Michael de Freitas was born in
Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, to an "
Obeah-practising black woman from Barbados and an absent Portuguese father from
St Kitts". Encouraged by his mother to
pass for white, "Red Mike" was a headstrong youth and was expelled from school at the age of 14. He professed to dislike the role, but it paid for his lifestyle. Appearing to look for a way out, he became involved in the radical politics and groups active in and around
Notting Hill. By the mid-1960s, he had become known as Michael X. "Michael X" became a well-known exponent of
Black Power in London. Writing in
The Observer in 1965, Colin McGlashan called him the "authentic voice of black bitterness." In 1965, under the name Abdul Malik, he founded the
Racial Adjustment Action Society (RAAS). In 1967, he was involved with the
counterculture/hippie organisation the
London Free School (LFS) through his contact with
John "Hoppy" Hopkins, which both helped widen the reach of the group, at least in the Notting Hill area, and create problems with local police who disliked his involvement. Michael and the LFS were instrumental in organising the first outdoor
Notting Hill Carnival later that year. Later that year, he became the first non-white person to be charged and imprisoned under the UK's
Race Relations Act, which was designed to protect Britain's Black and
Asian populations from
discrimination. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, having been arrested on the accusation of using words likely to stir up hatred "against a section of the public in Great Britain distinguished by colour". This was after his speech at an event in
Reading when he said, referring to the
Notting Hill race riots: "In 1958, I saw white savages kicking black women in the streets and black brothers running away. If you ever see a white laying hands on a black woman, kill him immediately." He also said "white men have no soul". In 1969, he became the self-appointed leader of a Black Power
commune on
Holloway Road,
North London, called the "Black House". The commune was financed by a young millionaire benefactor, Nigel Samuel. Michael X said, "They've made me the archbishop of violence in this country. But that 'get a gun' rhetoric is over. We're talking of really building things in the community needed by people in the community. We're keeping a sane approach."
John Lennon and
Yoko Ono donated a bag of their hair to be auctioned for the benefit of the Black House. In what the media called "the slave collar affair", businessman Marvin Brown was enticed to The Black House, viciously attacked, and made to wear a spiked "slave" collar around his neck as Michael X and others threatened him in order to
extort money. The Black House closed in the autumn of 1970. The two men found guilty of assaulting Marvin Brown were imprisoned for 18 months. The Black House burned down in mysterious circumstances, and soon Michael X and four colleagues were arrested for extortion. His bail was paid by John Lennon in January 1971. In February 1971, Michael X fled to his native Trinidad and Tobago, where he started an agricultural commune devoted to
Black empowerment east of the capital,
Port of Spain. "The only politics I ever understand is the politics of revolution," he told the
Trinidad Express. "The politics of change, the politics of a completely new system." He began another commune, also called the Black House, which, in February 1972, also burned down. ==Murder trial==