Altheia Jones-LeCointe

Guyanese/English actress Letitia Wright portrays Jones-LeCointe in the Mangrove episode of Steve McQueen's 2020 film anthology/television miniseries Small Axe.

In 2017, Jones-LeCointe's role in the British Black Panther Movement gained renewed interest following the release of Sky Atlantic drama miniseries Guerrilla, inspired by the emergence of British Black Power.

Alongside Ian Macdonald QC – as well as Selma James, who was a witness in the Mangrove Nine case – Jones-LeCointe features in the documentary How the Mangrove Nine Won, a first-hand account of the case, filmed in 2016 and launched in November 2020 by Global Women's Strike as a fundraiser for the Haitian Emergency Relief Fund.

Jones-LeCointe played a key role in ensuring that defending black women and girls was at the core of the movement. This included building structures into the organisation to ensure that men suspected of the abuse or exploitation of women were interrogated and punished if found guilty. W. Chris Johnson, writing in Gender, Imperialism and Global Exchanges (edited by Miescher, Mitchell and Shibusawa, 2015), states: "Jones-LeCointe's authority, and her energetic pursuit of justice, unsettled Panthers who did not see anti-sexism as an intrinsic part of revolutionary praxis."

As part of the Mangrove Nine, Jones-LeCointe and her fellow activists successfully defended themselves and for the first time, spoke about racism in the Metropolitan Police on an official platform - the courtroom. Their arguments and their win, led to the formation of the notable 1976 Race Relations Act.

Jones-LeCointe appears in the 1973 Franco Rosso and John La Rose documentary film The Mangrove Nine.

In December 1971, the jury found the defendants not guilty of the most serious charge of conspiracy to incite a riot, which marked a turning point for racial justice in the UK and the recognition of systemic racism within British institutions. The jury asked for more lenient sentencing as Jones-LeCointe was pregnant. Jones-LeCointe and three others were convicted of assault. Judge Clarke suspended the sentences.

Under her leadership, the Panthers' influence and reach in the community increased considerably. They produced a newspaper, Freedom News; led campaigns against police brutality and discrimination in employment, housing and education; and ran sessions to encourage black people to study books by radical authors. By the 1970s, Jones-LeCointe had led the recruitment of more than 3,000 people to the British Black Panther Movement.

On Sunday, 9 August 1970, an estimated 150 people took part in the protest. Jones-LeCointe and Howe addressed the demonstrators outside the restaurant. Jones-LeCointe spoke on community self-help and rights for British citizens.

In 1969 and 1970, The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill became the target of repeated police raids. The police claimed the restaurant was a hub for criminal activity, despite a lack of evidence found. A march was organised by local Panthers and community leaders to demand police get their "hands off The Mangrove".

After the arrest and departure of Obi Egbuna in 1968, Jones-LeCointe became a central and leading figure of the British Black Panther Movement. She recruited a central core of activists into the movement, including Darcus Howe and Eddie LeCointe. Eddie LeCointe, her husband, was also a leading figure of the British Black Panther Movement.

Altheia Jones-LeCointe (born 9 January 1945) is a Trinidadian physician and research scientist also known for her role as a leader of the British Black Panther Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Jones-LeCointe came to public attention in 1970 as one of the nine protestors, known as the Mangrove Nine, arrested and tried on charges that included conspiracy to incite a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour (the repeated raids) motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.

Born Altheia Jones in 1945 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, she was one of the three daughters of Viola Jones, a Port of Spain dressmaker and clothes shop proprietor, and Dunstan Jones, the principal of a government school. Her parents also held local leadership roles in the People's National Movement during her childhood. She attended St George's College in Barataria, where she was regarded by her chemistry teacher as "a vibrant, sparkling girl of exceptional ability". In 1965, she left Trinidad to complete a PhD in biochemistry at University College London.