121 Centre

Evicted social centre in London March 2020 121 Centre 121 Railton Road in 2023.jpg Exterior of building 121 in 2023 121 Railton Road London England Squatted autonomous social centre 1981 1999 121 Centre was a squatted self-managed social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London from 1981 until 1999. As an anarchist social centre, the venue hosted a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting space, office space, printing facility, and rehearsal space. Organisations using the space included Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group. Regular events at 121 Centre included punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night.McHenryBufe2015 The centre kept a low profileMonroe 2002 151 and was one of the longest-lasting squats in London.McHenry Keith Bufe Chaz The Anarchist Cookbook https://books.google.com/books?id=qmquCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 2015 Tucson, Arizona See Sharp Press 978-1-937276-78-2 243 15 October 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20200327010334/https://books.google.com/books?id=qmquCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 27 March 2020 live Original occupation 121 Railton Road was first squatted by Olive Morris in 1973. Sabaar Books was established there before moving elsewhere. The centre then became an anarchist social centre.Allotey Emma Morris, Olive Elaine (1952–1979) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/100963 10.1093/ref:odnb/100963 Activities During the 1981 Brixton riots, the centre was left untouched.Meltzer Albert I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels: Sixty Years of Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation 1996 AK Press 9781873176931 http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001591/angels21.html 8 April 2019 en https://web.archive.org/web/20190225224215/http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001591/angels21.html 25 February 2019 live In 1983, the centre hosted people coming to London for the Stop the City demonstration.Cross Rich "Stop the City showed another possibility": Mobilisation and movement in anarcho-punk Dines Mike Worley Matthew The Aesthetic of Our Anger. Anarcho-Punk, Politics and Music 2016 Minor Compositions 978-1-57027-318-6 The Kate Sharpley Library (KSL) was founded at the 121 in 1979 by, among others, Albert Meltzer.Goodway David 2008 The Kate Sharpley Library Anarchist Studies 16 1 From 1993 onwards, the venue hosted industrial, speedcore, and gabber electronic music events, such as the Sate industrial nights. The social centre was a networking centre for these experimental subgenres.Gilbert Pamela K. Monroe Alexei Bread and (Rock) Circuses: Sites of Sonic Conflict in London Imagined Londons 2002 978-0-7914-5501-2 SUNY Press Albany, New York dmy-all https://books.google.com/books?id=NRYurofuP0MC&pg=PA151 151–154 The Dead by Dawn club hosted London's hardest and fastest music between 1994 and 1996. Attendees shared aesthetic interests, including zines, lectures by Sadie Plant, and intellectual literature by the Situationists, Deleuze and Guattari, and William Burroughs. Unlike other club or party series, Dead by Dawn was conceived to be unique in its combination of discussions, videos, films, exhibitions, Internet access, and stalls.St. John Graham Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures 2009 978-1-84553-625-1 Equinox Publishing London Studies in Popular Music mdy-all 228–229 The first Queeruption festival was held at 121 in 1998.Bettocchi Milo 2021-01-07 Fairies, feminists & queer anarchists: geographies of squatting in Brixton, south London https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64265/ eprints.nottingham.ac.uk 7 en 8 June 2025 14 February 2025 https://web.archive.org/web/20250214202602/https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64265/ live The centre was set on fire during a rise in right-wing violence in 1993.Bennett John Mob Town: A History of Crime and Disorder in the East End 2017 978-0-300-22195-4 Yale University Press New Haven mdy-all 272 Eviction The Lambeth London Borough Council obtained a court order to repossess the building in early 1999. The squatters responded with multiple actions to rally opposition: modifying billboards, wheatpasting protest fliers, publishing the South London Stress, and occupying Lambeth Town Hall with a "drink-in" protest of a new law against drinking in public. The Evening Standard reported their campaign as "highly efficient". As the eviction date approached, the squatters barricaded themselves inside and held an all-day street party in April. An armed police force later removed the remaining occupants.McHenry Bufe 2015 243–245 Rising property values were a core impetus for the building's repossession.Monroe 2002 154 Legacy The Kate Sharpley Library collection is now held in California.Kate Sharpley Library https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ 2021-12-28 www.katesharpleylibrary.net See also Railton Road 56a Infoshop 491 Gallery Centro Iberico Spike Surplus Scheme St Agnes Place Wapping Autonomy Centre References 51.4577 -0.1076 title External links Reflections on the 121 Centre Scanned flyers from 121 Centre on Archive.org Anarchism London Category:1981 establishments in England Category:Social centres in the United Kingdom Category:Former squats Category:Squats in the United Kingdom Category:Defunct organisations based in London Category:Music venues in London Category:Industrial music Category:Evicted squats Category:1999 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Category:Anarchism in England