15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023

We have sadly lost a great voice, who no matter what he went through he always rose-up.

Professor Benjamin Zephaniah achieved so much in his life; he made everyday count. He needs to be celebrated and honoured for all he has achieved.

Born in Handsworth, Birmingham and referred to it as the ‘Jamaican capital of Europe.  Zephaniah was a poet, playwright, author, actor and activist. His father was a Barbadian postman and his mother was a Jamaican Nurse.  A ward in Ealing Hospital was named after Zephaniah. 

Zephaniah was dyslexic and went to an approved school but left aged 13 unable to read or write. However as a child, he was given an old manual typewriter which inspired him to write. This typewriter is with “Birmingham Museum Trust” as part of their collection.

Zephaniah won BBC’s young playwright of the year award and received 16 honorary doctorates.

In 2008, he was listed at 48 in The Times list of 50 greatest post-war writers.

He first performed his poetry in church at aged 11 and by 15 his poetry was well known amongst the Handsworth Afro Caribbean and Asian communities.  His poetry was influenced by Jamaica, and what he called ‘street politics’.  He moved to London at the age of 22 to reach a larger audience.

Zephaniah turned his poetry into a performance, he wanted his poetry to reach everybody, regardless of whether theyread books or not.

He used his poetry to speak about politics, his experiences as a black man in Britain, his visit to the Palestine Territories, cultural diversity in Britain, amongst other things.

He won other book awards and performed on the album Rasta with the ‘Wailers’ for the first time since Bob Marley passed away. He did a tribute to Nelson Mandela as well.  The success of the album got him an invite from Nelson Mandela to host the President’s Two Host Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. 

In 2018 Zephaniah wrote his autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah.

He was an actor appearing in many tv shows in minor roles but between 2013 and 2022, Zephaniah played the role of preacher Jeremiah “Jimmy” Jesus in the BBC drama Peaky Blinders,

The publication of his first poetry book was to do with his active involvement in a workers co-operative in Stratford, London. As a vegan he became an honorary patron of the Vegan Society (VIVA) and EVOLVE campaigns, he was an animal rights advocate.

Zephaniah worked with anti-racism organisations, Newham Monitoring Project, and Tower Hamlets Summer University. He joined Amnesty International in 2005 and spoke out against homophobia in Jamaica.  He was also a supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and he joined demonstrations for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine lands, he described it as the Anti-Apartheid movement, and he supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

He was offered an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004 New Year Honours but publicly rejected the honour saying “Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”

Zephaniah identified as an anarchist, and this is a great quote from him.

“If you didn’t have troublemakers most women wouldn’t have the right to vote, a Black person wouldn’t be talking to a white person, I’d probably be back in slavery.”

“We need troublemakers to challenge the establishment.”

Lambeth UNISON Black workers