Electric Avenue is a Market Street

0:09

Brixton it takes its the fact

0:12

that when it in the 1880s it

0:14

was one of the first streets in London

0:16

to be lit well that's the

0:20

end of that video! oh wait! I forgot it

0:24

had a song it given that

0:26

that's probably why you clicked this

0:28

video

0:28

oh you ought to that... so the

0:33

song Electric Avenue was released

0:35

Eddie grant 1983 reaching number two

0:39

in the on both sides of the

0:42

Atlantic

0:42

that it was and that it had such

0:46

exposure was a couple of sort of

0:50

happy accidents the first was that while

0:54

Barbados much of Grant's

0:57

material had lost and so he

1:00

Electric Avenue other songs to

1:02

replace this; the second was a video shot

1:05

in Barbados not Brixton a

1:09

lot of play on MTV- the song was a direct

1:13

to the Brixton of 1981

1:16

and therein lies a tale Brixton had been

1:21

a major since the

1:23

of the Windrush due to the

1:25

immigrants receiving

1:28

in the former deep level shelter on

1:29

Clapham Common and Brixton being

1:32

the nearest labor I actually

1:35

did a video about this a while back I'll

1:37

see if I can link to it below-

1:42

tensions had arisen the 70s had

1:47

seen gripped the UK with

1:49

closures of country's

1:51

traditional industries resulting

1:53

in millions being thrown the

1:56

community in Brixton

1:58

though were disproportionately

2:01

with the rate of poverty

2:02

unemployment and indeed 65 percent

2:06

of the in the borough of

2:08

Lambeth were black and the third of housing

2:10

was

2:12

the official solution was to deal with

2:15

the symptoms of deprivation

2:18

the cause the amount of

2:21

police in the area this was the

2:24

of the special group a

2:26

Metropolitan Police Division designed to

2:29

combat crime and public

2:32

which had gained a reputation for use of

2:35

the 1970s had also seen

2:39

overzealous enforcement of the

2:42

SUS law the basic essence of the sus law

2:46

was the police to stop search

2:50

and arrest anyone they deemed a

2:52

bit dodgy disproportionately those

2:56

stopped under the law

2:59

the program of increased policing in

3:02

Brixton as swamp 81 an

3:05

unappealing name with an even less

3:07

appealing origin in speech by

3:10

Margaret Thatcher suggesting that the UK

3:12

in her words might be swamped by

3:16

people of a different culture police

3:19

tactics were with nine

3:21

hundred and forty three people stopped

3:23

and searched in just one period

3:26

I'll let you guess what ethnicity most

3:29

of the were the

3:32

national press were perceived as being

3:34

unsympathetic towards the

3:36

community tensions rapidly

3:40

the straw was ironically a

3:44

misunderstanding on the 10th of April

3:47

a young black man named Michael

3:51

Bailey had stabbed and two

3:53

policemen tried to take Bailey to

3:55

hospital in their car thought

3:58

the police were Bailey and

3:59

even interpreted his heavy bleeding as

4:02

being caused the

4:05

crowd turned nasty hurling missiles

4:07

the car police reinforcements arrived in

4:10

an attempt to and

4:12

continued to arrive through the night

4:14

the following day heavy-handed police

4:17

tactics served only to escalate

4:19

and the disorder into

4:22

full-blown riot; more missiles were

4:25

thrown, buildings were and

4:27

police vehicles were overturned; the fire

4:30

brigade refused to attend the

4:33

many fires set the police

4:35

had no real strategy poor communication

4:38

and inadequate riot the riots

4:41

continued into Sunday the

4:45

violence died down people had

4:48

been arrested and more than people

4:52

the majority of them police officers had

4:55

been injured a hundred and

4:58

forty five businesses had been burned

5:00

smashed or the following months

5:04

would see further rioting elsewhere in

5:06

London in Leeds, Liverpool

5:09

Leicester, Luton, Edinburgh, Birmingham

5:12

Nottingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Stockport

5:15

Derby, Portsmouth, Preston, Sheffield

5:18

Southampton, Newcastle and Wolverhampton

5:21

Prime Minister Margaret

5:24

Thatcher down played the role of

5:27

tensions and in the

5:30

riots; however, a report released that

5:33

November by Lord Scarman was more

5:36

damning placing the events

5:38

squarely on social deprivation a total

5:41

lack of between the police

5:43

and the community and racist policing

5:46

it stopped short of claiming

5:49

institutional racism as the inquiry into

5:52

the Stephen Lawrence murder later would

5:54

by then the SUS law had been

5:57

for several months

5:59

1984 would see a for

6:02

the police implemented and the Police

6:04

Complaints Commission

6:06

in 1985 although allegations of

6:09

institutional racism and racial

6:11

profiling would remain Brixton would see

6:15

in 1985 and 1995 both over

6:19

police actions against members of the

6:22

local African Caribbean community indeed

6:25

at the time of filming this Britain is

6:27

seeing widespread

6:30

demonstrations perhaps things aren't

6:33

bad they were in 1981

6:36

but it seems argue that

6:38

there's still as Eddie Grant observed a

6:41

lot of to be done