Join us to explore the legal, political and community-based racial justice work that emerged 40 years ago from the Broadwater Farm riots, examining methods of resistance that continue to address present-day questions of race, racism and social inequality.
On 6 October 1985, The Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham became the site of one of the most significant moments of civil disobedience in British history. Three men, known as the Tottenham 3, were wrongly convicted and later acquitted for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock after a long campaign for justice.
Four decades after the Broadwater Farm uprising, the events of October 1985 continue to resonate in the ongoing struggle against systemic racism. Marking the riots as a significant moment in Black British history, the event explores the Broadwater Farm Riots in the context of politics, community activism, law and criminology, the media and Black injustice.
Speaker
Dr Clive Nwonka
Clive Nwonka is Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society at the IAS, and a Faculty Associate of the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. Nwonka’s research centres on the study of Black British and African American film, with a particular focus on the images of Black urbanity and the modes through which Black identities are shaped by representations of social environments, architecture, social anxieties and the hegemony of neoliberalism within forms of Black popular culture.
Speaker
Sharon Grant
Sharon Grant has had a long career in service user advocacy in health and social care, and has chaired national & London bodies and local charities. The founding trustee of the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, she is also secretary of the Bernie Grant Trust which holds his archive. At the time of the 1985 disturbances, she was a university lecturer and Haringey councillor, and later ran her husband’s Parliamentary office until his death in 2000. She was awarded an OBE in 2014 for service to the Arts and the Community, and an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University in 2023.
Speaker
Dr Roxana Willis
Roxana Willis is Assistant Professor in Law at LSE. Her research investigates the legal system through the prism of structural inequality, with a focus on class and race. In addition to conducting long-term ethnographic research, Roxana teaches criminal law and two optional courses on decolonization, abolitionism, and law.
Chair
Professor Corretta Phillips
Coretta Phillips is a Professor of Criminology and Social Policy. She joined the Department of Social Policy in September 2001, and has been involved in teaching both Criminology and Social Policy in the department at BSc, MSc, and PhD levels. Coretta is a member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology.
Her research interests lie in the field of race, ethnicity, crime, criminal justice and social policy.
Banner image: Photo by Alex McCarthy via Unsplash