Ros – '81 Uprisings

I think that the situation that we're in with the police is worse.

It's not got better.

My name is Ross Griffiths and I was born in the London Borough of Lambeth and made in Brixton.

I'm a community organiser and I have been involved with my community for over 30 odd years.

I remember back in 1990, 81, there was a march called the Black People's Day of Action.

I was still at school, a teenager.

That march was set up in response to the New Cross fire when 13 young people who were a similar age to myself perished in the New Cross fire.

The march was in response to the injustice.

There was a lot of anger in the community.

Frustration was felt all over the neighbourhood, at my school.

Everywhere, people were talking about it.

The teachers found out about the march and decided that they were going to lock the school gates and told us that we couldn't attend.

And we decided, myself and along with a few others, we decided that we will attend the march and we climbed over the school gate to attend the march.

That was my first experience of a march.

It was interesting.

One of the most powerful experiences that I encountered as a teenager.

It was like a movement.

It was my first experience of Black Lives Matter.

And people from all walks of life, young, there was lots of young people.

in school uniform and chanting, 13 dead, nothing said.

And it was breathtaking, the experience of that march.

At the time, I didn't experience anything like it.

caught the attention of the national press.

And people in my neighborhood were talking about that experience for days and weeks.

It was unbelievable.