London: Life continues near the unobtrusive granite plaque which marks the spot where Stephen Lawrence died, 25 years ago on Sunday. A woman pushes a pram, cars and buses rumble along, people wait at a bus stop perhaps unaware that this is the place where the aspiring architect was set upon by a gang of racists and stabbed to death.
The murder of the 18-year-old on Well Hall Road in Eltham, south-east London, left an indelible mark on British society, forcing the country to face up to endemic racism which resulted in two men being convicted for his murder but only 18 years later and after a change in the law. But now, a quarter of a century after Stephen was killed, those who have watched the repercussions unfold warn that lessons hard learnt are in danger of being lost.
“I get the sense there isn’t the urgency around tackling incidents of racial harassment or racial abuse in the way that there was,” says Clive Efford, the MP here since 1997. “I think as you get further away from an incident as serious as the murder of Stephen Lawrence it has dulled the senses.”
The landmark anniversary brings back painful memories for people in this quiet suburb, including the moment they realised they lived in such a deeply divided society.
“We were horrified; no one I knew had ever thought about that type of thing. We hadn’t needed to — no, we hadn’t appreciated that we needed to,” says Judy Smith, a long-time community organiser and part of South Greenwich Forum.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a shock. There were a spate of violent incidents before the murder: Rolan Adams, 15, was killed in February 1991 in Thamesmead; in July 1992, Rohit Duggal, 15, was stabbed to death by a white youth, also on Well Hall Road.
The police investigation that followed the murder was later exposed as incompetent and racist — with arrests only made two weeks after the stabbing despite locals giving names of suspects to police.
The Rev David Cruise, a long-time friend of the Lawrence family, recalls his horror at the treatment of Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville.
“They were our friends, our people, we were one together,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion. “They were a lovely family and when you saw how they were being treated... it was like having a limb cut off.”
He was not a political man but used his sermon at the teenager’s funeral at Trinity methodist church to demand an end to racism — calling for the closure of the British National party headquarters in nearby Welling. “Many of us feel ashamed to be white,” he told the congregation.
Reflecting on those words now, he says: “I had to decide if to go into the political sphere. But I looked at Doreen and Neville and what they were being put through and, if I ignored it, it would have been like shutting the door on black people.”
As the years have passed, Eltham — like the rest of London — has changed. In 1991, just 6.3 per cent of its population was black or from an ethnic minority; today the figure stands at about 23 per cent, compared with 43 per cent of London as a whole. In 1991, the London-wide figure was 20 per cent.
When retired civil servant Cecil D’Cunha moved in 30 years ago, it was a very different place, he says. He remembers running from a group of white men and hiding in a bush until they had gone.
“There was a lot of casual racism,” he says. “But people are more knowledgeable now; they’ve been abroad, there are all sorts of people here.”
As recently as 10 years ago, the area was intimidating, says Olufemi Adeniji, sitting behind his desk at the Best Value Home Care Services in Well Hall Road, just metres from where Lawrence was killed. “There was this fear. The fear was always there that you could not walk freely at night,” he says. Asked if he still feels like that, he shakes his head: “I think it has improved.”
But the area has struggled to shake off a reputation for racism. Three people, including a 13-year-old girl, were found guilty of attacking two Muslim women in Eltham last year. During the London riots of 2011, police clashed in the town centre with racists from the English Defence League, who Efford insists came from outside the area.
“It was incredibly frustrating. It is as if these people felt they could come to Eltham and express their racism and be at home,” he says. “They thought this is a place where everyone is racist but they don’t know this community.”
He admits you wouldn’t have to wait long — even now — to hear racist conversations in certain pubs.
“But that is true of everywhere,” he says. “We live in a culturally and racially divided society. Eltham isn’t perfect, but it isn’t particularly racist — it’s just that in Eltham the rock was lifted up. Do the same in any community and you’d find the same issues.”
The MP argues that the explosive Macpherson report , following the public inquiry held six years after the teenager’s murder, forced Eltham to reckon with its demons in a way few other communities have had to.
It also shone a harsh light on the Metropolitan police, describing the force as “institutionally racist”. Macpherson undeniably lead to change — its 70 recommendations brought public bodies under race relations legislation, pushed police to investigate hate crime more vigorously and contributed to the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission — but critics argue that the work has, at best, stalled.
Recruitment targets implemented for black and Asian police officers have never been met . The biggest gap is in the Metropolitan police where only 13 per cent of officers are from an ethnic minority, compared with 43 per cent of the capital’s population.
“It’s 25 years since Stephen Lawrence’s death and 20 since Macpherson and yet [...] we still find ourselves with very little progress being made,” says Janet Hills, the president of the National Black Police Association. Is the force is still institutionally racist? “The data suggests, yes, it is,” she says. “They should be more accepting of that. The constant push back around not wanting to accept the label doesn’t allow for progress to happen.”
