8 ‘Unfinished activisms’
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Sophia Siddiqui
Abstract
This chapter explores the connections between community self-help activism, which emerged in Britain in the mid-1960s, and present-day mutual aid organising. It retrieves the history of three under-explored self-help initiatives: Harambee, a community youth project in Islington, London; the United Black Women’s Action Group (UBWAG), which began at Campsbourne estate in Haringey, London, to address the needs of Black women and their families; and Awaz, the first feminist Asian women’s collective. It looks at the emergence of these organisations, how they provided for the community, what principles underpinned their work and the nature of their relationship to the British state. Although this tradition of self-help initiatives eventually fragmented, the author argues that this history is carried forward by activists engaged in mutual aid organising today. By drawing out continuities, complexities and contradictions between self-help organising and mutual aid activism, it explores how this history is built upon in the present day, using Angela Davis’s concept of ‘unfinished activisms’.
Abstract
This chapter explores the connections between community self-help activism, which emerged in Britain in the mid-1960s, and present-day mutual aid organising. It retrieves the history of three under-explored self-help initiatives: Harambee, a community youth project in Islington, London; the United Black Women’s Action Group (UBWAG), which began at Campsbourne estate in Haringey, London, to address the needs of Black women and their families; and Awaz, the first feminist Asian women’s collective. It looks at the emergence of these organisations, how they provided for the community, what principles underpinned their work and the nature of their relationship to the British state. Although this tradition of self-help initiatives eventually fragmented, the author argues that this history is carried forward by activists engaged in mutual aid organising today. By drawing out continuities, complexities and contradictions between self-help organising and mutual aid activism, it explores how this history is built upon in the present day, using Angela Davis’s concept of ‘unfinished activisms’.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
