International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements, reaffirm commitments to gender equality, and call for continued action. For Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, this includes highlighting the experiences and leadership of women from the African and African Caribbean diaspora.
For 2026, the Institute recognises the pioneering work of Leila Hassan Howe — a significant figure in Black British political activism and collective organising.
Hassan Howe began her activism during the Black Power movement of the 1970s as a member of the Black Unity and Freedom Party. She contributed to developments within the Institute of Race Relations and was a founding member of the Brixton-based Race Today Collective in 1973, later becoming editor of its influential journal, Race Today.
Alongside her husband, Darcus Howe, she helped organise the Black People’s Day of Action in March 1981 following the deaths of 13 young Black people in the New Cross fire tragedy. The demonstration became a defining moment in modern Black British history.
In 1974, Hassan Howe and the Race Today Collective campaigned in support of striking workers at the Imperial Typewriters factory in Leicester, linking local labour struggles with wider racial justice movements.
She currently serves as Chairperson of the Darcus Howe Legacy Collective and continues to contribute to scholarship and public debate, including co-editing Here to Stay, Here to Fight and a 2023 special issue of Race Today, the first since 1988. In 2024, she was awarded an honorary fellowship by Goldsmiths, University of London and recognised as one of Serendipity Institute’s 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark.
The evening will feature a screening of We The People, produced and directed by Fan Sissoko and Virginia Nimarkoh in association with Tommy Ross-Williams. The documentary explores intergenerational activism in Brixton.
The screening will be followed by an in-conversation with Leila Hassan Howe.
Image credit: Black People’s Day of Action, 1981. Photograph by Homer Sykes
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