Today's Feature

November 8th

Darcus Howe: Part II

2011 BBC Interview

Howe was interviewed by Fiona Armstrong for BBC News on 9 August 2011 at the time of the 2011 England riots. During the interview, Armstrong twice referred to him as "Marcus Dowe", then asked: "You are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." Howe denied this, saying: "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been part of demonstrations that ended up in a conflict.

Have some respect for an old West Indian Negro, and stop accusing me of being a rioter. Because you wanted for me to get abusive, you just sound idiotic—have some respect.” The BBC apologised for any offence the interview caused, and said "it had not intended to show him any disrespect”.

Asked about the unfolding situation in London, Howe discussed the death of Mark Duggan: "What I am not – what I'm concerned about more than anything else, there's a young man called Mark Duggan. He has parents, he has brothers, he has sisters, and two yards away from where he lives, a police officer blew his head off.”

Marriage, Children and Death

Howe was married three times and had seven children.

Howe was married to the British editor and activist Leila Hassan, who succeeded him as editor of Race Today.

The 2005 Channel 4 documentary Son of Mine examines Howe's relationship with his 20-year-old son Amiri Howe, who faced jail for charges related to stolen passports.Howe's daughter Tamara Howe was a director of production for London Weekend Television before moving to the BBC, where she rose to be Controller of Business, Comedy & Entertainment, Television.

Howe also had a relationship with fellow Black Panther and Mangrove Nine member Barbara Beese, and they have a son, Darcus Beese, who is president of Island Records.

Howe was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2007 and he subsequently campaigned for more men to get tested.

He died aged 74 on 1 April 2017, at his home in Streatham, London, where he lived with his wife Leila Howe. An event in his honour, "Tribute to Darcus, Man Free", took place at the Black Cultural Archives on Sunday, 9 April. On 20 April, his funeral service was held at All Saints Notting Hill Church, following the cortege's procession through Brixton, with wreath-laying at the Railton Road building where the Race Today collective was formerly based.

Farrukh Dhondy pays tribute to Marcus Howe

Those who gave spoken tributes and eulogies at the church included his daughter Tamara and Farrukh Dhondy. A note of condolence from Jeremy Corbyn was read out.

Academic Legacy

Darcus Howe: a Political Biography, by Robin Bunce of Cambridge University and human rights activist Paul Field, was published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Academic, and in a 2017 paperback edition entitled Renegade: The Life and Times of Darcus Howe.

The Darcus Howe Papers – containing "correspondence, writings, interview transcripts, court reports and transcripts, printed material, and audio and video tapes regarding the life and work of journalist and activist, Darcus Howe—a British citizen and native of Trinidad" – are archived at Columbia University Libraries.

In Popular Media

Howe appears in the 1973 Franco Rosso and John La Rose documentary film The Mangrove Nine.

Actor Malachi Kirby portrays Howe in the Mangrove episode of Steve McQueen's 2020 film anthology/television miniseries Small Axe.

Linton Kwesi Johnson wrote about Darcus Howe in the song “Man Free” on his 1978 debut album Dread Beat an' Blood.

In March 2023, a special memorial edition of Race Today dedicated to Howe was published, linked to what would have been his 80th birthday and coinciding with the launch of the magazine's on-line archive at an event organised by the Darcus Howe Legacy Collective, hosted at Goldsmiths, University of London, at which journalist and broadcaster Gary Younge was the keynote speaker.