Altheia Jones-LeCointe

Altheia Jones-LeCointe was born Altheia Jones on 9 January 1945 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Viola and Dunstan Jones. Her parents held key positions in the People's National Movement, the party founded by Eric Williams, and she grew up in a politically active family. In 1965, at the age of 20, she left Trinidad for University College London to study chemistry, later working towards a PhD in biochemistry.

In London she became involved in Caribbean student politics and, after meeting the activist Obi Egbuna in 1968, became a central figure in the British Black Panther Movement. Her husband Eddie LeCointe was also a leading figure. Panther members and photographers like Neil Kenlock said she never called herself the leader, but she led them, and she is widely regarded by academics as the movement's leader.

Jones-LeCointe led the recruitment of more than 3,000 people to the movement, taught classes on anti-colonialism in schools and community settings, and helped produce its newspaper, Freedom News. She also made sure that defending Black women and girls was central to the movement's work, and anyone who held sexist views is said not to have lasted long in the organisation.

In 1970 she was one of the Mangrove Nine, arrested after a march in defence of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. Charged with 39 offences between them, the Nine faced a trial at the Old Bailey that lasted 55 days. Jones-LeCointe and Darcus Howe represented themselves, and her closing speech addressed racism in the Metropolitan Police. The Nine were cleared of the most serious charges, and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of racially motivated behaviour within the Metropolitan Police.

The movement was renamed the Black Workers' Movement and lost momentum by 1974. Jones-LeCointe turned to her other passion, medical research, specialising in haematology, and trained as a physician. She was portrayed by Letitia Wright in Mangrove, part of Steve McQueen's Small Axe, and is remembered as one of the most important women in the history of Black British politics.