Son of Cherry Groce calls on community to commemorate 40 years since Brixton Uprising

A community will come together this month to walk in memory of the Brixton Uprising, which marks its 40th anniversary this year.

The 4km walk, which will tour memorable landmarks of Brixton on April 27, has been organised by the Cherry Groce Foundation to raise money for its education programme, The Louder I Will Sing.

Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce was shot by a police marksman when they raided her house looking for one of her sons on September 28, 1985. 

Mrs Groce was left paralysed from the waist down, while her son was never charged. 

Lee Lawrence, founder of the Cherry Groce Foundation, was 11 years old when he witnessed his mother’s shooting.

Now aged 50, he said: “The shot woke me up out of my sleep.

“The rage I had, the helplessness of not being able to do anything stayed with me.”

The shooting triggered two days of riots which swept across Brixton as the community protested against institutional racism and systemic injustice faced by Black people.  

The walk through Brixton, from Normandy Road to Windrush Square, aims to acknowledge and commemorate the events of 1985, as well as the work Mr Lawrence has dedicated to his community since.

He said: “After my mum was shot, I went back into school. No one spoke to me about it. I had trauma which didn’t heal and that turned into anger.

“I became a different person. I would get so angry it was like an out of body experience.

“I didn’t know how to manage my emotions and I felt I had to guard them.”

In 2022, Mr Lawrence launched his education programme, The Louder I Will Sing.

Through a series of assemblies and classroom projects, schoolchildren learn about Mrs Groce’s story and Mr Lawrence’s experience as well as its place in a broader historical context of racism in South London and police relations.

The programme is designed to develop listening, speaking, creativity and teamwork skills and explore the concept of restorative justice.

The first school to run the programme was Lilian Baylis Technology School (LBTS) in Kennington. Now 10 schools are taking part.

Mr Lawrence said: “I wanted to give the young people of South London what young Lee didn’t get.”

Part of the programme is to help schools identify what struggles a child may be going through, and support them.

Mr Lawrence said: “In one assembly a boy started crying. It turned out his mother had been taken away by immigration control. No one knew that he was turning up every day with this trauma.

“Another time a boy told me he was sorry for my loss. He said he had lost his mum recently. 

“This is a primary school kid, he was saying I understand, but he did it in such a mature way. 

“I want to show them it’s okay to talk about these things. It’s important they see what I went through and how I’ve come out the other side to tell my story.”

When he is not speaking with children in schools, Mr Lawrence is in Hendon, North London, telling his story to the new recruits making their way through the Met Police college.

He said: “Sadly the relationship between young black boys and police that I saw as a child is still very much evident.

“There has been a shift and you do a disservice to the people who fought for it if you don’t acknowledge that.

“But the organisation has to take responsibility for its flaws. 

“I am there to explain why trust and confidence has been broken for the black community and how we can heal.”

A consistent focus on conflict resolution is present throughout Mr Lawrence’s work within schools and the police force.

He said: “Young people don’t have the tools to resolve conflict in a meaningful way right now.

“It’s the same for the police and how they deal with our community, they don’t have the tools to resolve that conflict either. 

“We need to learn how to reconcile and use methods like mediation and restorative justice to deal with the issues which are present as well as the old traumas which are unhealed so we can move on.”

In 2011, Mrs Groce contracted an infection which led to kidney failure, and she passed away on Easter Sunday.   

It was only in March 2014 that the Met Police apologised for the wrongful shooting – in July of that year an inquest jury concluded that eight police failures had led to Mrs Groce’s death. 

The Cherry Groce Foundation is looking to expand its education programme further but is struggling for funding. Money raised from the walk this month will go towards The Louder I Will Sing.

To donate, visit: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PBJAVZWYQL2K6 or https://gofund.me/d2b9cc01

Pictured top: Lee Lawrence, founder of the Cherry Groce Foundation (Picture: Smokin Monkey Photography)