Smash the Backlash Demonstration

Haringey, London

On 2 May 1987 3,500 people gathered in Haringey to march for LGBTQIA+ rights, anti-racism and women’s rights. This was in response to the backlash Haringey Council faced when they committed to the positive portrayal of LGBTQIA+ people in schools by supporting the Positive Images campaign group. This included a book about a child who lived with her father and his boyfriend titled Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, which was distributed among teachers who worked for the Inner London Education Authority. The Positive Images campaign group and the book fuelled outrage from groups such as the Conservative Party, the Parent’s Rights Group and New Patriotic Movement, as well as some local South Asian and Black community groups. These sentiments paved the way for the passing of Section 28 in the Local Governments Act 1988 by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government, which banned the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by councils and schools.

In 1986 the Labour-led Haringey Council was the UK’s first local authority to open a Lesbian and Gay Unit, which aimed to promote LGBTQIA+ rights. The Unit held consultations with lesbians and gay men in the community, including those who were racialized minority, and promoted these meetings with leaflets that were translated into Urdu and Hindi. This highlighted the council’s commitment to meeting the needs of local LGBTQIA+ South Asians. In response to the growing resistance to the positive portrayal of LGBTQIA+ people, the Unit supported the ‘Smash the Backlash’ march, which was organized by Haringey Black Action – an organization that supported racialized minority LGBTQIA+ people – and the Positive Images campaign group.

The Smash the Backlash campaign was promoted widely to encourage the participation of people across the UK. Posters with titles such as ‘Asian Gays Are Out and Proud’, and ‘Asian Lesbians Growing Strong’ encouraged LGBTQIA+ South Asians to join. As promotional materials stated, the march was necessary because racism and bigotry were on the rise, and they called for LGBTQIA+ people, racialized minorities, women, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, socialists and progressives to unite. The march started on Duckett’s Common in Haringey and ended at Bruce Castle Park. Its significance, as the first march in support of Black LGBTQIA+ rights, is commemorated with a plaque at the junction of The Roundway and Lordship Lane, which was unveiled by council leaders and activists on 30 October 2021.