Who Was Michael X?

After an audacious escape attempt to Brazil via the Amazon jungle, Michael is imprisoned once more and held on charges of murder. Found guilty, he exhausts legal appeals, despite the help of a slew of celebrities and prominent lawyers like Geoffrey Robertson. He meets his fate at the hands of the Trinidadian court and Britain’s Privy Council.

Michael is back in his home country. Escaping the looming court case for assault in the UK, he relocates to Trinidad with his family, setting up home in Christina Gardens, Arima.Once again, he embarks on a series of projects - creating a commune, a black liberation army and an alternative university in the hills. But they all end in failure, this time with deadly results.This episode contains adult themes, language that may offend and descriptions of violence.

Michael is released after serving a year in prison for hate speech. Undaunted, he returns to his activism, this time creating the Black House on Holloway Road. Supported by the likes of John Lennon, Sammy Davis Junior and a major benefactor called Nigel Samuels, it still descends into crime and disrepute, culminating in the assault of a business owner. With Michael and his comrades arrested and another court case looming, Michael's days in his adopted home are coming to an end.

Black Power comes to the UK in the form of Stokeley Carmichael. He speaks at the Dialectics of Liberation conference with Michael on stage beside him. In the country only for a short time, as he is swiftly kicked out by the British state, Stokeley still manages to inspire black activists like Michael X to join the Black Power movement. Standing in for Stokeley at a RAAS meeting in Reading, Michael gives a speech that has dire consequences for his own freedom.

It’s the swinging sixties and Michael X has risen to national fame as an outspoken and radical black leader. He moves between worlds as a hustler, activist and beatnik. As he becomes part of the underground counter culture movement, drugs and poetry flow along with fantasies of creating a better world. Michael becomes a part of the London Free School, helping to educate local people and through this organisation the legendary Notting Hill Carnival is born.

It’s 1965 and Michael is searching for a higher meaning to life. In London he meets the man who will change his life forever, Malcolm X. They travel together to Smethwick on the outskirts of Birmingham to protest the racial actions of the local Conservative council. Just 11 days later Malcolm is assassinated in Harlem, New York. Inspired by Malcolm’s example, Michael reinvents himself from the opportunist hustler into a black activist leader for Britain. Founding RAAS (the Racial Adjustment Action Society), he becomes Michael X.

Making a home in the slums of Notting Hill, Michael and others of the Windrush generation find that instead of being welcomed to the UK as fellow Brits they are discriminated against and rejected. This area is one of the epicentres of the black experience in Britain and tensions are heightened by the interference of the fascist Sir Oswald Moseley, who helps to whip up the native population to riot against the black community. They roam the streets looking for black people to attack along with black businesses and homes. Michael helps to form part of the fightback against the rioters and with weapons and planning they push back the attackers. This moment forms the identity of ‘black British’ for generations to come.Later, Michael comes into contact with the notorious landlord Peter Rachman, eventually betraying his community to become an enforcer for him. He violently evicts members of the same community he had just helped to protect.

Born in the midst of empire, Michael grows up conflicted, raised by a mother indoctrinated to loath her own skin colour. We examine this identity crisis within a historical context that reaches out to touch us in the present, showing the difficulty of being mixed race in the UK today and the two-edged prejudice it can elicit. We follow Michael’s migration to Tiger Bay Cardiff, becoming a hustler and pimp and then on to the mean streets of Notting Hill, London.

Who was Michael X? A fascinating documentary series investigating Michael ‘X’ Abdul Malik who became Britain’s most famous Black Power leader of his age, but yet has been forgotten to the folds of time. Malik participated in seminal moments in the Black British experience. A friend to society’s highest and lowest and never far from scandal, his journey took him into the heart of the establishment. This immersive series brings to life a story replete with intrigue, defiance and murder. Through his experience, we will uncover the systemic remnants of the British Empire that have sculpted the present UK.