More than 30 years ago in London, a group of determined women squatters chained themselves to the first floor balcony of Camden Town Hall before unfurling a petition demanding a permanent home for the women’s centre they had established in 1975 in a building near Euston station.
The women, among whose original demands were “Wages for Housework”, had formed the charity Women in Dialogue to run the embryonic centre, the oldest of its kind in the country, but in 1978 were made homeless following redevelopment of the area. It’s a familiar story that might have ended where it had begun had it not been for the extraordinary will of founding member Selma James and her supporters who refused to accept that there was no need for the kind of centre they envisaged.
After a year in limbo, Ken Livingstone, then Camden council’s chair of housing, presented the women with the keys to a small run-down shop at a token rent. The premises became the Kings Cross Women’s Centre and home to the group for the next 17 years, until once again redevelopment forced the women into a succession of churches and youth clubs before a sympathetic landlord offered premises in Kentish Town. They named the new centre Crossroads, after a South African squatter town where women resisted attempts to evict them by apartheid police. Crossroads remains “a base for all kinds of women, men and children who refuse their destiny: a life of overwork and the struggle for survival”.
Throughout this time the number of campaigning organisations that represent women (and men) of all races, ages and backgrounds has grown exponentially, as have the number of people, both locally, and from all over the world, who have been aided by this remarkable collective.
I first encountered these women some years ago, when I was privileged to interview Selma James for Tribune, and have continued to be awed by the commitment, the will and sheer joy that they bring to their work. So it was thrilling to be invited to the opening of a brand new centre, just across the road from their most recent home, in Kentish Town on Saturday. “Brand new”? The first building the women have managed to buy is actually nothing of the kind: two draughty old floors of a former doll factory, with a leaky roof and barely enough kitchen space to boil a kettle. However, if anyone can turn the place into a home, these women can.
At a dual celebration – this year also marked Selma James’ 80th birthday – the Crossroads Women’s Centre launched an appeal for the £200,000 needed to turn 25 Wolsey Mews into a home fit for habitation, while maintaining the principles on which Crossroads was founded. James cites these as accountability to the grassroots, anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-market, building across national boundaries and refusing personal ambition. Abiding by these principles is, says James, her proudest achievement to date. She is right to feel proud. It has been anything but easy.
“In 1972, we had no idea what we could do, but we were determined to find out. With the strategy for change of Invest in Caring not Killing, we win something every day – life-saving justice or resources for survivors of rape or racism, for sex workers or people with disabilities.” Many of those women were present last weekend to deliver their personal testimonies to the value of the kind of projects undertaken by women based at the centre and by their worldwide affiliates who constitute the Global Women’s Strike.
Whether fighting for opportunity and access for women with disabilities (Winvisible), for the right of men not to have to go to war and kill, (Payday Men’s Network) or for the legal (and physical) protection of sex workers (Nikki from the English Collective of Prostitutes is truly inspirational), the women enjoying the entertainment last Saturday evening display a rare level of commitment, emphatically rejecting the “me, me, me” society in favour of something altogether more elemental.
In all, more than 15 groups operate from Crossroads, each offering their own unique services and projects, political, cultural and educational. Some involve direct-action, others are more polite, but all make an incalculable difference both to the volunteers, who lend the centre an air of chaotic efficiency, and to the recipients of their dedication, and that means just about everyone.
“We could not have done any of this without the base that the centre has provided. Now that the Crossroads women have been able to buy their own premises, the next challenge,” says Selma James “is to raise the money necessary to do it up and create a new fully accessible, green and exciting home”. That home is likely to be needed more now than ever.
Forget Dave Cameron’s “Big Society”. If you want to witness (extra)ordinary women making a real difference, check out to Crossroads – and that particularly means legislators. These wise women have something to teach local councillors and those higher up the political food chain. What are you waiting for? You might even get a cup of tea and a slice of delicious homemade cake, once they have raised enough money to buy a new kitchen.
For information or to make a donation, please visit www.crossroadswomen.net
