Zainab Abbas

Zainab Abbas (born 1950) is a Black British activist working for women’s rights and social change, who has been a notable participant since the late 1960s and '70s in various key organisations of the UK black power movement, such as the Black Liberation Front, the British Black Panthers, and the Brixton Black Women's Group,

Biography Abbas was born in 1950, in Middlesbrough, in the north of England, to an Egyptian family of Nubian descent.

Abbas has spoken of the effect the US Black Power movement had on her as a teenager; she was particularly impressed by hearing Stokely Carmichael speak in July 1967 at the Roundhouse in London, where she had hitchhiked to attend her first ever political meeting. She also recalls the impact of hearing James Brown's 1968 song "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud", as well as being inspired by Malcolm X.

In 1971, she moved down to Birmingham, in the West Midlands, where she joined the Birmingham Black Panthers and taught in the black supplementary school system. The organisation was affiliated with the International Panther network, and as the BLF's international secretary,

Abbas, together with Bean and Ansel Wong, was in the British delegation to the Sixth Pan-African Congress, which was hosted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974. The UK delegates' address to the Congress reiterated the commitment of Black Britons to the liberation of Africans, people of African descent, and others throughout the world, from colonial policies, imperialism, and racism.

In 1980, Abbas started the first Black-owned public relations company in the UK and she has worked extensively on public affairs in Africa and the Middle East. On 13 July 2024, she was a leading participant in the inaugural Black Lives Matter UK Festival of Collective Liberation held at Friends House in London, attended by more than 600 activists and supporters.