Frank Crichlow

Frank Gilbert Crichlow (13 July 1932 – 15 September 2010) was a British community activist and civil rights campaigner, who became known in 1960s London as a godfather of black radicalism. He was a central figure in the Notting Hill Carnival. His restaurant, The Mangrove in All Saints Road, served for many years as the base from which activists, musicians, and artists organised the event. Crichlow was one of the Black activists known as the Mangrove Nine, who were charged in 1970 with inciting a riot following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove restaurant. The defendants were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour (the repeated raids) motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police. Early life and emigration to UK Originally from Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad, Frank Crichlow arrived in England in June 1953 on the SS Colombie, among the first wave of post-war immigrants from the Caribbean. He lived in Paddington at first, working for British Rail, then formed the Starlight Four band in 1956. Margaret Busby writes in The Guardian that the band had a few television and radio appearances, which, by 1959, gave Crichlow enough money to open the El Rio cafe in Notting Hill at 127 Westbourne Park Road. The cafe became a fashionable meeting place — with people such as model Christine Keeler and politician John Profumo as customers — and provided a safe place for black people to meet. Crichlow described it as a "school or university" for hustlers. The Mangrove and civil rights activism In 1968, Crichlow opened The Mangrove restaurant at 8 All Saints Road, Notting Hill, attracting both unwelcome police attention and celebrity visitors such as Diana Ross and the Supremes, Vanessa Redgrave, and Sammy Davis Jr. The restaurant was raided six times in the first year, though nothing was found. Crichlow, Darcus Howe, and several others marched on the police station in 1970 in protest against the constant police attention. The Mangrove Nine, as they became known, faced charges of incitement to riot. Although the charges were initially dismissed, they were later reinstated, and all nine were arrested in morning police raids. The Nine defendants unsuccessfully argued for an all-black jury, on the grounds that the Magna Carta afforded them a "jury of one's peers".