The Woman with the Afro

This the story of Barbara Beese.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, and ahead of a new drama by Steve McQueen (‘Mangrove’), I spoke to one of the last surviving members of the ‘Mangrove Nine’, whose trial in the 1970s was a defining moment for Black Power in Britain

As a researcher on the Brick Lane project*, I was one of those tasked with identifying, and making contact with, some of the activists captured in photographer Paul Trevor’s images. A few were easily recognisable, and others were known to members of Swadhinata Trust, joint collaborators on the project. But one photo really stood out for me – a striking woman with an afro, holding the hand of a small boy who was looking straight into the camera. But who was she? Read more here

For more articles on this project written for Byline Times** read here and here.

For features written for Byline’s sister organisation, Kent & Surrey Bylines, click here.

*‘Brick Lane 1978 – The Turning Point’ – was a collaboration between Four Corners Gallery, the Swadhinata Trust and photographer Paul Trevor.
**Byline Times is a British newspaper and website founded in March 2019 by Peter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave, who are also its executive editors. It is a development of Byline, a crowdfunding and media outlet platform founded in April 2015 by Seung-yoon Lee and Daniel Tudor