Catalogue Number
NMLH.1994.168.458
Object Name
Poster
Title
Boiling Point' by Bernette Hall.
Place
Broadwater Farm estate, Tottenham, Brixton, London
People
Dorothy 'Cherry' Groce, Cynthia Jarrett, Bernette Hall
Events
Broadwater Farm Riot, Brixton Riots, Peckham Riot, Toxteth Riot
Description
The painting shows a building with the words 'boiling point' written at the top, with acronyms of B.W.F.D.C (Broadwater Farm Defense campaign) and B.W.F.Y.A (Broadwater Farm Youth Association). This is above a painting building with blue windows with 'UNITY' in large red letters over the windows. Below the windows there are paintings of two Black women, and a figure that potentially depicts a protester and a policeman. The left of the painting has a copyright symbol, the name of the author B. HALL and the date 26.11.1985.
'Boiling Point' is a painting by Bernette Hall, created in 1985 illustrating the institutional racism and police violence against Black communities in London. The painting is set at the Broadwater Farm Youth Association building on the Broadwater estate in Tottenham, London, one of several places in the UK to experience a Black community uprising (called riots by the press) in 1985 as a response to police violence and harassment against Black people. The 'boiling point' that sparked these was the harm during police contact caused to the two women in the foreground - Cynthia Jarrett and Dorothy "Cherry" Groce. Groce was shot & paralysed by police in Brixton when police entered her home searching for her son - following her shooting, rumours of her death added to years of justifiable anger over police racism and is viewed as a catalyst for the Brixton Riots. A week later, Jarrett died of heart failure during a police search of her home in Tottenham, sparking the Broadwater Farm Riot.
Neither woman was the target of the police action in entering their homes. No officers were charged in Jarrett's death, and the officer who shot Groce was not convicted.
Prints of this painting were sold to raise money for the defence of the 'Tottenham Three' - three local Black men convicted of murdering a police officer during the Broadwater Farm Riot. They were convicted based on police documents of inappropriately conducted interviews with Black children who were interviewed without adult supervision, and mistreated to the point that their statements were viewed as inadmissible in their own trials. Aside from these police provided documents, the Tottenham Three were convicted of murder with no witnesses or forensic evidence. During their retrial in 1991, testing proved that the police notes had been tampered with, and the men were freed.
The painting is a powerful piece of art commemorating the lives of Black women harmed by police brutality - Jarrett's family never received justice, and Groce only received an apology 3 years after her death, and 29 years after her shooting, as an inquest proved a direct link between the shooting injuries and her cause of death. The inquiry into Groce's shooting following the inquest found eight separate policing failures in her case. The funds needed to overturn the wrongful convictions of the Tottenham Three shows the importance of art in social justice campaigns, as well as being a powerful memorial to victims of state violence.
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