Tributes have been paid to journalist, writer, broadcaster and civil rights activist Darcus Howe, who has died aged 74.
Howe wrote a regular column in the New Statesman until 2009 and more recently was a columnist in black British newspaper The Voice.
He began his journalism career with the magazine Race Today, which he edited for 11 years and had a column in the Evening Standard in the 90s.
Howe was most famous for his political activism on the issue of racism and rose to prominence during the Mangrove Nine trial.
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The Guardian said in an obit: “His aims were radical, and he brought them into the mainstream by articulating fundamental principles in a strikingly outspoken way.”
The paper added: “Howe directed his enormous intellectual energy and skill as a political organiser to ‘bring reason to race’.
“He rejected the politics of soundbites and prejudice, in favour of a politics based on faith in the creativity of migrant and working-class communities.”
The Times said: “Darcus Howe hated injustice, and he loved a fight.
“A fierce combatant amid the birthing pains of multiracial Britain, he spent his adult life battling against racial inequality, with an eloquent ferocity that made him not only a controversial and strident spokesman for black society, but a vital voice that could not be ignored in the debate about identity and community relations.”
Howe died on 1 April. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2007 and later wrote about it in the Guardian.
He is survived by wife Leila, three sons and four daughters.
Picture: Thames TV/YouTube
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