BLACK FOR A CAUSE … NOT JUST BECAUSE …
By
Winston N Trew
The case of the Oval 4 and the story of Black Power in 1970s Britain
Winston Trew was born in Jamaica, the son and grandson of a policeman in the colonial police force. His family eventually migrated to the England, seeking a better life and education for their children. However as a young man growing up in a white- dominated society, Winston was well aware things were stacked against him. Early on, he made a commitment to himself that he would find and foster his Black identity and realise his destiny. In 1970 he joined a local Black Power organisation, the Fasimba (Young Lions), and it proved to be a life-changing event in more ways than he could ever have imagined.
In March, 1972, Winston and three members of the Fasimba were confronted at the Oval underground station, London, by a group of seven white men claiming to be policemen and accused them of nicking handbags. An argument broke into pushing and shoving, and then escalated into a fight. When police arrived they were arrested as it turned out the white men they were fighting were themselves undercover policemen. They described their experience in the police station as a night of dread. After a 5-week trial at the Old Bailey the Oval 4 were found guilty of attempting to steal, theft, and assault on police. All were jailed for 2 years. In 1973 they were released from prison after a successful Appeal.
In 1980, Detective Sergeant Ridgewell, former Rhodesian policeman and officer in charge that night, was himself jailed for 7 years for conspiracy after he and other undercover officers were discovered stealing from the Railway they were sent in to protect. To the black community the policeman s jailing for conspiracy revealed further evidence of his corrupt nature and deceitful character, something the Oval 4 have always maintained.
The Oval 4 episode is an eye-opening event because it not only illustrated the character and contours of Black Power activism in Britain in the 1970s resistance to police violence and corruption and judicial collusion it also debunks the myth that the 1960s was the only period of Black Power activism in Britain. Black Power activism as practiced by the Fasimba in the 1970s confronted the ethics of subservience and, as demonstrated by the Oval 4, directs attention to unexplored dimensions of Black resistance: the ethics of Black self-emancipation and Black liberation. This includes direction to both what is the right and proper thing to do and to what not to do in any situation.
