The Black People's Day of Action: A March for Justice

After the devastating New Cross Fire on Sunday 18 January 1981, which took 14 young Black lives, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee was set up. Plans were made for the Black People’s Day of Action on 2 March 1981 which saw hundreds of people take to the streets.

From Tuesday 2 March, in collaboration with Goldsmiths, University of London, there will be an online exhibition documenting photographs from this historic event. 

Find out more and download The Black People's Day of Action exhibitions online.

The Black People’s Day of Action march was organised to stand in the face of the hostile media indifference, the failure of Britain’s government to acknowledge the tragedy, as well as to protest against the inadequacy and bias of the police investigation into the tragic loss of young Black lives.

Before the New Cross Fire, concern about racist violence had been running high in the area due to the active presence of the white supremacist National Front. Several racially-motivated arson attacks had already taken place in the Lewisham area. It seemed likely that the fire had been caused by a firebomb – a theory advanced by the police in the early stages of their investigation.

The exhibition presents a body of photographs taken by Vron Ware documenting the Black People’s Day of Action on 2 March 1981; a turning in the Black community's struggle for justice and civil rights. The images bear witness to a historic moment of community organising and resistance in post-war Britain.

Ware’s photographs document this historic occasion in vivid detail. While best known for her work as an academic and writer, she has also produced an important and little known body of documentary photography. During the late 1970s and early 1980s Ware was actively involved in feminist, anti-racist and anti-fascist movements, documenting campaigns as a freelance photographer and working as editor for Searchlight magazine from 1981-1983.