Barbara Beese | |
---|---|
Born | Hackney, London, United Kingdom | 2 January 1946
Nationality | British |
Occupation(s) | Activist and writer |
Known for | Member of the British Black Panthers and one of the Mangrove Nine |
Partner | Darcus Howe |
Children | Darcus Beese |
Barbara Beese (/ˈbiːz/; born 2 January 1946) is a British activist, writer, and former member of the British Black Panthers.[1][2] She is most notable as one of the Black activists known as the Mangrove Nine, charged in 1970 with inciting a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, west London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour (the repeated raids) motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.