‘Because we dared to demonstrate’ – a critical analysis of state repression, institutional racism and anti-racist mobilisation in the context of the Mangrove Nine trial in London, 1971

Abstract

This dissertation provides a critical analysis of the political struggles around the
Mangrove Restaurant in late 1960s and early 1970s London, focusing especially in the
Mangrove demonstration in 1970 and Mangrove Nine trial in 1971. Most notably, it
provides a socio-historical contextualisation of the Mangrove Nine case within the
broader constellation of repressive state power, (neo-)racist discourses, and anti-racist
mobilisation in the British post-imperial conjuncture. Drawing on the methodological
paradigms of critical discourse analysis and neo-Gramscian context analysis, the
Mangrove Nine trial is anaysed as an institutionalised condensation and episodical
culmination of the increasing political confrontations between British state authorities
and Black Power organisations in late 1960s London. Based on extensive archival work,
this dissertation not only develops an in-depth analysis of these confrontational dynamics
but also shows how they were embedded in hegemonic discourses in which Black Power
activism was delegitimised and stigmatised as a “threat” to the British social and political
order. In this regard, it makes an innovative contribution to critical socio-historical
research on the relationship between (neo-)racist discrimination and anti-racist
mobilisation in 1960s and 1970s Britain, with an explicit focus on the political role of
state repression as well as political struggles in the state terrain.