PHIL MAXWELL

Black Lives Matter In Liverpool

July 18, 2016

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Hundreds of people gathered in Liverpool last Saturday to demonstrate that Black Lives Matter. Sean Rigg, Joy Gardner, Cynthia Jarrett, Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Christopher Alder, Paps Ullah, Philmore Mills, Brian Douglas and many more have all died while in the custody of the British police. The mood of the demonstration was coloured by the recent tragic ‘death in police custody’ of 18 year Mzee Mohammed.

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Kalum Walsh, the cousin of Mzee Mohammed (above) gave a moving tribute to his relative and friend. Many of Mzee’s family and friends attended the demonstration.

Liverpool 8 defence committee following the Toxteth riots, 1982

Liverpool 8 defence committee following the Toxteth riots, 1981

I remember photographing the ‘Oxford out’ demonstration in 1981 (above). The Merseyside police force at the time had a particularly bad reputation in the area for stopping and searching black youths under the hated ‘sus’ laws. Chief constable Ken Oxford led a police force that regularly arrested and harassed black youth in Toxteth. His astonishing rants at the time speak volumes about the racism that permeated the police force then: “Policemen in general and detectives in particular, are not racialist, despite what many Black groups believe. … Yet they are the first to define the problem of half-castes in Liverpool. Many are the products of liaisons between black seamen and white prostitutes in Liverpool 8, the red-light district. Naturally, they do not grow up with any kind of recognizable home life. Worse still, after they have done the round of homes and institutions, they gradually realize they are nothing.”

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Women in Liverpool 8, 1981

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Karla Mohammed, the mother of Mzee (above) gave a dignified, moving and passionate speech about her son. “I don’t want another mother or father to go through what I am.”

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Liverpool 8 playground, c.1980

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Melissa, Mzee’s sister (above) also gave a courageous speech at the demonstration.

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Speaking on the steps of St Luke’s church Karla Mohammed said: “I want to ask the Lord to see justice for my son. I will not rest, I will walk in my son’s shoes until I get answers, and anyone who had a hand in my boy’s death will be brought to justice. My son will not be a number or a statistic. His death will not be in vain.”

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Blacklives_30

Black Lives Matter, Liverpool 2016

Marcia Rigg is the sister of Sean Rigg, who died at the hands of Brixton police officers in August 2008; she says “Black Lives Matter is about showing the world that black people’s lives are just as important as any other. When black lives matter, all lives will matter. That is the world we want, where all lives truly matter.”

Over the coming months I will be making an independent film about why Black Lives Matter in Liverpool with Hazuan Hashim. If you have something to say about this and would like to be interviewed for the film then contact Hazuan at: hazuan_pm@yahoo.com

If you can please leave a comment of support below for the family of Mzee Mohammed.

You may also like to see ‘From Cable Street to Brick Lane’. A film about the struggle against racism & fascism from the 1930s to the present day.