Black Unity and Freedom Party
Encyclopedia
In politics and history the Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP) (c. 1970 - 1999) was a political organisation which was part of Britain's Black Power
and Radical left
movements.
". Alrick (Ricky) Xavier Cambridge, George Joseph, Danny Morrell and Sonia Chang among others were involved in its foundation. In its early years the organisation had three branches, two in London and one in Manchester.
'. In 1990 it revised this to 'Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tsetung
thought' and in 1997 changed it again to 'Scientific Socialism
'.
, Manchester
, Liverpool
, Bristol
and Cardiff
.
However, there was significant opposition to black settlement stemming from the racist attitudes fostered during Britain's colonial and slave trader history.
Foremost among such opposition was the Member of Parliament
for Wolverhampton
, Enoch Powell
. In addition, far-right organisations such as the National Front
and a perception of racism in the ranks of the police and other institutions contributed to an atmosphere of social conflict.
As a result, activists established a variety of independent organisations to represent the settler communities. Among these were the West Indian Standing Conference, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
and the Universal Coloured People's Association.
Of strong importance to this process was the influence of American civil rights
and black power figures such as Stokely Carmichael
(Kwame Toure), Malcolm X
and Martin Luther King, each of whom visited and spoke at public meetings in Britain.
America's Black Panther Party
was also a profound influence, and although other activists such as Michael X
formed a British organisation called the Black Panther Party, the programme and activities of the BUFP reflected much of the combination of militant Black Nationalism
and far-left Marxism
of Huey P. Newton
's Oakland
organisation. However in the British context - with a police force which did not carry guns - there was no impetus for armed militants to shadow them.
format.
Black Voice was heavily critical of British and US government policies, whether Labour or Conservative, Republican or Democrat. The editorial line took a radical anti-capitalist
, anti-racist and pro-socialist stance on every issue. While the organisation did not permit 'white' membership (on the grounds of 'black self-determination'), Black Voice always carried in its programme the 'internationalist
' assertion that 'contradiction' between the working classes of all ethnic groups and capitalism was paramount - outweighing the contradictions between workers of different ethnic groups. In other words it envisaged anti-capitalist unity between 'black' and 'white' workers.
A typical issue throughout the 1970s and 80s might contain an article about violent incidents between the British police and African-Caribbean or Asian residents - often referred to as 'police brutality'. In addition there would be pieces about the apartheid regime in South Africa and party analyses of various controversies such as the education of African-Caribbean children in British schools. For several years in the early eighties, the party published articles by the American Professor Manning Marable
under the banner 'Across the Color Line'.
The journal was published in editions of up to 24 pages with print runs of up to 2000 between one and four times a year (although it was initially intended to be a monthly journal). However, in the late nineties print runs were reduced to as little as 500, appearing once or twice a year. The main avenue of distribution was BUFP members standing on city street corners and engaging (usually black) citizens in conversation. Some editions were placed in left wing or black-owned bookshops, such as the Index Book Centre and the Black Cultural Archives - both situated in Brixton
, South London. There were also regular postal subscribers both in the UK and internationally - from as far afield as Australia and India.
Contributors, editors, page production workers and sales workers were all unpaid. Print was purchased at commercial rates from sympathetic printers. Participation in street paper sales was considered to be an unpaid duty of party membership.
a) Protest and information campaigns.
Including the 'Broadwater Farm Defence Campaign' and the 'Tottenham 3 Are Innocent Campaign', formed in the wake of the 1985 civil conflict between residents of Tottenham and the Metropolitan Police.
b) Public lecture and discussion forums.
Guest speakers included the Jamaican academic and activist Dr. Richard Hart, Maria Florez, the Cuba
n ambassador to Britain, representatives of South Africa's African National Congress
and Pan-African Congress
as well as the Florida activist Omali Yeshitela
. They also set up "Black History for Action
" which organised meetings for the Black comuunity to discuss its history, culture, conditions and "most importantly, the way forward".
c) Internal meetings and discussions.
Internally, the party had a democratic structure, regularly electing officials to carry out tasks such as Treasurer, Black Voice editor and General Secretary. Members were required to participate in internal political education classes as well as internal democracy.
d) Fundraising.
The BUFP was never a wealthy organisation and did very little serious fundraising. It therefore lacked capital to invest in activities such as publishing. As well as street sales of Black Voice, the organisation relied on membership contributions and collections at its public meetings. It never paid its officials or members.
e) Inter-organisational relations ('broad fronts').
The party spent much of its energy participating in common activities with other organisations. These included the yearly organisation of 'Africa Liberation Day' celebrations in collaboration with the 'Black Liberation Front' a similarly small organisation based in the 'Grassroots' bookshop in London's Ladbroke Grove area. In the 1995, the organisation joined with the cultural nationalist group, the Pan-African Congress Movement, the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party
(founded by Kwame Toure), the "Kwame Nkrumah Convention People's Party" and the "Movement for African people's Unity" to establish the "African United Action Front" with a view to joint activities. The organisation also gave initial support to Omali Yeshitela's call for establishing an 'African Socialist International
' to coordinate black revolutionary activities across the world.
The Black Unity and Freedom Party never stood candidates in official British state elections. During the 1987 and 1993 UK national election campaigns the Black Voice ran editorials urging the black community to boycott the elections, claiming that they merely served to 'legitimise the capitalist state'.
Members were particularly visible in support of public black community protest campaigns and demonstrations involving alleged 'police brutality' and other allegations of 'racially motivated' violence such as the New Cross Fire
march in 1981. Therefore, anyone attending community demonstrations in support of, for example, Cherry Groce (shot by police), Joy Gardner
(died during a violent deportation) or Colin Roach
(shot inside a police station) would certainly hear a BUFP member lecturing the assembled crowd about the ills of capitalism and its links to racism through a megaphone.
The Black Panthers (named after America's Black Panther Party), which was in origins and programme quite similar to the BUFP, had some members who achieved high public profiles in the UK, such as Darcus Howe
and Tariq Ali
. In fact, Darcus Howe, who eventually became a controversial television raconteur and presenter married one of the BUFP's early leaders, Leila Hassan. By 1995, the BUFP regarded Howe as a "sellout", complaining that he used his TV programme Devil's Advocate to promote white racists, that he depicted Black men as violent and that he had forgotten his roots when he declared "I have no nation or country" in an interview in the The Guardian
newspaper (20 March 1995). No BUFP member ever achieved any significant public profile during its lifetime.
Indeed, anonymity played a fairly constant role in the organisation's activities. Perhaps surprisingly, most of the membership, although often of labouring class origins, were employed either as professionals - such as teachers, doctors or accountants - or as minor local authority officials. Therefore, in order to protect their membership of a far-left, radical organisation becoming known, some members would either adopt pseudonyms when addressing public meetings, such as 'Lumumba
' - or just use their first name, such as 'Sister Annette' etc. This was also true of Black Voice articles, most of which were published anonymously.
However, one member did achieve a small amount of posthumous recognition. Afruika Bantu (formerly Annette Blair), whose membership lasted more or less continuously (with occasionally breaks) from the mid-seventies until her death in 2000 was honoured in the renaming of the Afruika Bantu Saturday School, a small education project based in South London.
However, probably the most familiar member, at least to other activists amongst London's African-Caribbean fringe political groups was Minkah Adofoh, who had joined the organisation in the late seventies and, after twenty years of continuous BUFP activism, became one of the founding members of the group's 'political descendant' the APLO.
Membership hovered at around the ten-person mark, public meeting attendance was around 30 to 50 and Black Voice sales were down to about 1000 a year. A radical revision aimed to create a new body with more appeal to the African-Caribbean youths who had grown up in a post-apartheid, post-colonial and post-Soviet political climate.
In 1998, after two years of internal discussion and public consultation, BUFP members, along with several members of the public launched the 'African People's Liberation Organisation'. The APLO was far more 'Afro-centric
' in its rhetoric and programme. Unlike the BUFP, it did not admit Asians and labelled itself as 'Scientific Socialist
' rather than refer to the European theorists Karl Marx
and Vladimir Lenin
. In addition, the lack of the word 'party' in its title was deemed to be of crucial significance - signalling a potential retreat from outright battles in the political arena. A few months later the BUFP convened for the last time and formally transferred all of their collective assets to the new organisation, before permanently adjourning their last General Meeting.
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
and Radical left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
movements.
Birth
The BUFP was a small but vibrant left wing organisation of radical black political activists. The BUFP held its first congress in London on 20 July 1970 "being the commemorative day of the Cuban RevolutionCuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
". Alrick (Ricky) Xavier Cambridge, George Joseph, Danny Morrell and Sonia Chang among others were involved in its foundation. In its early years the organisation had three branches, two in London and one in Manchester.
Outlook
At the outset the BUFP used its official journal, Black Voice, to proclaim its ideology to be 'Marxism-LeninismMarxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
'. In 1990 it revised this to 'Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tsetung
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
thought' and in 1997 changed it again to 'Scientific Socialism
Scientific Socialism
Scientific socialism is the term used by Friedrich Engels to describe the social-political-economic theory first pioneered by Karl Marx. The purported reason why this socialism is "scientific socialism" is because its theories are held to an empirical standard, observations are essential to its...
'.
Background
By 1970 migration to Britain from the country's former colonies in the Caribbean, West Africa and South Asia had led to substantial communities in the major cities, particularly London, BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
and Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
.
However, there was significant opposition to black settlement stemming from the racist attitudes fostered during Britain's colonial and slave trader history.
Foremost among such opposition was the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
, Enoch Powell
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, MBE was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP and Minister of Health . He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech in opposition to mass immigration from...
. In addition, far-right organisations such as the National Front
British National Front
The National Front is a far right, white-only political party whose major political activities took place during the 1970s and 1980s. Its popularity peaked in the 1979 general election, when it received 191,719 votes ....
and a perception of racism in the ranks of the police and other institutions contributed to an atmosphere of social conflict.
As a result, activists established a variety of independent organisations to represent the settler communities. Among these were the West Indian Standing Conference, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasteduntil 1967, which lobbied for race relations legislation...
and the Universal Coloured People's Association.
Of strong importance to this process was the influence of American civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and black power figures such as Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
(Kwame Toure), Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
and Martin Luther King, each of whom visited and spoke at public meetings in Britain.
America's Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
was also a profound influence, and although other activists such as Michael X
Michael X
Michael X , born Michael de Freitas in Trinidad and Tobago to a Portuguese father and a Bajan-born mother, was a self-styled black revolutionary and civil rights activist in 1960s London. He was also known as Michael Abdul Malik and Abdul Malik...
formed a British organisation called the Black Panther Party, the programme and activities of the BUFP reflected much of the combination of militant Black Nationalism
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
and far-left Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
of Huey P. Newton
Huey P. Newton
Huey Percy Newton was an American political and urban activist who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.-Early life:...
's Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
organisation. However in the British context - with a police force which did not carry guns - there was no impetus for armed militants to shadow them.
Black Voice
Throughout its 30-year history, the BUFP published its journal Black Voice. This was printed in the form of a tabloid newspaper with pictures and articles documenting British and international political developments from a party perspective. In 1995 they changed the paper to A4Paper size
Many paper size standards conventions have existed at different times and in different countries. Today there is one widespread international ISO standard and a localised standard used in North America . The paper sizes affect writing paper, stationery, cards, and some printed documents...
format.
Black Voice was heavily critical of British and US government policies, whether Labour or Conservative, Republican or Democrat. The editorial line took a radical anti-capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, anti-racist and pro-socialist stance on every issue. While the organisation did not permit 'white' membership (on the grounds of 'black self-determination'), Black Voice always carried in its programme the 'internationalist
Internationalist
Internationalist may refer to:* Internationalism , a movement to increase cooperation across national borders* Internationalist, socialists opposed to World War I* The Internationalist Review, an e-journal founded in Maastricht...
' assertion that 'contradiction' between the working classes of all ethnic groups and capitalism was paramount - outweighing the contradictions between workers of different ethnic groups. In other words it envisaged anti-capitalist unity between 'black' and 'white' workers.
A typical issue throughout the 1970s and 80s might contain an article about violent incidents between the British police and African-Caribbean or Asian residents - often referred to as 'police brutality'. In addition there would be pieces about the apartheid regime in South Africa and party analyses of various controversies such as the education of African-Caribbean children in British schools. For several years in the early eighties, the party published articles by the American Professor Manning Marable
Manning Marable
William Manning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Marable authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes...
under the banner 'Across the Color Line'.
The journal was published in editions of up to 24 pages with print runs of up to 2000 between one and four times a year (although it was initially intended to be a monthly journal). However, in the late nineties print runs were reduced to as little as 500, appearing once or twice a year. The main avenue of distribution was BUFP members standing on city street corners and engaging (usually black) citizens in conversation. Some editions were placed in left wing or black-owned bookshops, such as the Index Book Centre and the Black Cultural Archives - both situated in Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, South London. There were also regular postal subscribers both in the UK and internationally - from as far afield as Australia and India.
Contributors, editors, page production workers and sales workers were all unpaid. Print was purchased at commercial rates from sympathetic printers. Participation in street paper sales was considered to be an unpaid duty of party membership.
General activities
As well as publishing Black Voice, BUFP activities constituted the following:a) Protest and information campaigns.
Including the 'Broadwater Farm Defence Campaign' and the 'Tottenham 3 Are Innocent Campaign', formed in the wake of the 1985 civil conflict between residents of Tottenham and the Metropolitan Police.
b) Public lecture and discussion forums.
Guest speakers included the Jamaican academic and activist Dr. Richard Hart, Maria Florez, the Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n ambassador to Britain, representatives of South Africa's African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
and Pan-African Congress
Pan-African Congress
The Pan-African Congress was a series of five meetings in 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, and 1945 that were intended to address the issues facing Africa due to European colonization of much of the continent....
as well as the Florida activist Omali Yeshitela
Omali Yeshitela
Omali Yeshitela the founder of the Uhuru Movement a left wing, African Internationalist organization based in St...
. They also set up "Black History for Action
Black History for Action
In politics and history the Black History for Action , founded in 1986, became a long-standing and highly regarded independent lecture and discussion forum for the British African-Caribbean community in London.-Nature and Purpose:...
" which organised meetings for the Black comuunity to discuss its history, culture, conditions and "most importantly, the way forward".
c) Internal meetings and discussions.
Internally, the party had a democratic structure, regularly electing officials to carry out tasks such as Treasurer, Black Voice editor and General Secretary. Members were required to participate in internal political education classes as well as internal democracy.
d) Fundraising.
The BUFP was never a wealthy organisation and did very little serious fundraising. It therefore lacked capital to invest in activities such as publishing. As well as street sales of Black Voice, the organisation relied on membership contributions and collections at its public meetings. It never paid its officials or members.
e) Inter-organisational relations ('broad fronts').
The party spent much of its energy participating in common activities with other organisations. These included the yearly organisation of 'Africa Liberation Day' celebrations in collaboration with the 'Black Liberation Front' a similarly small organisation based in the 'Grassroots' bookshop in London's Ladbroke Grove area. In the 1995, the organisation joined with the cultural nationalist group, the Pan-African Congress Movement, the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party
All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party is a socialist group founded by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The Party began in Guinea Conakry in 1968...
(founded by Kwame Toure), the "Kwame Nkrumah Convention People's Party" and the "Movement for African people's Unity" to establish the "African United Action Front" with a view to joint activities. The organisation also gave initial support to Omali Yeshitela's call for establishing an 'African Socialist International
African Socialist International
The League of African Democratic Socialist Parties, initially known as the Socialist Inter-African, is a union of social democratic political parties in the continent of Africa.It was set up to provide an international forum for moderate socialists in Africa, and proclaimed that "democratic...
' to coordinate black revolutionary activities across the world.
The Black Unity and Freedom Party never stood candidates in official British state elections. During the 1987 and 1993 UK national election campaigns the Black Voice ran editorials urging the black community to boycott the elections, claiming that they merely served to 'legitimise the capitalist state'.
Membership
Even during its heyday in the early 1970s the BUFP was an extremely small organisation, never having more than about fifty paid-up members. For most of its history membership fluctuated between about 10 to 15. Its low point was in 1983, when following a split, it dwindled to just three regular members for a few months. However, its members were always very highly motivated, studious and committed activists.Members were particularly visible in support of public black community protest campaigns and demonstrations involving alleged 'police brutality' and other allegations of 'racially motivated' violence such as the New Cross Fire
New Cross Fire
The New Cross Fire was a devastating house fire which killed 13 young black people during a birthday party in New Cross, southeast London on Sunday 18 January 1981...
march in 1981. Therefore, anyone attending community demonstrations in support of, for example, Cherry Groce (shot by police), Joy Gardner
Joy Gardner
Joy Gardner was a 40-year-old British African-Caribbean community mother and illegal immigrant from Jamaica who was killed during a struggle with the police at her home in Crouch End, London on 28 July 1993.-Death:...
(died during a violent deportation) or Colin Roach
Colin Roach
Colin Roach was a 21-year-old black British man who died from a gunshot wound at the entrance to Stoke Newington police station, in the London Borough of Hackney, on 12 January 1983. Amid allegations of a police cover-up, the case became a cause célèbre for civil rights campaigners and black...
(shot inside a police station) would certainly hear a BUFP member lecturing the assembled crowd about the ills of capitalism and its links to racism through a megaphone.
The Black Panthers (named after America's Black Panther Party), which was in origins and programme quite similar to the BUFP, had some members who achieved high public profiles in the UK, such as Darcus Howe
Darcus Howe
Darcus Howe is a British broadcaster, writer, and civil liberties campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, he moved to America in the 1960s, then arrived in England intending to study law, where he joined the British Black Panthers, the first such branch of the organization outside the United States...
and Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
. In fact, Darcus Howe, who eventually became a controversial television raconteur and presenter married one of the BUFP's early leaders, Leila Hassan. By 1995, the BUFP regarded Howe as a "sellout", complaining that he used his TV programme Devil's Advocate to promote white racists, that he depicted Black men as violent and that he had forgotten his roots when he declared "I have no nation or country" in an interview in the The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper (20 March 1995). No BUFP member ever achieved any significant public profile during its lifetime.
Indeed, anonymity played a fairly constant role in the organisation's activities. Perhaps surprisingly, most of the membership, although often of labouring class origins, were employed either as professionals - such as teachers, doctors or accountants - or as minor local authority officials. Therefore, in order to protect their membership of a far-left, radical organisation becoming known, some members would either adopt pseudonyms when addressing public meetings, such as 'Lumumba
Lumumba
Lumumba can refer to:*Patrice Lumumba , the first Prime Minister of the Congo*Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat and negotiator at 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference...
' - or just use their first name, such as 'Sister Annette' etc. This was also true of Black Voice articles, most of which were published anonymously.
However, one member did achieve a small amount of posthumous recognition. Afruika Bantu (formerly Annette Blair), whose membership lasted more or less continuously (with occasionally breaks) from the mid-seventies until her death in 2000 was honoured in the renaming of the Afruika Bantu Saturday School, a small education project based in South London.
However, probably the most familiar member, at least to other activists amongst London's African-Caribbean fringe political groups was Minkah Adofoh, who had joined the organisation in the late seventies and, after twenty years of continuous BUFP activism, became one of the founding members of the group's 'political descendant' the APLO.
Decline and dissolution
Despite various initiatives aimed at 'rebuilding the black movement', the organisation was, by the mid-1990s, more of a marginal fringe group than it had been in 1970.Membership hovered at around the ten-person mark, public meeting attendance was around 30 to 50 and Black Voice sales were down to about 1000 a year. A radical revision aimed to create a new body with more appeal to the African-Caribbean youths who had grown up in a post-apartheid, post-colonial and post-Soviet political climate.
In 1998, after two years of internal discussion and public consultation, BUFP members, along with several members of the public launched the 'African People's Liberation Organisation'. The APLO was far more 'Afro-centric
Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is cultural ideology mostly limited to the United States, dedicated to the history of Black people a response to global racist attitudes about African people and their historical contributions by revisiting this history with an African cultural and ideological center...
' in its rhetoric and programme. Unlike the BUFP, it did not admit Asians and labelled itself as 'Scientific Socialist
Scientific Socialism
Scientific socialism is the term used by Friedrich Engels to describe the social-political-economic theory first pioneered by Karl Marx. The purported reason why this socialism is "scientific socialism" is because its theories are held to an empirical standard, observations are essential to its...
' rather than refer to the European theorists Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. In addition, the lack of the word 'party' in its title was deemed to be of crucial significance - signalling a potential retreat from outright battles in the political arena. A few months later the BUFP convened for the last time and formally transferred all of their collective assets to the new organisation, before permanently adjourning their last General Meeting.
External links
- Leftist Parties of Great Britain
- List of Personal Members Papers of Sanford Berman
- Socialism and Black Liberation: the revolutionary struggle against racism Published by 'League for the Fifth International', June 2000.