The story of the state's targeting of 70s activists has been turned into a musical exploring a fascinating and relatively unknown period. It is a love letter to our elders, says its writer.
"Black Power. The words can send shivers down the spine of the nervous white man," begins the 2021 BBC documentary Black Power: A British Story of Resistance, which takes a closer look at the movement from the 1960s to the present day. The quote, delivered by a male voice in a plummy accent evocative of a different era, is clipped from a news report aired by the same broadcaster in the 1970. Although at the time those words were perhaps just as likely to send shivers down the spine of the knowing Black man.
By then, the Metropolitan police had set up a covert surveillance operation designed to decapitate Black activism in the UK by targeting the movement's leaders. The special branch unit was established in 1967 by the Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins, and named the Black Power Desk. Its scope was profoundly intrusive. The Black Power Desk remained active into the 1990s, incorporated into the Met's Special Demonstration Squad; in 2018, the Undercover Policing Inquiry confirmed that a number of officers unlawfully entered into intimate relationships with members of the movement as part of the operation.
This fascinating and relatively unknown period of British history is the inspiration behind a new musical about to open in London. Originally conceived as part of an artist development programme at south London's Old Vic, Black Power Desk will premiere at the Brixton House theatre. It is the perfect home: since the venue's opening three years ago, it has been working to establish itself as the place to showcase stories made for, by and about Black communities. The area itself is also steeped in rich Black British history relevant to the musical's themes. Back in the day, some factions of the Black Power movement organised on the venue’s neighbouring streets.
The location for the production’s premiere was incredibly important to playwright Urielle Klein-Mekongo: “I didn’t want to make a show that couldn’t be shown to the culture first, blessed by the culture first, consecrated by the culture first.” When she started developing the musical seven years ago, the Mangrove Nine - a group of two women and seven men of West Indian heritage known for being part of the British Black Power movement - were little known outside west London. Named after the Mangrove, a Notting Hill restaurant run by civil rights activist Frank Crichlow that became a lively community hub, the group worked to advance the rights of Black people in the UK.
Fast forward to 2020, and the group’s story had gone mainstream, thanks in large part to director Steve McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe. The series opens with a 90-minute film that chronicles their story, including their landmark 1971 trial at the Old Bailey, in which they were accused of inciting a riot at a protest march. All members of the group were acquitted of the most serious charges against them, and it marked the first time that institutional racism within the Met Police was officially recognised - a monumental victory for UK civil rights.
Was it annoying that Small Axe was released first? “I was annoyed for sure!” Klein-Mekongo laughs. “I thought: You could have hired me! I could have been in it!” Jokes aside, she found the arrival of a prominent adaptation very useful, and paid close attention in particular to how it was received by those from and close to the movement, many of whom are still alive. “He got his research right, but I know there’s a bunch of elders who didn’t necessarily approve of how certain things were put; some of them were quite vocal about that.” Gaining their approval has been a guiding motivation for her: “This is a love letter to them.”
McQueen’s Small Axe wasn’t the first time a television series had shone a light on the British Black Power movement. It was watching John Ridley’s Guerilla, a six-part series that aired on Sky Atlantic in 2017, that planted in Klein-Mekongo the seeds of inspiration for Black Power Desk. At the time, the series was heavily criticised by veterans of the movement for the “unforgivable” erasure of Black women within the British Black Panthers. That omission piqued Klein-Mekongo’s curiosity.
“They had a south Asian woman [Freida Pinto] playing the head of the rebellion and I just thought: This isn’t making sense to me. How did they get here?” At this point, she also realised she knew very little about Black British history: “In mainstream schools, UK Black history has only been slightly interjected in the curriculum here and there ... Why do I know more about Rosa Parks? Why do I know more about Martin Luther King? The Mangrove Nine should be on the UK curriculum.” From there, she began her own independent research.
Black Power Desk is set in the year after the Mangrove Nine trial, with real figures and events from the Black British civil rights movement providing the backdrop for the action on stage. Rochelle Rose and Veronica Carabai take the lead as sisters Celia and Dina, who are trying their best to support each other in the aftermath of their mother’s death, while racial tensions between the state and Black communities bubble up all around them. But they are also in conflict with each other. A “central theme” of the play, Klein-Mekongo says, is the dichotomy between “your activism versus your humanity”. The tension is embodied in the difference between the two sisters: Dina is willing to fight for her community, while Celia doesn’t necessarily want to be defined by her activism.
Klein-Mekongo worked alongside dramaturg Gail Babb to develop the script. Originally it was a musicalised verbatim account of the Mangrove Nine trial. Then with each draft, the team considered the potential ramifications of their approach. There was the question of ownership: who has the right to tell this story?
The two are aware that making art about living people has ethical implications. Black Britons, Babb says, “all have a claim and part ownership of the stories that happened in this country, of stories that happened to communities we’re a part of, to ancestors we’ve come from”. However, “having a stake in a story doesn’t mean you get to tell it however you want, for whatever purpose you want”. This led them to take a change in direction - and fictionalise the plot instead.
Black Power Desk is being billed as the first ever British Black History musical. When thinking about why something like this has not been done before, it’s easy to be cynical; that the industry often conflates work about Black lives with increased risk is no secret. In Klein-Mekongo’s experience, “new work is struggling to raise money and pull things together to even get a moment on stage. They love us when they want a nice gospelly, sassy Dreamgirls moment, but do they ever want to hear the Black British voice?”
Black talent is more often used in service of existing narratives outside their direct experience, as can be seen in the 2023 production of Sylvia at the Old Vic, which saw the acclaimed singer-songwriter and actor Beverley Knight play noted socialist campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst. “The story doesn’t belong to us,” says Klein-Mekongo; “but they’re gonna use our spice to season their sauce.”
A more generous reading considers the time that has passed since the events in question. Fifty years may seem like a long time; however, this was only one generation ago. This is also significant because it marks an unprecedented opportunity: telling this story this way—examining it as an important moment in history—has never been possible until now.
"It's hard to know how significant the small, everyday things in your life are; it's hard to tell when you're living through history," Babb says, before recounting a decades-old anecdote about stopping to chat to the poet and prominent Black Power activist Linton Kwesi Johnson in a random encounter on the streets of south London's Lewisham - he and her father were friends - and thinking nothing of it at the time. "I think we forget how special our lives are."
As it opens, Black Power Desk is a powerful reminder that the history of our existence in this country is not only worth knowing but it's also worthy of celebration.