2/3/81: Black People's Day of Action

On Monday 2 March 1981 several thousand people took to the streets of London to protest the New Cross Massacre on 18 January, where a suspected racist fire-bomb attack killed thirteen black youths (aged 15-22) at 439 New Cross Rd, London SE14. The march went from Deptford, scene of the fire, to Fleet Street, home to many of the UK's national newspapers, and then to Downing St.

The protest was against the alleged brutal police treatment of survivors, racist media reporting, ongoing racial attacks and the silence of the British government and Queen resulting in the slogan, “13 dead and nothing said!”. The London Black People's Day of Action demonstration in 1981 began a year of uprisings that would set the streets of Britain ablaze as Black communities in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool rose up in revolt against prejudice and oppression.

source: The Blacklist Pub, obv.org.uk





Also on this day.... two new asteroids were discovered by Dr. Schelte J. “Bobby” Bus, astronomer at the University of Hawaii Astronomy Institute.

The two asteroids were both named after science-fiction writers:  4923 Clarke, after Arthur C. Clarke, and 5020 Asimov after Isaac Asimov.