Linda Adibowali
1950
Her mother was of Jewish heritage and her father was of Nigerian heritage
1981- Linda became the first non-white lesbian to join the Spare Rib feminist collective
1985- Linda was elected as Labour councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth and a year later she was elected Leader of the Council
1987- Linda worked within the Greater London Council’s (GLC) financial department and chaired the London Strategic Policy Unit. She also helped inaugurate Black History Month
2000 to 2003 – Co-chair of the LGBT Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police
2002 – She was presented with the Metropolitan Police Volunteer Awards `in recognition of outstanding contribution in supporting the local community’
2006 – Received an OBE for her services to diversity
Linda Bellos was born to a Polish Jewish mother, Renee Sackman, and a Black Nigerian father, Emmanuel Adebowale, who came from Uzebba and joined the merchant navy during the Second World War. Lina was raised in Brixton, South West London. Bellos was educated at Silverthorne Girls Secondary Modern School and Dick Sheppard Comprehensive School. Linda continued her education at the University of Sussex between 1978 and 1981.
Linda initially rejected feminism at University as she recalled she did that classic thing of saying, Yes, but my man is different.’ It was only with her first experience of falling in love with a woman in her twenties that she was politicised. She experienced a great deal of anguish and uncertainty in the following months after her initial realisation, but soon realised that it was due to her not understanding the possibility of lesbianism, particularly amongst Black women. This allowed her to move away from a heterosexist world and enabled her the ability to analyse ‘gender’, and led into her lesbian feminist activism.
In 1981 Linda became the first non-white lesbian to join the Spare Rib feminist collective which was the second wave feminist magazine in the United Kingdom. The magazine is now seen as an iconic source which shaped debate about feminism in the United Kingdom. However, she left after some other member had expressed antiSemitic sentiments after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Linda has since expressed some of the difficulties she faced whilst being a part of Spare Rib, saying “I was at odds with a lot of Spare Rib because it was so bloody white and middleclass, it was so narrow and English.” She also criticised the movement for its ‘point scoring’ manner.
After Linda left Spare Rib she was employed as a community accountant for Lambeth Inner City Consultative Group. LICC received money from the government to help and empower community groups after the uprisings which affected Brixton, Toxteth and St Pauls.
Linda was Vice Chair of the successful Labour Party Black Sections campaign to select African, Caribbean and Asian parliamentary and local candidates within the Labour Party. In 1985, Linda was elected as Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth and a year later she was elected Leader of the Council which made her the second Black woman to be elected to lead a British local authority after Merle Amory. Linda resigned as leader on 21 April 1988 after disputes over council budgets. However in 1989, she attempted to become a parliamentary candidate.
In 1987, Linda worked within the Greater London Council’s (GLC) financial department and chaired the London Strategic Policy Unit, which is where her role in inaugurating Black History Month in Britain came. It is often held that she put forward the idea of Black History Month, although in fact a colleague of hers, Akyaaba Addai-Sebo was responsible. Linda did however ensure its approval and funding, and hosted its launch at the Commonwealth Institute.
Linda was also Treasurer of the Africa Reparations Movement in the United Kingdom and was co-chair of the Southwark LGBT Network until February 2007, and an adviser to Southwark Council. From 2000 to 2003, she was co-chair of the LGBT Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police. Linda has worked on mainstreaming equality within many public bodies like the Metropolitan Police and British Army; she is also a founding member and former Chair of The Institute of Equality and Diversity Practitioners
On 9 December 2002, she was presented (together with Stephen Bourne) with the Metropolitan Police Volunteer Awards, `in recognition of outstanding contribution in supporting the local community’.
In 2006, Linda received an OBE for her services to diversity. Whilst she accepted the title because she acknowledges its use when trying to get businesses to address notions of equality, she states that she does dislike it and finds it outdated due to its association with a defunct Empire.
Linda Bellos is now one of the UK’s leading equality law specialists and delivers training and consultancy to public sector employers and businesses that deliver public sector contracts. Her company is called Linda Bellos Associates.
Linda married Jonathan Bellos in 1983 and had two children with him in 1974 and 1976. In 1980 Linda came out as a lesbian, and divorced Jonathan in 1983. When she left her husband, she also left her two children and moved into an all-female environment. She explains in an interview that she had no other choice due to financial circumstances. Her relationship with her children has now strengthened.
https://Blackbritishreader.tumblr.com/post/138921263650/linda-bellos-former-labour-councillor-of-lambeth
https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-245559
https://lesbian411.info/2020/09/26/linda-ann-bellos/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/15/gender.andrewanthony
