What helped the struggle for racial equality in Britain? (since WW2) Flashcards
1
Q
Describe the Empire Windrush:
A
- The Empire Windrush (ship) in London in 1948 from the West Indies (still part of BE at the time)
- 1988 - 1970 approx 1/2 million people from the West Indies settled in Britain
- turning point as Britain became more multi-cultural
- 300-350 one one ship
2
Q
Why did people from the West Indies move to Britain?
A
- people in. the West Indies came to the UK after WW2 on the Empire WIndrush to find jobs, economic opportunities, most came to live there for 5+ years earn lots of money and then go back to the West Indies for the rest of their lives
- Britain has asked people to come to UK to help re-build Britain’s infrastructure as every city had been bombed
- lots of job vacancies - NHS formed 1947-48
3
Q
How were people from the West Indies treated when they arrived in Britain?
A
West Indians met with lots of racism and hostility, “No Blacks” on street signs and on doors, ppl didn’t let them rent houses whereas Polish were treated with much more hospitality as they were given camps ti stay in, language support, job support etc.
4
Q
When did the Windrush Scandal become known?
A
2017
5
Q
What was the Windrush Scandal?
A
- generation faced threat of deportation from home
- children of Windrush Generation not given jobs as they didn’t have passports
- kids would’ve been on parents’ passports and when they passed away they wouldn’t have known to apply for a passport
- Theresa May urged to change Hostile Environment Policy
- some people may have already been deported
- 2017 - journalist reported that 100s of Windrush Generation imprisoned, deported, or denied legal rights
- 2012 legislation meant organisers needed documentation to prove people were British Citizens
- many were on parents’ passports and the Home Office destroyed 1000s of landing cards and other records - lacked documentation to prove right to remain in UK
- Home Office demanded one official document from very year they had lived here - finding documents from decades ago extremely difficult
- deemed as ‘illegal immigrants’/’undocumented migrants’ - began to lose access to housing, healthcare, bank accounts, and driving licenses
- many placed in immigration detention centres, prevented from travelling abroad, and threatened with forcible removal, others deported to countries they haven’t seen since they were children
6
Q
When were the Notting Hill Riots?
A
1958
7
Q
Long-Term Causes of the Notting Hill Riots:
A
- by 1961 there were over 100,000 Caribbean people living in London
- one of these areas was Notting Hill in North Kensington
- during the 1950s, a strong Caribbean community had grown up in Notting Hill, many from Trinidad and Barbados
- at the time, poverty, violence, and crime were a part of life there
- poor white families competed with poor Caribbeans for housing
- 1948 British Nationality Act - permitted large numbers of people from the Commonwealth to migrate to Britain easily
- by 1950s white working class ‘Teddy Boys’ began to display hostility towards black families in the area]tension risen by far right groups such as ‘White Defence League’ who urged disaffected white residents to “Keep Britain WHite”
- after 2 weeks of civil unrest in N Kensington, riot erupted in Notting Hill
8
Q
Short-Term Causes of the Notting Hill Riots
A
- riots started 29th August 1958 when gang of white youths attacked Swedish Woman, Majbritt Morrison
- youths had seen her previous night arguing with her husband
- the youths shouted racist insults at her husband
- she began to stick up for him which angered the youths
9
Q
What happened at the Notting Hill Riots?
A
- 30th August , the youths pelted bottles, stones, wood and struck her in the back with an iron bar
- later that night a mob of 300-400 white people, many of the ‘Teddy Boys’ began attacking houses of West Indians
- trouble spread to other pats of London e.g. Paddington, Notting Dale, Sheperd’s Bush, and Marylebone
- the disturbances, rioting and attacks continued every night until they faded out by the 5th September 1958
10
Q
Short-Term Consequences of the Notting Hill Riots
A
- riots caused tension between British Metropolitan Police and British African Community in Notting Hill
- claimed that the police not taken their reports of racial attacks seriously
11
Q
Long-Term Consequences of the Notting Hill Riots
A
- Claudia Jones started the Notting Hill Carnival in 1959 as a means of healing the after after the riots the year before
- the Notting Hill Carnival still takes place every August welcoming 100s of thousand of spectators to celebrate cultural diversity
12
Q
Long-Term Causes of the Bristol Bus Boycott
A
- the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ black or Asian bus crews in the city of Bristol, England
- in common with other British cities, there was widespread racial discrimination in housing and employment at that time against ‘coloureds’
- Bristol in the early 1960s had an estimated 3,000 residents of West Indian origin, some who had saved in the British military during WW2 and some who had emigrated to Britain more recently
- a large number lived in the area around City Road in St Pauls
- they suffered discrimination in housing and employment, and some encountered violence from ‘Teddy Boy’ gangs of white British youths
- this community set up their own churches and associations, including the West Indian Association, which began to act as a representative body
13
Q
Short-Term Causes of the Bristol Bus Boycott
A
- although there was a reported labour shortage in the Bristol Omnibus Company, black prospective employees were refused work as bus crews, although they were employed in lower paid positions in workshops and canteens
- in 1962, 18 years old Guy Bailey was turned away by the State-Owned Bristol Omnibus Company because, the manager said, ‘we don’t employ black people.’
- inspired by the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama and the ensuing Montgomery Bus Boycott in the United States in 1955, 4 activists, Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans, and Prince Brown, decided on a bus boycott in Bristol
- their actions as announced at a press conference on 29th April 1955
- they following day they claimed that none of the city’s West Indians were using the buses and that many white people supported them
14
Q
What happened at the Bristol Bus Boycott?
A
- led by youth worker Paul Stephenson and 4 Activists from the West Indian Development Council, the boycott of the company’s buses of Bristolians lasted for four months until the company backed down and overturned the colour bar
- inspired by the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama and the ensuing Montgomery Bus Boycott in the United States in 1955, 4 activists, Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans, and Prince Brown, decided on a bus boycott in Bristol
- their actions as announced at a press conference on 29th April 1955
- they following day they claimed that none of the city’s West Indians were using the buses and that many white people supported them
- students from the Bristol University held a protest march in support of the Boycott to the bus station and the local headquarters of the Transport and General Workers’ Union on 1st May, which attracted heckling from the bus crews as they passes through the city centre
- local MP Tony Benn contacted the Labour Opposition leader Harold Wilson, who spoke out against the colour bar at an Anti-Apartheid Movement (Apartheid was racial segregation in South Africa which many people in Britain were opposed to) rally in London
- Tony Benn, Fenner Brockway (British politician) and former cricketer Learie Constantine also condemned the bus company
- Learie Constantine was then serving as High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago
- Constantine wrote letters to the bus company and spoke out against the colour bar to reported when he attended the cricket match between the West Indies and Gloucestershire at the County Ground, which took place from 4th - 7th May 1963
- the West Indies team refused to publicly support the boycott saying that sport and politics didn’t mix, during the game, local members of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) distributed leaflets urging spectators to support the action
- the local branch of the TGWU refused ti meet with a dekegafuob grin the West Indian Development Council, and an increasingly bitter war of words was fought out in the local media
15
Q
Short-Term Consequences of the Bristol Bus Boycott
A
- eventually, negotiations continued for several months until a mass meeting of 500 bus workers agreed on 27th August to end the colour bar
- 28th August 1963 it was announce there would be no more discrimination in employing bus crews
- on the same day that Martin Luther King made his famous “I Have A Dream” speech in March in Washington
- 17th September, Raghbir Singh, a Sikh, became Bristol’s first non-white bus conductor
- a few days later two Jamaican and two Pakistani men joined him
