Birmingham Black Sisters

BBS

Birmingham Black Sisters (BBS) was founded in Birmingham in 1982. Its purpose was to create a political space for racialized minority women, given that feminist organizing in Britain was largely white and anti-racist campaigns were often dominated by men. In this sense, its objectives overlapped significantly with Southall Black Sisters, which was founded in 1979. BBS drew from the ideologies of self-determination and self-defence which were formulated by Black Power organizations in the US and adopted by British anti-racist groups such as the Black People’s Alliance, Asian Youth Movements (AYM) and Pakistani Workers’ Association, with which some BBS members were affiliated. Political Blackness was a core tenet of BBS, which strived to create a united front among its Black and South Asian members to resist structural racism and sexism. It did not take any funding from the state, nor did it align with organizations that were governmentally supported.

Its members were largely younger women with varying religious and educational backgrounds. Key members included Linda Bellos and Surinder Guru. BBS did not permit white people or men to join the organization. In addition, BBS’s newsletters, which were published from 1988, were only distributed to Black and South Asian groups. These newsletters were critical in disseminating legal advice and publicizing their campaigns.

The contentious politics of nationality and immigration during the 1980s catalysed BBS’s campaigning in support of Black and South Asian women. BBS supported women who were fighting deportation due to increasingly exclusionary immigration laws, as well as victims of domestic abuse such as Iqbal Begum, a Mirpuri woman who was convicted of murdering her abusive husband in 1981. Its campaign successfully overturned Begum’s conviction and was supported by the Bradford AYM, which Junior Rashid chaired. However, BBS did not have a positive relationship with the Birmingham AYM, which accused BBS of being too middle class. The Indian Workers’ Association (IWA) also accused BBS of being western feminists. These attacks, which worked to discredit BBS’s ability to engage with workers, overshadowed its support for women resisting economic exploitation, such as their 1984 campaign in support of the strikers from Kewal Brothers’ clothing manufacturers in Smethwick, who were mostly women. Its organization of women-only meetings for the strikers angered some IWA members, who accused BBS of causing unnecessary divisions.

BBS’s preoccupation with anti-deportation campaigns and South Asian workers caused tension among its small group of African and Caribbean members, who were less affected by this issue and thought that their concerns were not being adequately addressed. After the Handsworth Riots of 1981, for example, BBS members sought to create connections with local Black organizations, although this was not possible due to distrust.

BBS reformed in 2017, although it is unclear whether the organization is still in operation.