My parents came to this country in the 60s. I’m first generation that’s born British. I’m also the chair of Friends of Windrush Square.

People call me Miss Brixton, Queen of Brixton. That was not something I set out to achieve.

I resented the school system. I went to a Church of England school which believed in the ideology that you spared the rod and spoiled the child. Now, coming from Caribbean culture, I often hear my mum kiss her teeth. So I thought, if I disprove of something, I’ll kiss my teeth, you know. I didn’t know that – laughs – it wasn’t appropriate.

Anyway, long story short, I ended up at the headmaster’s office. Slipper.

[Smacking sound]

Ruler.

[Smacking sound]

Cane.

Nobody spoke to you, they just beat you. For minor indiscretions. Imagine a seven-year-old, eight-year-old, being beaten. It would be termed as child abuse.

When you are punished in that way it has a psychological effect. Nobody gave me any therapy for that.

My parents were workers. They came to work. My mother had two jobs. There was no time to sit down and take on board what I was going through. I just had to kinda suck it all up and figure it all out.

When people talk about, ‘Where’s that anger come from, Ros?’ Well it comes from there.

My secondary education didn’t get off to a great start. My reports always said that I’m a very nice person, ‘But her behaviour lets her down.’

The uniform was that you had to wear white socks. I refused. Wear black socks. They sent the sock brigade after me and I still wasn’t wearing white socks. I said, ‘I’m wearing what my parents can afford to buy for me and it’s black socks.’

Instead I started a movement. All my peers decided to stand in solidarity with me and wear black socks. Laughs.

The community that I was raised in, it was like a village. So, you have your parents but you have other parents who take care of you. And you go to school with their children. So we were connected. If anything happened to anyone, people would talk.

We had no phone, no internet. So by the time we heard, we didn’t know where New Cross was. We just know that, people who are a similar age, that look like us, were burnt in a house party.

New Cross Fire. 18th of January 1981. At 439 New Cross Road. When thirteen dead and nothing was said.

Thirteen dead, nothing said.

Thirteen dead, nothing said.

Thirteen dead, nothing said.

We had to put up with the National Front. With racial slurs. ‘Blacks out. Blacks out. Go home, go back on the banana boat,’ and they would make monkey noise. I was angry. It spills out into the streets. We didn’t start fires. You started when you killed the thirteen.

Black People’s Day of Action, the 2nd of March 1981. The Black People’s National Day of Action was my first march. I just knew I had to be there.

When the teachers got wind of, there’s a march, they were telling us as Black pupils, we are not to go in the march. So they locked the school gate. I and others climbed over the school gate and helped those over the gate.

There was an element of fun, ‘cause you had music. You don’t know what’s going on but you’re just part of it. You just needed to be part of something that felt, it’s about us taking action.

Brixton Uprising took place on the 11th and the 12th of April, 1981.

Somebody said, ‘Brixton’s burning. Police fighting Black people.’ And by the time I got to the heart of it, yeah, Brixton was burning. Burnt. A place I loved, but watched it burn to the ground. Yes, it was dangerous. But when you’re young you’re very risk averse, because you’re ready to fight, ready to die for the cause.

It was serious. We’re not turning our other cheek. Our parents were the generation of ‘turn the other cheek’. I was the generation that was more aligned with Malcolm X, ‘By any means necessary.’

Brixton was burning for three days.

[Sounds of fire]

And it was under the Tory government who, before they knew it, there was uprisings all over the country. But Brixton led the way. It was never a race uprising. It was always Black people and the police, killing Black people. Death in custodies. And fighting was about survival. It wasn’t because I liked to fight. It was because that was a way of life. I don’t remember racism having a holiday. It was just constant, day in, day out.

So I was angry, but there was nowhere to channel my anger. And it went into my adulthood, because of what was done to people who looked like me. There wasn’t many opportunities. There weren’t employees that were recruiting from SW9, you know. But the turning point for me, President Nelson Mandela came to Brixton in 1996.

That experience was like the second coming of Christ. When I was growing up they were talking about Free Mandela, there were so many songs about Free Mandela. But when he came to Brixton, I thought I was in another world. Traffic came to a standstill, people are on the rooftops. You wouldn’t believe that Prince Charles was there – laughs – but nobody was paying any attention to him. And there was music, sound systems, it was, it was, I’ve never seen Brixton like this. Ever.

His words was basically saying that, you know, we must build our community and stop burning it down. Because they’d been through it in South Africa. Apartheid. It is about being a force for good.

I knew at that point, I need to do things differently. And it was an Englishman that said to me, ‘Ros, you’d be so powerful if you had a strategy.’ I thought he was being racist, but you know what the irony was? I didn’t know what strategy meant.

Bob Marley says, ‘None other than yourself can free your minds.’ That’s what I wanted to do, free my mind. And I filled that with knowledge. Started to read more. And I took my anger to the town hall, listening to people like Linda Bellos. That was my education. And I was able to go back to my community to break it down to them, what we need to be doing differently to help ourselves.

And then going to college led to higher education. I studied at Queen Mary University of London. I did a master’s in community organising. It wasn’t part of my plan to go to university because I didn’t know anyone in my community that went to university. I would say that, by the time I did my master’s I’d already graduated from the University of Brixton with my PhD.

Persistent, hungry for success and determined.

When we talk about British history, they airbrush us out, the Black people out of it. Because nobody taught me at school that Black people served in world war one or two. How did I learn? Through stories. Somebody told me a story.

You had so many great people that you could listen to that looked like us, like your Darcus Howe, your Linton Kwesi Johnson. You had your Olive Morris. We’ve got to hear those stories. We have done it, we just need to do it again, and again. And let the next generation do what we started. Let them record the stories, let them put it where they need to place it.

I’m interested in people, I’m interested in connecting communities, but I’ve learned to channel my anger, focus, so I’m about the action. I get angry, but I’ve moved straight to strategy.

I am who I am because of Brixton and I never forget that. One heart, one love, one community. As Bob Marley’s taught us, let’s get together and feel alright. We can do it. We have done it, we just need to do it again.