48 Years Later at Piehouse Coop

The Piehouse Co-Op and London Community Video Archive team up to bring you an evening of reflection on Lewisham's anti/racist history, to commemorate Black History Month.

We will be screening 3 films, introduced by Phoebe Beckett Chingono (LCVA).

Aug 13: What Happened? (1977)

The film depicts the infamous events of 13 August 1977, when a National Front march through South East London led to clashes with anti-fascist groups, and later between demonstrators and the police. The footage shows the first time police deployed riot gear on the UK mainland and provides vital evidence about the demonstration and its aftermath in which over 100 people were injured.

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Nubia Way: a story of black-led self building in Lewisham (2022, 20 mins)

Nubia Way was built in the 1990s by Fusions Jameen, London's first black housing co-operative in Downham, Lewisham. Constructed using the principles of Walter Segal, self-builders were offered long-term discounted rents in return for building the homes. Through interviews with the original self-builders, historians, architects and economists, this new documentary from the Architecture Foundation celebrates the legacy of Nubia Way and examines self-building as an act of resistance against the housing discrimination faced by Black British Communities.

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(15 min Excerpt from): Beyond Our Ken (1985, 52 mins)

In the wake of the abolition of the Metropolitan Authorities, Beyond Our Ken stands as a lively record of how people in inner-city London used GLC resources to improve the quality of their lives, and of how GLC policies on issues such as racism, sexism and employment began to be worked out on the ground. In the tape we see a wide range of community groups and organisations in Lewisham and Greenwich, who explain how they have been supported by the funding and policy stands taken by the GLC under the recent Labour administration. It was broadcast by Channel 4 in the People to People strand.

Following the screening, there will be a talk from The Memorial of Slavery and Freedom, a group that host walking tours about Deptford's colonial history, and Steve McCarthy, a local historian and host of the Deptford Dub Club, who was instrumental in making the Battle of Lewisham mural on Goldsmiths' university campus.