Four decades on from disturbances which rocked St Pauls, Bristol, on April 2, 1980, Bristol Live speaks to people who remember the seven hours of violent clashes.
Anger, despair and hopelessness. Jendayi Serwah paints a stark picture of the St Pauls she knew in the run-up to the disturbances on this day in 1980.
Just 14 years old at the time, she was already working on her future, enrolled in a youth training scheme. But, she says, opportunities for young black people began to dry up once they reached 18, and the disenfranchisement and frustration those young people felt eventually bubbled up into the events of April 2, 1980.
“The events happened because young people were disaffected," said Jendayi.
“They were experiencing a lot of racism.
"The main issues were unemployment, police brutality and police harassment," she said.
“These were the things which really impacted on our youths' feelings of anger and despair and hopelessness which led to people wanting to confront the police."
Jendayi, says that a lack of anti-discrimination legislation led to the “criminalisation of young people,” and them falling victim to “the sus law.”
Jendayi says that the St Pauls community was feeling disconnected from much of the institution of the time, with the lack of investment in the area, their treatment at the hands of the police and their representation in the media.
"It was always negative press when it came to black people," she added.
She said: “I do remember that The Evening Post (now the Bristol Post) never had a good reputation in terms of telling our stories.
“There used to be three editions of the paper which came out every day - a one star, two star and three star. It was one of those papers that we knew did not represent us."
Jendayi was at the Mill Youth Centre on the evening of the riots, on the site which is now the Empire Boxing Club.
"I was at Mill Youth Centre when the riots were taking place, so I wasn’t actually there that evening as I had gone straight from school to the youth centre," she added.
"But, I remember being told about it and then later on watching it on the news. At the time, I was very young so I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, but I watched it on the news that night and I remember seeing everything that was happening unfold in front of me. The Lloyd’s Bank went up in flames and lots of people were running around.
“Even though I was young and wasn’t fully aware, I knew that it was closely linked to police brutality because that's something we would witness on the streets everyday."
Now 54, Jendayi is a transcontinental reparations activist who created The John Lynch African Programme in 1990 and the African Connexions Consortium, which she founded as part of her role within the Global African Peoples Parliament in 2016. Although highly active with the Malcolm X Centre as a founder member of the board, she believes it was a short term fix to a very long term problem, which needed more than a building as a solution.
She says that, following the riots, there was a lack of access to basic necessities, such as cash machines, in St Pauls, especially following the burning down of Lloyds Bank that night. With card payments less available or non-existent back then, she recalls having to go as far as Broadmead to withdraw money.
Post riots, Jendayi believes those living in St Pauls were left with no community access to the facilities they needed. Although the riots highlighted the fact that young people were feeling disenfranchised in St Pauls, which led to the development of the Malcolm X Centre there as a space to bring the community together, Jendayi says that it wasn't done properly, and needed greater thought and investment.
She said: “(The disturbances) certainly led to the development of the Malcolm X Centre, which wasn't very well thought through and was not fit for purpose when it was first built.
“Since the late 1980s it has stayed the same and hasn't had the capital investment to bring it up to the 21st century, despite the fact that it was one of the key things that came out of the uprising because people thought the answer to the question was to throw money at the problem."
