121 Centre
121 Bookshop was a squatted social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London, operating from 1981 to 1999.
121 Railton Road was first squatted in 1973 by Olive Morris, and housed Sabaar Bookshop, connected to the British Black Panthers and Brixton Women's Group. Sabaaer Bookshop later moved elsewhere.
The squatted 121 Centre had eight voluntary part-time workers and offered a variety of services and events, including a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting and office spaces, printing facilities, and rehearsal areas.
The venue hosted numerous organisations and regular events, such as Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group.
The 121 Centre also held punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night. It became one of the longest-lasting squats in London.
The bookshop had about 1500 titles, specialising in subjects like anarchism, anarchist syndicalism, feminism, squatting, and industrial and class struggle.
The 121 Centre was untouched during the 1981 Brixton riots and played a role in hosting demonstrators for the 1983 Stop the City protest.
However, in early 1999, Lambeth Council obtained a court order to repossess the building, leading to a series of protests by the squatters. Despite a strong campaign against the eviction, armed police evicted the occupants in April 1999.
One person who worked there on and off between 1988 and 1999 recalled
"The building was very run down, very cold, but 1000s of people passed through. "
Sources:
Radical Bookshops Listing, Radical Bookshop History Project (November 2023) [Available online here, accessed 13.05.2025]
Article about the 121 Centre online [Available https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/121_Centre, accessed 13.05.2025]
121 Centre, Wikipedia [Available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/121_Centre, accessed 13.05.2025]
The Radical Bookseller, Issue 75, 1991, Bishopsgate Institute
