The Black Lesbian and Gay Centre: Building Community in London

Making a place to gather

At the beginning of August 1992, the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre project moved from two small rooms in Tottenham to a converted railway arch in Peckham. The new premises had lighting but still needed proper heating, furniture and equipment. Workers searched for affordable desks and filing cabinets, arranged the telephone connection and redirected the post. Donations included small heaters and a computer. The move happened alongside Pride events, recruitment and the annual audit; then the computer crashed. ¹

The centre’s newsletter recorded these details with the fatigue and humour of people doing the work. Further building work was needed before the full programme of activities could develop, including changes to improve wheelchair access. Behind the achievement of securing premises stood a succession of ordinary tasks. The story of the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre, usually abbreviated to BLGC, is inseparable from that practical effort to create a place where people could meet, obtain help and recognise one another. ¹

An organisation before a building

The project grew from Black lesbian and gay organising in the early 1980s. Bishopsgate Institute’s archive history traces a Gay Black Group formed in 1981 from people already meeting for mutual support. In 1982 the group approached the Greater London Council for funding towards a centre. The project began in 1985, offering advice, counselling, a helpline and other resources while it continued to search for permanent premises. The opening of the project and the later occupation of the Peckham building were separate stages of its development. ²

Racism within predominantly white lesbian and gay settings, as well as hostility in wider society, created a need for organisation on these terms. GLC support initially funded outreach workers. After the council’s abolition in 1986, the project relied on the London Borough Grants Scheme alongside membership income and donations. It worked from temporary premises, including council offices. In the same year it began producing Blackout, a magazine through which Black lesbian and gay groups could communicate. ²

Who belonged to the community?

BLGC used Black as a broad political identity. Its published definition included African and Asian ancestry, people with roots in Latin America and Indigenous peoples from several parts of the world. The June–July 1993 newsletter printed that definition prominently on its front page. This was an organising commitment to bring people together across different histories of racism and colonialism. It did not mean that everyone shared the same culture, religion or experience. The definition made room for a coalition whose members might otherwise be separated within both anti-racist and lesbian and gay organisations. ³

Savi Hensman’s oral history gives this approach a personal setting. Born in Sri Lanka, she came to Britain with her family as a young child and became involved in anti-racist activity before joining lesbian and gay organising. She recalled discovering the Lesbian and Gay Black Group at a demonstration connected with the Bradford Twelve case. In 1985 she applied for work with the centre project and became one of its first four part-time workers. Her responsibilities included outreach and development. ⁴

Books, writing and the circulation of ideas

A library was part of the project’s ambitions well before the Peckham move. In February 1986, its newsheet reported that books had been purchased and magazines and articles donated. The collection would concentrate on work by and about Black lesbians and gay men, while also covering other areas of their lives. It was intended for members. Gathering such material created a resource through which people could encounter writing that commercial shelves or familiar institutions might not bring together. ⁵

The same issue invited readers to contribute stories, poetry and photographs. It offered to consider unfinished manuscripts and help writers approach publishers. These invitations treated readers as potential makers of culture. They could supply the words and images through which a community represented itself, as well as receive information from a central office. A small newsletter could therefore serve several purposes at once: keeping people informed, encouraging creative work and showing that their experiences were worth putting into print. ⁵

The everyday work of support

Hensman remembered the helpline as an opportunity for callers to speak to someone with experiences resembling their own. Staff and, later, volunteers offered support and directed people towards other help. The project also trained people preparing for youth and community work. In her recollection, bisexual and transgender people participated too, although they faced particular invisibility. Her account makes the centre’s historical name a starting point for understanding its membership, while preserving the differences she identified within that membership. ⁴

The demands placed on workers were extensive. An April–May 1992 newsletter thanked departing administrator Kim Mulji for housing casework, organising the helpline, answering enquiries and improving the newsletter’s presentation. He had also dealt with the landlord, architect and builders during preparations for the new premises. The description shows how closely administration and direct support overlapped. An organisation could help someone find information because another person had maintained the telephone, ordered supplies and kept its correspondence moving. ⁶

The newsletter’s editorial policy also made inclusion practical. Contributions were to use simple language, avoid racism, sexism and ableism, and avoid assumptions about readers’ class, religion, birthplace or childcare responsibilities. These rules recognised differences within the intended audience. A notice that assumed everyone could attend an evening meeting without arranging care, or that every reader had been born in Britain, could make an apparently welcoming organisation harder to use. The printed policy asked contributors to notice those barriers. ⁶

Faith, friendship and access

The newsheet for late January and February 1989 offered a particularly varied calendar. It advertised a gathering for Black lesbians and gay people of any religion, a meeting of the South Asian network Shakti and a bhangra disco. Elsewhere were notices for lesbian mothers, a self-defence session for lesbians with disabilities and a group meeting with a sign-language interpreter. The range reveals people seeking companionship, cultural pleasure, safety and spiritual conversation alongside political organisation. ⁷

These were activities across a network, with different groups and venues responsible for particular events. BLGC’s role included making the connections visible. The listings also challenge a narrow idea of the people using the project. Some were parents; some practised a faith; some required changes in access arrangements. Their participation depended on details that could be lost in a general invitation to attend. Publishing those details made it easier for readers to decide whether an event might meet their needs. ⁷

Connections across borders

The centre’s international connections appear vividly in its January 1987 newsheet. Representatives had attended the International Lesbian and Gay People of Color Conference in Los Angeles the previous November. Their report welcomed the discussions, cultural presentations and social gathering, while also questioning the conference’s international reach. Participants from North America and Britain were present, but the writers noted the absence of people from countries then described as the Third World. Solidarity involved asking who could actually reach the meeting. ⁸

The same issue celebrated Black American poet Essex Hemphill’s London readings in December. Poetry and political discussion travelled through overlapping networks, bringing audiences into contact with writing from elsewhere. The newsheet also offered copies on tape and enlarged print on request. International ambitions and attention to a reader’s immediate access needs appeared within one modest publication. Its pages show a movement connecting people through visits, performances and information circulated from hand to hand. ⁸

Internationalism also shaped BLGC’s view of life in Britain. Its June–July 1992 newsletter examined proposed asylum restrictions, warning about their implications for Black lesbians and gay men fleeing persecution. It considered practical difficulties involving housing, documentation and support, and asked readers to contact MPs and challenge misleading reporting. These were the arguments of a campaigning publication, showing how its editors understood immigration policy as part of the community’s concerns. A person’s sexuality could not be separated from the conditions under which they were allowed to enter or remain in a country. ⁹

Section 28 and the struggle for recognition

The wider political climate affected organisations seeking support from local authorities. Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 prohibited councils from intentionally promoting homosexuality or publishing material for that purpose. It also barred councils from promoting teaching in maintained schools that presented same-sex relationships as acceptable family relationships. The legislation contained an exception for action to treat or prevent disease. Its wording made public support for lesbian and gay life a target of national legislation. ¹⁰

BLGC encouraged members to write to MPs against the proposed clause and organised a conference called ‘Black Lesbians and Gays Fight the Clause’. Participants decided to establish support for people affected. The South Asian Britain research project places these activities alongside the centre’s concern about continued funding. The response joined opposition to a national measure with help for people living through its consequences. For an organisation whose work included positive information, public training and community resources, recognition by public bodies was a practical matter as well as a political demand. ¹¹

HIV, information and care

HIV and AIDS were recurring concerns. The June–July 1993 newsletter listed Black HIV and AIDS organisations in Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and the West Midlands, alongside services for African, Caribbean and Asian communities in London. The directory included Blackliners, the Black HIV/AIDS Network, Naz and Shakti’s HIV/AIDS response. By circulating those contacts, BLGC helped readers find organisations with different areas of knowledge and experience. The network extended well beyond its own building. ³

Preparing volunteers to respond was part of the work. A June–July 1992 update described a training session on HIV and AIDS for helpline volunteers. Attendance had been small, so notes were to be circulated to those unable to come. The detail captures a familiar problem for a voluntary organisation: essential learning had to reach people whose time was limited. Maintaining useful support depended on this continuing preparation as well as a willingness to answer the telephone. ⁹

Keeping the project alive

Financial uncertainty remained serious. The newsletter carrying the April–May 1995 date warned that funding for its two part-time workers ended on 31 March. It appealed for donations, memberships, fundraising events and volunteers, while explaining that competition for grants made reliance on one kind of income unsafe. The same issue reported that Southwark Council’s equalities subcommittee had declined a proposed grant of about £13,000. These reports recorded an organisation trying to sustain services with an increasingly fragile financial base. ¹²

The appeal recognised several ways to contribute. Readers could organise an event, recruit supporting members, volunteer for regular tasks or join the management committee. Women’s all-night events had already raised money. Fundraising was therefore also a form of participation, drawing on friendships and cultural life. Yet commitment could not remove the cost of wages, premises and equipment. The requests make visible the pressure placed on a small group trying to meet needs that continued when funding ended. ¹²

Accounts of the centre commonly date the closure of its Peckham premises to 1995, while the organisation’s later newsletters document continuing voluntary activity. South Asian Britain’s history distinguishes the closure from the limited work that continued towards 2000. Keeping those stages separate allows the history of a particular building and the persistence of an organising network to be understood together. ^{11 16}

In September 1999, the newsletter discussed restarting the Wind-Down Zone, planning a parenting group and holding an annual general meeting. It appealed for people to update the mailing list, promising confidentiality. It also acknowledged the absence of men from the management committee and welcomed a possible new member. Such notices reveal an organisation examining its own participation and trying to renew it. Building a shared community did not guarantee that every part of that community remained equally represented in its everyday decisions. ¹³

The Winter 2000 newsletter made another urgent appeal, announcing an emergency meeting for 29 October. Its editorial asked readers to remember the isolation they might have felt before finding other Black lesbian and gay people. It described a helpline used for matters ranging from accommodation to finding somewhere to socialise. The appeal argued that people might overlook the work until they needed it themselves. The surviving issue records both continued purpose and the difficulty of securing enough support to keep that work going. ¹⁴

Preserving the people and their work

Filmmaker Veronica McKenzie approached this history through the people who had made it. Writing in 2013 about Under Your Nose, she explained that she had initially imagined a short film after interviewing three former workers. Their accounts revealed a larger story, involving personal sacrifices, international connections and friendships that had endured. The project expanded as she researched the political setting and gathered material. ¹⁵

Preservation itself required resources. McKenzie described the expense of archive footage, interviews and production, alongside collaborators working for little more than expenses. Her account gives the later recording of the movement its own practical history. Newsletters and photographs preserved evidence of events, while interviews could explain relationships, motivations and the work that never appeared in a public programme. Bringing those forms together allowed the organisation to be remembered through more than its opening date or a surviving address. ¹⁵

On 18 February 2024, a Rainbow Plaque commemorating BLGC was unveiled in Peckham with former staff and supporters present. Organised through the London LGBT+ Forums Network and Studio Voltaire, the commemoration placed this history back into the street. It recognised a project that had offered advice, cultural activity and community resources through years of effort. ¹⁶

The importance of the centre becomes clearest in those connected activities. A telephone conversation could lead someone towards support; a newsletter could introduce a group; a social event could become a friendship or help pay a bill. Preserving the centre’s history gives these ordinary acts a public place alongside the larger campaigns for equality. It records how Black queer people worked to make one another’s lives more possible, and how much labour that commitment required. ¹⁶

Sources

[1] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, August–September 1992, pages 1–4: Move to Centre and Centre Update; August–September 1992.

[2] Bishopsgate Institute. Black Lesbian and Gay Centre: Archive Introduction; Undated archive introduction.

[3] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, June–July 1993, pages 1 and 3: Definition of Black and HIV/AIDS Organisations; June–July 1993.

[4] Haringey Vanguard. Interview with Savi Hensman: Haringey Vanguard Oral History, transcript extract 00:00–12:31; Transcript made available in 2021.

[5] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsheet, February 1986, pages 2–3: Library and Author! Author!; February 1986.

[6] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, April–May 1992, page 2: Editorial Policy and Kim’s Leaving; April–May 1992.

[7] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsheet, late January–February 1989, pages 3–4: Diary; January–February 1989.

[8] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsheet, January 1987, pages 1 and 3: Conference Report, Essex Hemphill and Accessible Copies; January 1987.

[9] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, June–July 1992, pages 3–4: Centre Update and Further Crackdown on Refugees Feared; June–July 1992.

[10] UK Parliament / legislation.gov.uk. Local Government Act 1988, section 28; 24 March 1988; original Act reprinted in 1995.

[11] South Asian Britain: Connecting Histories, Remaking Britain research project. Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Undated research entry.

[12] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, April–May 1995, pages 3 and 7: Financial Crisis and Southwark Grant Decision; April–May 1995 cover date.

[13] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Newsletter, September 1999, page 2: BLGC Life; September 1999.

[14] Black Lesbian and Gay Centre; Bishopsgate Institute digital archive. BLGC Winter 2000 Newsletter, page 2: Editorial and Emergency Meeting Appeal; Winter 2000; archived under October 2000.

[15] Veronica McKenzie. About Under Your Nose: Why, What, When; 6 September 2013.

[16] Studio Voltaire. Rainbow Plaque: Black Lesbian & Gay Centre; Commemoration held 18 February 2024.

Sources checked on 23 October 2026.