Brixton Riots
30 Mar 2006
BBC News Website
The impact of the Brixton riots should not be understated. The idea that black people could stage an insurrection in the heart of the capital was significant. It was definitely seen as a political gesture and made British politicians take racism and racial injustice seriously for the first time. The riots created a climate in which it was possible for myself and three others to be the first black people elected to Parliament in 1987. All of the advances that black people have made in the past 20 years owe something to the fact that young black people took to the streets.
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