Save The AFRICA CENTRE
Save the Africa Centre: A Call from the Community
Over the past weeks, I’ve received numerous heartfelt messages urging the preservation of the Africa Centre at 38 King Street, Covent Garden. While I live outside of London and cannot speak to the issue from a purely local standpoint, I do recognise the immense cultural, historical, and communal significance of the Centre to Africans and Black Londoners. What follows are the collective voices of those who believe this sale must not go ahead.
Collective Voices Calling for Reason
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o reminds us: “Out of the Africa Centre came history… Please let it not die.”
Adura Onashile recalls growing up with its music, comedy, and community: “Buildings have memory. When they go, something essential is lost.”
Paul Anderson (MBE) pleads with leadership to listen. Cyrille Cartier demands transparency and rejects the quiet privatisation of shared cultural heritage.
Otunba H. Olabode Osenie invokes African wisdom: “If a man sells his property cheap, he may never buy it back.”
From legendary evenings with South African jazz musicians to formative political meetings of the 1960s, countless individuals—John Aldridge, Stephen Rockel, Melvin Cox, and many more—share memories rooted in the Africa Centre.
This is not just a building. It’s a touchstone of identity, memory, and hope. It has hosted poets, politicians, musicians, and generations of people from across the African diaspora and beyond.
More Than Just a Venue
Voices from Cape Town to Coventry express deep emotional and cultural ties. People like Jessica Thomas remind us: “It’s not the construction—it’s the cohesion.”
Others call the Centre “the soul of African London”, “a second home”, and “the cultural equivalent of Buckingham Palace”.
There is no shortage of ideas—fundraising, community ownership, new programming. The will exists to restore, not remove. Kakra Akuffo asks, “Why can’t we buy it ourselves?”
A Plea to the Trustees
The overwhelming consensus from hundreds of voices is simple: this sale cannot go ahead without full consultation, transparency, and democratic participation.
To sell the Africa Centre is to sever a lifeline, to discard a gift, and to dim a cultural beacon that has shone for generations.
We ask the trustees: pause this process. Open the doors. Let the people speak. Let’s save the Africa Centre together.
Have you signed the petition against the closure of the Africa Centre? If not, please do, urgently. It is on https://www.gopetition.com/petition/44717/sign.html
Founded in 1962, the Africa Centre was the first of its kind in Britain.. Its home, at 38 King Street, Covent Garden, was gifted to the African people in perpetuity by the Catholic Church. This building at 38 King Street is synonymous with thousands of African Diaspora, and those in Africa, with the Centre itself. Over four decades the building has been a refuge, a meeting place and cultural beacon for the likes of Desmond Tutu, Kenneth Kaunda, Wole Soyinka and Walter Rodney, and an iconic landmark for Africans in Britain.
In 1966 a Symposium was held at 38 King Street on Rhodesian Independence with Herbert Chitepo, Chairman of ZANU; in 1968, Eduordo Mondlane, President of FRELIMO gave a talk as part of the Conference on ‘The Future of the Portuguese Territories in Southern Africa’ ( eleven months before his assassination); Ruth First and Desmond Tutu gave talks in the seventies; in 1980, a message from political prisoners on Robben Island – issued in the name of Nelson Mandela and smuggled out of jail – was released at 38 King Street by the ANC; in 1984, The Africa Centre staged the controversial play, ‘The Trial of Dedan Kimathi’ written and directed by Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o and, during the late 1980s, former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock held a series of meetings at the AC with representatives of the ANC, SWAPO and other groups challenging the apartheid government in South Africa. Moreover, the bar, restaurant and regular live performances by African musicians including Angelique Kidjo, created a social centre that was a hub for Africans living in, or passing through, London: a unique meeting point and informal cultural centre.
Yet, on 16 March 2011, the current trustees of the Africa Centre formally voted to sell a 125 year lease of the building at 38 King Street, the Africa Centre, to the Covent Garden property developers, Capco. This decision was the culmination of several years’ secret negotiation between the trustees and Capco. Also at this meeting on 16 March, the Africa Centre Treasurer confirmed that there was no urgent reason to sell as the charity’s finance’s are relatively stable
The trustees’ acceptance of the Capco offer of some £10.5m for the building also runs counter to the present Chair, Oliver Andrew’s 2006 press release in which he clearly stated: “The Council is committed to keeping all its various stakeholders informed of developments at the Centre and will be issuing updates on a regular basis. It would also like to assert in the strongest terms possible that there is no intention to close down or sell the building. The Council is fully committed to retaining and developing the King Street site which has been one of the main strengths of the Centre in its forty year history and offers an unrivalled shop window for Africa in central London.”
Following this meeting one trustee, so concerned by the process of this sale, took the personal decision to release this information to the wider public. Thus began the Save the Africa Centre Campaign.
Our campaign has officially secured up to 2,000 signatories. Prominent African political, literary, social and church leaders, such as former President Kenneth Kaunda (who officially opened the Centre in 1964), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bonnie Greer, Professor Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong’o have made public pleas that the Board concedes and consults the African community in Britain. Thus far, the Board refuses to meet with the community and the sale of the iconic landmark is imminent. The Save the Africa Centre Campaign has been appealing to members of the African Diaspora and wider Africa Centre community to urge the Trustees to consider their responsibility to the community that they are meant to serve.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Abdilatif Abdalla discuss the Africa Centre May 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Puv3KDLwTI
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Comment is Free, The Guardian 3 June 2011
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/03/desmond-tutu-africa-centre-sale?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fcommentisfree%2Frss+(Comment+is+free)
Although there is talk from some trustees of the current Africa Centre being “re-located” rather than “closed”…..with no alternative building, no discussion about what activities would be staged and what facilities would be provided in any new building…..no discussion about how the money from the sale would be used to continue the work of the Africa Centre….no consultation and no attempt to harness the enthusiasm of those who currently use the Africa Centre….it is difficult to give much credence to the idea of a bright new future. The one certainty is that the old centre at 38 King Street will close its doors, and the likelihood is that all it embodied will come to an end and an important part of Africa history in Britain will be lost.
We urgently needed your support to ensure the strength of the campaign. We have already secured extensive media interest and coverage of the issue including: BEN TV, BBC, The Evening Standard, The Times, The Guardian, Colourful Radio, Resonance FM, and Voice of Africa Radio.
On Thursday 2nd June we held a day of action outside the offices of Capital and Counties, the property developer who made a secret deal with the trustees to buy the Africa Centre. We succeeded in getting them to delay the signing of a legally binding agreement to sell the building which had been due for signing on Friday 3rd June.
We are motivated, we are inspired and we want your support to
Save The Africa Centre!
Join Us!
How you can help?
1. Forward the petition https://www.gopetition.com/petition/44717/sign.html and attached brochure to as many interested friends, colleagues, acquaintances as you can-
2. Like our Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/savetheafricacentre
3. Attend our public events and demonstrations – http://www.savetheafricacentre.wordpress.com
4. Contribute your skills, experience and/or expertise wherever possible – savetheafricacentre@gmail.com
To find out more: http://www.savetheafricacentre.wordpress.com
Contact: savetheafricacentre@gmail.com
With best wishes
the SAVE THE AFRICA CENTRE team
I recently visited the AC, 2013. Pleased to see it is still going. Met the late Maya Angelou there in the 1980’s. Remember , saying hi and shaking her hand and the great lady asking me how i was. Still one of the most surreal moment. Long may the centre continue. Wishing for success in saving it. Viva My Africa Centre.