There were school students' strikes in 1972. The pupil power demonstrations against corporal punishment, uniforms, authoritarian headmasters, exams, and for greater democracy and free speech were led by the National Union of School Students and the more militant Schools Action Union with its leaders sporting Chairman Mao badges. About 10,000 students came out on strike with mass gatherings in Hyde Park Corner followed by a march and rally at County Hall the HQ of the Inner London Education Authority. Julian Hows, who later joined the Brixton Gay Community, enthusiastically took part in the strikes as a 16 year old school student from Tulse Hill Comprehensive boys' school. A year later students from the school attacked a nearby gay commune forcing the radical queens to vacate the premises and move elsewhere.

There were still sizeable demonstrations against the USA's cruel and devastating imperialist war in Vietnam and other parts of Indo-China. America was finally defeated and forced to withdraw in 1975.

The Troops Out Movement actively fought for Irish freedom and a united Ireland against military occupation by the British throughout the 1970s, which persisted well into the nineteen-nineties. They also demonstrated against internment without trial and to free Irish political prisoners. Bloody Sunday in January 1972 was when British troops gunned down 13 unarmed civilians. The unrelenting Thatcher government caused the death in prison of ten hunger strikers including Bobby Sands who was elected as a member of the British Parliament before his death. According to Nettie Pollard’s memories Jamie Dunbar, a member of the Brixton gay community, travelled to Belfast as part of a Troops Out delegation. He took part in the first gay pride march there and lived for a while in the city’s Divis flats, setting up a video production project.

Fascist parties and movements were especially active in the 1970s. Notably the National Front and the British Movement. To counter the rise of these violent racist movements for white supremacy the Anti Nazi League was established and was active into the early 1980s. The ANL inspired the creation of Rock Against Racism to capture and engage a more youthful audience. Gay venues such as the Vauxhall Tavern were attacked by the NF and their 1976 election meeting at a primary school on the Angell Town estate in Brixton was picketed and disrupted by demonstrators. South London Gay Liberationists joined the picket line with their banner and ‘Fairies Against Fascism’ placard. In 1977 The NF organised a provocative march through Lewisham an area with a large black population. The march was disrupted and defeated by opposition from the left but importantly also from black and white youths many of whom were joined by local residents from neighbouring housing estates. A large lesbian and gay solidarity contingent was there including people from the Brixton Gay Community.

From 1976-78 Asian workers at Grunwick, a film processing factory in North London, went on strike for the basic right to belong to a trade union which was vigorously opposed by the owner, backed by the National Association For Freedom, a free-market, anti-union organisation led by, among others, an aristocrat (a viscount no less) and a high-ranking army officer. The 'freedom’ for employers to exploit whoever they like, whenever they like and under whatever conditions they like was opposed by a workforce composed mainly of Asian women under the exceptional leadership of Ms Jayaben Desai. The strike had mass support drawn from many unions and the left. Gay people from Brixton also stood on the picket lines and Bill Thornycroft had clear memories of being thrown into the back of a van by members of the Special Patrol Group riot squad. He bravely asked why they were so violent, and they replied “We’re geared up for it.” Eventually the TUC and Apex, the main union for Grunwick workers, withdrew their support and the strike was defeated.

The positive value of this form of social experimentation consisted of creating an alternative space which allowed people to develop political, cultural and social awareness outside of conventional strictures; these were breathing spaces for creative artistic expression. Alternative lifestyles also attempted to challenge the nuclear family and private property for a more collective solution to exclusivity in relationships, possessions, and child rearing. Challenges were also mounted to orthodox psychiatry by the anti-psychiatry movement through influential radical figures such as R. D. Laing who attempted to discover social causes of ‘madness’ in the family and established drug-free therapeutic communities. Arthur Janov’s primal therapy looked to alternative forms of personal growth and mental well-being. Other alternative societies looked to Eastern religions for spiritual enlightenment. 'Underground' newspapers outraged conventional, bourgeois morality and created a space for alternative groups to publish articles, contact addresses and art work.

The squatters movement in the 1960s and 70s echoed the original movement of ex service men, women and families occupying empty properties to house themselves immediately after the Second World War. By 1974 there were over 30,000 squatters in London alone, responding to homelessness and the housing crisis, but also in opposition to private property and landlordism. Squatting drew attention to the thousands of empty, unoccupied buildings in London and the inability of most Labour Councils to house the homeless (with over 21,000 people on the housing waiting list in Lambeth alone). Brixton and in particular the area in and around Railton Road where the gay squats and gay community centre were located was blighted by a long-delayed and frequently postponed redevelopment scheme leaving many houses, cleared of residents, empty and ripe for squatting. In other parts of Lambeth practically whole streets had been squatted such as Villa Road and St. Agnes Place. Squatters groups also created community food co-ops, cafes, free advice centres, bookshops, centres for meetings, music gigs and parties and many other social facilities.

Despite decades of protest at the housing crisis since the 1970s the contemporary situation is getting worse through the right to buy scheme stripping away council housing and government restrictions on house-building by local councils in favour of private developers. Squatting in residential dwellings was made illegal by the Tory Justice Minister Christopher Grayling in 2012 which has only served to exacerbate homelessness. With chronic and widespread poverty in Lambeth mortgages and private ownership were out of reach for many.

The student movement fought for radical reforms in higher education but also sparked off issues that other organisations did not necessarily engage with. This fed into trade unions and the labour movement encouraging a move away from a focus on economic questions to wider interests such as anti-imperialism (Vietnam, Ireland), the anti-apartheid movement and the women's, gay and black liberation movements. Practically every university and many colleges established gay, feminist and anti-racist societies.

The Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the more militant and revolutionary Black Panther Party fought vigorously against structural racism in America. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King jr and Malcolm X the mass movements and radical organisations they inspired placed the struggle against racism at the forefront of the political agenda and inspired both the Women's Liberation Movement which in turn influenced the struggle for Gay Liberation.

The Women's Liberation Movement from the late 60s onwards struggled for freedom and emancipation from patriarchy and capitalism. Challenging traditional sex roles the main demands were for women's control over their own fertility including free contraception and abortion on demand. Many other demands included paid domestic labour with the more revolutionary demand for socialised housework and child care, an end to sexual and domestic violence against women, and equal pay. There were also challenges against sexism and oppression embodied in the fight against sexual objectification by the pornography industry and the 'meat market' of the Miss World Competition. Lesbians were initially rejected by the WLM mostly on the grounds that they did not have sexual relationships with men and did not give birth to and rear children therefore they were not subjected to the same patriarchal oppression as straight women. After protests from radical lesbians this was later abandoned in favour of participation. Their brand of radical feminism demanding that all women become 'political lesbians' as the ultimate way of overthrowing Patriarchy and male rule was not welcomed by many in the WLM.