Oral Account

Minkah Adofo

Minkah Adofo was born in 1957 in Jamaica and came to England in 1966 with his two siblings. Minkah grew up in Brixton and continues to live there.

In this interview, Minkah discusses how he developed his political outlook including his experience of the 'sus' laws and the prison system as a young person.

Minkah describes his activism, including in response to the New Cross Massacre. He talks about how being a parent and grandparent motivates him to work for improvements for the next generation.

Minkah talks about the work of INQUEST and the United Friends and Families Campaign (UFFC), which he is part of. He talks specifically about deaths of Black people in custody, the trauma caused by these deaths and about campaigns for justice.

Minkah talks about his work with the Afruika Bantu Saturday School and the importance of African culture and tradition. The interview details his hopes for wider social change and an end to the inquest system.

Minkah Adofo was interviewed by Omi Martin.

You can listen to the full oral history interview at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Listen, historically and currently, it hasn’t changed.

From 1969, the first recorded death of David Oluwale, up to one of the most known deaths of Chris Kaba, it’s getting worse. As I said to you, you just have to look at the prison population. And the police will have their little ways of masquerading, well, the state, because this is not just a campaign against the police, the campaign recognised or supported families that’s not just killed by the police, but also killed by, in prison, killed by the psychiatric system and killed by the asylum system as well. A lot of us get killed on those levels. So apart from the disproportionate nature of it, what we in particular, right, when we get killed, we get killed in the most brutal of fashion.

You know, it’s almost like their racism comes to the fore, it’s almost like they want to treat us like animals. You know, look at somebody like Joy Gardner, you know, they take 13 feet of tape and wrap around that woman’s mouth to suffocate her. You know, I don’t believe if they’d done that to a white woman out there that the state, they would have feel, there that wouldn’t have been more of an outrage. And so what we’ve got is the demonising, right, of us as a people that kind of – by the media – that kind of allows the police to carry out with these vicious, brutal act. And the other thing, and I connect up with INQUEST again, is what a lot of people don’t see when they look at some of these brutal attacks that they just get away with, right?

And they, you know, they justify it, is that the offshoot of that, which is the family in it. A lot of people don’t, you know, the campaign will come and you will have your protest and you will go to your inquest, and then what happens after that, everybody just forgets about it. But the family have to continue, alright. And I don’t want to call names, but you know, a lot of that families, individuals from a lot of these families that what we’ve supported over the years are grieving and they’re grieving badly.

Minkah Adofo and Debroah Coles standing together at a protest in Trafalgar Square