Blair Peach - Activism and Death

Activism and Death

Peach was an active member of the East London Teachers' Association, a branch of the National Union of Teachers, and became its president in the year before his death. In 1974, he was charged with threatening behaviour after challenging a local publican's refusal to serve black customers, but acquitted.

Peach became a campaigner and activist against far right and neo-Nazi organisations. He attended a demonstration held by the Anti-Nazi League outside the town hall in Southall on Monday 23 April 1979, St George's Day, joining 3,000 protesters against a National Front meeting taking place in the town hall, in the run-up to the 1979 UK general election. The demonstration was attended by over 2,500 police, and became violent; more than 40 people, including 21 police, were injured and 300 were arrested. Peach was knocked unconscious in a side street, at the junction of Beechcroft Avenue and Orchard Avenue (51°30′38″N 0°22′49″W / 51.51051°N 0.38034°W / 51.51051; -0.38034), and died the next day in Ealing Hospital. Another demonstrator, Clarence Baker, a singer of the reggae band Misty in Roots, remained in a coma for five months.

I understand the concern of your people. But if you keep off the streets of London and behave yourselves you won't have the SPG to worry about.

Sir David McNee, then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, defending the actions of the SPG to a black journalist.

Days after Peach's death, 10,000 marched past the place where he collapsed. The now-demolished Dominion Cinema, Southall, where his body was lying in repose, was visited by 8,000 Sikhs on the eve of Peach's funeral. 10,000 people attended his funeral, which took place 51 days after 23 April. Public reaction to Peach's death, and other underlying racial tensions including excessive police use of the infamous Sus law, ultimately led to the 1981 Brixton riot and a public inquiry by Lord Scarman.