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Authority record
GB 1534 CLCBLG · Corporate body · 1982-1996

The Camden Lesbian Centre Project (CLCP) was founded in 1982, when several women from a loose social collective known as Kentish Town Lesbian Group (based at the nearby Kentish Town Women’s Workshop) recognised the need for a space expressly for lesbians. The group - all of whom were white lesbians - successfully applied for grant funding from Camden Council Women's Committee, and they began organising regular meetings and events with a view to establishing a centre for lesbians. In 1984, the Black Lesbian Group was founded as a support group for Black lesbians and lesbians of colour, who faced the tripartite barriers of homophobia, racism, and misogyny; the group used the term 'Black' in the broader political sense.

Having worked closely together, Camden Lesbian Centre Project and the Black Lesbian Group merged to form the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group (CLCBLG) in 1985. Despite their differences and the fact that CLCP had originally excluded Black lesbians from its initial stages, BLG members felt the merger presented an opportunity to improve things for their community. The merger agreement stipulated that at least 50% of CLCBLG's staff and its Management Committee would comprise Black lesbians and that around half of the Centre's events and workshops would be for Black lesbians only.

From 1985-86, CLCBLG sought out premises across Camden. Although initially unsure of how the site would work for them, the group eventually applied for a change of use for a former retail space at 54-56 Phoenix Road, which they were granted amidst vocal resistance and homophobia from some local residents. The group signed the lease in September 1986. CLCBLG worked with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, Support Community Building and Common Ownership Design and Construct (CODAC) to renovate and alter the Centre before opening its doors to the public on Saturday 31 October 1987. From this point onward, the Centre was a social and political hub for many strands of London's lesbian community, becoming home to workshops, socials, seminars, discussion groups and other events. It became the base of groups like the Older Lesbian Network, Zamimass Black lesbian group, and GEMMA, the friendship network for disabled and non-disabled lesbians.

With successive and ever more severe cuts to grant funding from Camden Council, CLCBLG was forced to scale down its paid staff members and operations from c.1990 onwards. The Centre eventually wrapped up its operations in 1996, when the group was informed that they'd receive no grant funding in that year's budget.

Corporate body · 1990-[?c.late 1990s]

Formed in 1990, Black Lesbians and Gays Against Media Homophobia (BLGAMH) was a coalition of queer Black activists including Ted Brown, the veteran GLF campaigner. The group led several campaigns against homophobia and racism in the media, including calling out the homophobic representation of lesbian and gay members of the Black community in The Voice magazine.

Black Lesbian and Gay Centre
Corporate body · c.1985-c.1995

Based in southeast London, the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre challenged racism within the mainstream LGBT community, homophobia and erasure within Black communities, HIV/AIDS, Thatcherite politics and the rise in hostility toward LGBT people, and sexism. They provided advice and counselling, a helpline, a library, and other resources.

The Black Gay Group applied for funding from Greater London Council to open a centre, and in 1985 they received a GLC grant which enabled them to do so. After the GLC was abolished in 1986, the Centre's funding situation became ever more precarious, primarily coming from donations and membership fees. Blackout, a black lesbian and gay magazine, printed its first issue in 1986 providing a forum for the many black gay and lesbian groups that had emerged in London.

By 1995 the BLGC was blighted by insurmountable funding and resourcing issues, thus the Centre wound down it operations around this time.