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Author Topic: RIP Darcus Howe  (Read 1573 times)

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Offline Trini _2026

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RIP Darcus Howe
« on: April 02, 2017, 10:46:23 AM »
Darcus Howe, writer, broadcaster and civil rights campaigner, dies aged 74
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/darcus-howe-writer-broadcaster-and-civil-rights-campaigner-dies-aged-74

Darcus Howe, the broadcaster, writer and civil liberties campaigner, has died aged 74.

His family announced his death in a statement released on Sunday that read: “Darcus died quietly and unexpectedly in his sleep on the evening of Saturday April 1. Our private grief is inseparable from our public pride.”

Howe, originally from Trinidad, lived in Brixton, south London, for 30 years and was well known for his Channel 4 series Black on Black and late-night current affairs programme The Devil’s Advocate.


In a hugely varied and influential journalistic career, he was also was a former editor of Race Today, wrote columns for both the New Statesman and the Voice, and was a former chair of the Notting Hill carnival.

His television work included the multicultural current affairs documentary The Bandung File, which he co-edited with Tariq Ali, and more recently White Tribe, a look at modern day Britain.

He was a member of the British Black Panther Movement and was one of the “Mangrove Nine”, who were arrested and charged after protesting against repeated police raids on the Caribbean restaurant Mangrove in Notting Hill, west London, in 1970. At the Old Bailey trial he successfully defended himself against charges of riot and affray.

In 1981, he organised a 20,000 strong “Black People’s March” in protest over the police handling of the investigation into the New Cross Fire in which 13 black teenagers died.

The son of an Anglican priest, Howe first came to the UK aged 18 and had planned to become a lawyer, but instead found his calling as a journalist and activist involved in the struggle for racial equality.

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Tributes were paid to Howe on Twitter. Bonnie Greer, the playwright and author, wrote: “RIP Darcus Howe. Truth teller and paladin for justice”

Farrukh Dhondy, a playwright, writer and a commissioning editor who worked with Howe in the British Black Panther movement and on Race Today, as well as on Channel 4, said he was deeply mourning the loss of a close friend of 45 years.

“He was one of the most important immigrant activists that Britain has known. And his great gift was that he was a practical agitator for the rights of black people, and not simply a theoretician. He was , to describe it colloquially, a street fighting man.

“It had powerful results. I am absolutely sure that the political parties and general political opinion shifted because of the agitation and stance that he, and others, took at the time in the Black Panther Movement and in magazines like Race Today.“

Dhondy added that one of Howe’s achievements was in the television programmes he fronted: “He gave a serious commentator profile, he wasn’t just a black actor ticking boxes for the BBC. He was a very good friend, and he would anything for his friends.”

Alex Pascall, broadcaster, journalist and oral historian, who presented Black Londoners on BBC Radio London and had known Howe since the late 1960s, described him as “undoubtedly, one of our leading social architects”.

“On politics of the Caribbean and the black movement in Britain, nobody can doubt that he has done his work,” Pascall said. “On the New Cross fire, that man did his work.

“With Darcus, you knew he was a man who could take a lead, and you could trust his leadership. Oh God, he was an intellectual. And fearless. The police hated him. He was great at debate, a tower of knowledge. We have really lost a dynamic person.”

Robin Bunce and Paul Field, whose biography Renegade, the Life and Times of Darcus Howe has just been republished, were informed of his death by family members on Sunday.

Field said Howe “was an outstanding public intellectual and politicial organiser and activist” as well as a “brilliant journalist and broadcaster”.

“It’s a huge loss to us and to all those who have been part of the movement for the rights of immigrant communities, and struggle for social justice more generally. His courage is the most striking thing. Darcus was brilliant, funny, defiant, against all the odds.”
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Offline Tallman

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2017, 05:27:00 PM »
De first time I hear bout Darcus Howe was courtesy Linton Kwesi Johnson when ah was ah youth man.

Darcus out of jail
Race Today cannot fail
Darcus out of jail
The peoples will must prevail


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« Last Edit: April 02, 2017, 05:28:46 PM by Tallman »
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

Offline Deeks

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2017, 06:07:20 AM »
This dude from Gloster Lodge Rd in Belmont. I seen his other brother off and on. Any way, RIP Breds.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2017, 06:42:30 AM »
Quote
Black and white unite

Tom Robinson recalls: 'At the time the National Front were gaining electoral ground. Suddenly instead of getting three leaflets through your letterbox during the local elections, you'd get four: left, centre left, right and Nazi. It was as stark as that. And the NF were becoming bolder in their attempts to intimidate immigrants with marches and violence.

'The Tom Robinson Band had been keen supporters of Rock Against Racism - playing small gigs right from our earliest days. From the outset RAR was a grassroots movement, avoiding stars and celebrities. There was a sense of solidarity among groups like X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse and my band TRB, who all played RAR gigs in the early days before any of us were famous. The thing I remember about that particular gig at the Alexandra Palace was the performance of Alex Harvey. He just commanded the stage and he performed an extraordinary version of Bob Marley's "Small Axe" [with the refrain 'If you are the big tree/ We are the small axe']. He divided the audience in two with one side singing "big tree" and the other "small axe" and summed up our struggle with those two simple phrases.

'What mattered was the fact that we all took part in an astonishing celebration of music, fun, justice and the politics of tolerance. The struggle for a more just and civilised society is an ongoing fight that each generation has to carry forward.'

Speaking out against the NF

Darcus Howe says: 'The atmosphere felt sharp. You knew you were making a stance. It was crucial: I lived in the area, I had got married there and my first daughter was born there, so I was part of the community. The National Front had come trying to terrorise us.

'The police put up barriers and cordoned us off so it ended up like a meeting in a park. The gathering was largely black people supported by young white activists. The slogan was "Don't let them pass".

'I was asked to speak right there on the spot. I was not on the list of speakers but [RAR campaigner] David Widgery said: "Give that man the megaphone." I always spoke in dulcet tones like a preacher from the pulpit. I said: "They haven't come here to mobilise us to support them, they come here to terrorise." I delivered rhetoric about standing up, about the fact that black people in America were standing up and rhetoric about Africa.

'The major thing in my mind was, "Come what may, we are here to stay." Today it sounds ridiculous to say that but in those days it was the era of the campaign for repatriation and if the government weren't going to do it, the National Front were going to do it. But in the end, they dropped their flags and ran away.'

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/20/popandrock.race


RIP Darcus. Lesser known than Marcus, but no less of a contributor.

Online gawd on pitch

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2017, 08:39:50 AM »
RIP.

This was one brother who never bit his tongue. Wasn't afraid to "tell it like it is". I am going try and locate the BBC clip where he blasted  the reporter for asking at dumb question.

Was always a thorn in the heel of the white UK establishment. RIP.. I'll be teaching my black youth about him this week when we meet for our reasoning session. RIP

Offline fari

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2017, 05:05:04 PM »
wow, what a loss.   another great man gone

Offline Trini _2026

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Re: RIP Darcus Howe
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2017, 08:55:58 AM »
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