead (and Nothing Said)’.
In the aftermath, the community felt a devastating sense of loss.
Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends,
classmates – all taken away long before their time.
But what compounded the pain was the sense that the community had and
was continuing to be ignored. It is customary for Prime Ministers and
the Crown to acknowledge a mass loss of life by the way of sending a
message of condolence. Yet Margaret Thatcher, after nearly two years in
office at that time, failed to reach out to the community.
Thatcher fostered a hostile environment for the black and minority
ethnic community, and was widely considered to be courting supporters of
the far-right National Front group through the use of anti-immigrant
rhetoric. This was taken further by her minister Jill Knight, who
appeared to condone direct action against parties with sound systems, a
staple of the Black British culture at the time.
The suspicions of foul play were well founded – New Cross was known to many as the race hate capital of Britain.Many other Black homes in the area had been attacked
by supporters of the fascist National Front, and a Black community
centre was burnt down. Almost exactly a decade earlier, white racists
had petrol bombed a Black people’s party in Lewisham, injuring 22
people.
Ever since the ‘Windrush generation’ had been brought to
the country to help rebuild Britain’s post-war economy, they were met
with hostility and violence. The police regularly raided Black meeting
places such as the Mangrove Restauarant,
as well as the annual Notting Hill Carnival. The same year as the New
Cross fire also saw the passing of the British Nationality Act, the last
of a series of immigration laws explicitly targeting people of colour;
tearing apart countless families in the process.
The Prime Minister’s silence propelled the wave of black activism
that had been sparked by the fire, as protestors rallied to the words
'thirteen dead and nothing said' and ‘Here to Stay, Here to Fight’.
The New Cross community demanded answers and, in light of perceived
inaction by the police, hundreds attended a meeting a week after the
fire. There was a strong feeling that the fire had been an attack,
started by a petrol bomb.
Out of the ashes of this terrible tragedy came an unprecedented
political mobilisation led by the families, the New Cross Massacre
Action Committee and the wider black community.
It resulted in the historic ‘Black People’s Day of Action’ on Monday 2
March, 1981, where 15,000 people from all over the country filed by 439
New Cross Road bound for the Houses of Parliament and Fleet Street in peaceful protest, but their march was
disrupted by harsh police tactics and faced relentless attacks from the
right-wing media.Tension between the community and the police remained high,
particularly amongst young people who felt they were being unfairly
targeted by the police.In April that year, an incident involving a stabbed youth sparked a
riot in Brixton that lasted a weekend and brought the issue of race
relations to the top of the agenda.
To date, no-one has ever been charged with starting the New Cross fire. The police bungled the investigation and no one was arrested or prosecuted which summed up the racist indifference of the state to black communities and sickeningly racist abuse was sent to victims families. The racism behind the tragedy politicised a generation, and continues to shape modern Britain.
Thinking back now perhaps the most appropriate way to remember those
lives cut short so cruelly is to renew a commitment and vigilance to
challenging contemporary racism in all its forms.
Linton Kwesi Johnson’s ‘New Crass Massahkah ’ conveyed in dub poetry perhaps the most enduring and powerful form of historical witness.
New Crass Massahkah - by Linton Kwesi Johnson
first di comin
an di goin
in an out af di pawty
di dubbin
an di rubbin
and di rackin to di riddim
di dancin
and di scankin
an di pawty really swingin
den di crash
an di bang
an di flames staat fit rang
di heat
an di smoke
an di people staat fi choke
di screamin
and di cryin
and di diein in di fyah.
