10 Years of BLMUK
We launched in 2016, five years after the killing of Mark Duggan.
Our first action, #Shutdown, marked that anniversary. Communities across London, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham disrupted major transport hubs to make sure racist state violence in Britain could not be ignored. A month later, we shut down London City Airport, connecting the fight for Black liberation with climate justice.
Over the years, we’ve stood alongside families demanding accountability after deaths in police and state custody. We’ve supported the United Families & Friends Campaign. We’ve stood with Windrush communities calling for justice. We’ve backed Ridley Road traders resisting displacement. We’ve worked with partners to stop the government’s proposed migrant children database through the Against Borders for Children campaign.
In 2020, as communities grappled with both the murder of George Floyd and the devastating impact of COVID-19, we supported young organisers, coordinated police station support, stood alongside families demanding justice, and continued building the relationships and infrastructure for long-term organising.
We redistributed over £500,000 we received in donations to Black-led grassroots groups that wouldn’t typically receive funding.
Since then, we’ve continued to organise. Through the Festival of Collective Liberation and Project Timbuktu, and the Anti-Racist Movement, we’ve brought thousands of people together through learning, art and culture.
Spaces to learn from one another. To celebrate Black creativity. To heal. To organise. To imagine the future we’re fighting for.
None of this happened because of us alone.
It happened because families trusted us. Because grassroots groups organised in their own communities. Because people practised solidarity, not charity. Because they shared resources, knowledge and care. Because they kept showing up for one another. Because liberation has always been a collective project.
Our role has always been to organise alongside others, strengthen our movements and help build the conditions for liberation.
The conditions that brought us together haven’t disappeared. Neither have we.
This August, we mark ten years properly with a year of action running through to 2027.
We’re recommitting.
To organising. To solidarity. To political education. To culture. To care. To building power with communities across the country.
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