Uk hist

• The UK was not a multicultural society in 1979
• Policy and Economic Planning, an independent research organisation, produced a report into racial discrimination


  April 2367
• The report stated that in the sectors studied, there is racial discrimination varying in extent from the massive to the substantial
• The experiences of white immigrants, compared to black or brown immigrants, leave no doubt that the major component in the discrimination is colour
• Immigrant communities before WWII

  • Tended to be in London or the UK's port cities as trade and traffic passed through from all over the British Empire
  • In the 1950s new immigrant communities began further inland in the industrial centres of Lancashire and the West Midlands
  • West Indian and Asian immigrants did not settle in agricultural areas like East Anglia, South West England, Scotland or Wales
• West Indian communities


  • Grew in areas like Toxteth in Liverpool, Moss Side in Manchester, Handsworth in Birmingham and Chapeltown in Leeds
  • Local people were often surprised to find that black West Indians could speak English, and that they were Christians
  • Most of the early West Indian immigrants were young single men
  • Their rowdy behaviour often irritated the white people who lived alongside them
  • Unlicensed drinking clubs catered for the West Indians who had been banned from local pubs, becoming a symbol for everything that white communities did not like in West Indian immigrants-excessive drinking, loud ska music, gambling and prostitution
• Asian communities


  • Did not see themselves as British like the West Indians did, and there was also a language barrier as they did not usually speak English
  • Asian women tended to be kept in the home and arranged marriages meant that many did not mix with white people in the community
  • This cultural separation meant that Asian immigrants faced less discrimination than the West Indians
  • As many Asians started their own businesses they faced less discrimination from fellow workers, although they could be racially abused by their customers
  • Asian businessmen revived the local corner shops which had closed down because of competition with supermarkets
• In Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, by the end of the 1960s all 37 off-licences were owned by Asians
• Contradictions in British people's attitude towards race after WWII

  • The war had been fought to defeat Hitler's racial empire
  • The Commonwealth was a family of different races working together under the British flag
  • British people vocally opposed racial segregation in the USA and apartheid in South Africa
  • Most British people had the view that white Europeans were inherently superior to coloured people
• Many hotels, restaurants, dance halls and pub landlords operated a 'colour bar' (not letting coloured people in) a long time before the Windrush arrived in 1948
• Wolverhampton Express and Star newspaper, 6 February 1955: '"The doors of a new dance hall in Wolverhampton are soon to be opened to the dancing public. But the sign is to go up, 'No coloured dancers-neither will Teddy Boys' be admitted. The manager said the ban will be enforced for 'business reasons'. He added that there always seemed to be troubles of some kind when coloured dancers were admitted."'
• Discrimination faced by immigrants in employment

  • They were the first to be laid off if a business needed to lose workers
  • They were often on the bottom of the pay scale while white workers were paid more for doing the same job
  • Some businesses like the Bristol Omnibus Company refused to employ black bus drivers or conductors
  • Birmingham City Transport banned their employees from wearing turbans in 1960; Sikhs went on strike as they are a vital part of their religion and the ban was lifted in 1962
  • Many immigrants were underemployed-stuck in low-paid, low-skill jobs even though they were very well qualified; a 1958 study estimated that 55% of recent immigrants had downgraded their jobs on coming to the UK
• Ghulam Khan, who moved from Pakistan to Nottingham in 1962: '"I knew I wasn't going to get any better jobs. I had seen qualified people... [with university degrees] people who had been teachers, barristers-and not one of them got proper work. They were labourers, bus conductors, railway cleaners, and so on. The jobs we got were always the worst, even if we were educated people who could read and write much better than the people who were in charge."'
• By 1970 many Commonwealth immigrants had done really well getting technical, clerical and professional jobs
• However, immigrant communities and jobs were linked to the areas of industrial and urban decline which were affected by the economic problems of the 1970s
• By 1975 unemployment amongst immigrant workers was twice the national average, with young black school leavers four times less likely than their white counterparts to get work
• Discrimination faced by immigrants in housing

  • In private rental, two thirds were found to exclude coloured people in practice
  • If he wishes to buy, the coloured person will find that a large proportion of houses for sale are not available to him
  • Adverts often said, "No Coloureds' or 'Whites Only'
  • A 1953 survey found that 85% of London landladies would not let rooms to dark-skinned students
  • They often blamed this on not wanting to upset the other tenants or their neighbours rather than admitting to their own prejudice
  • Many immigrants ended up being overcharged rent or sharing a room with a lot of other people
  • Similar problems affected immigrants who tried to buy houses when their premiums were added to the price or building societies refused to give them mortgages
• In 1976 a white racist named Robert Relf advertised his house in Leamington Spa with a sign that read, 'For Sale-to an English family only'
• Immigrants had to be resident in the UK for 5 years before they qualified for council housing
• By the late 1970s many immigrant communities were centred around sink estates - economically poor and socially deprived council estates that white families avoided or had abandoned
• Racial violence


  • May 1959 - Kelso Cochrane, an Antiguon carpenter, was stabbed to death by six white youths in Notting Hill
  • August 1961 - hundreds of white people rampaged through Middlesbrough chanting 'Let's get a wog'
  • May 1963 - a white customer was killed in a fight that started when a group of white men tried to avoid paying their bill at a Chinese restaurant in St. Helens; Chinese properties across the town were ransacked and burned
  • April 1970 - a Pakistani kitchen porter called Tosir Ali was stabbed to death during a skinhead rampage in the East End which then spread to other towns like Luton and Wolverhampton
  • June 1975 - Sikh teenager Gurdip Singh Chaggar was stabbed to death by a white mob outside a cinema in Southall
• After Enoch Powell's speech in 1968 some racists chanted, 'Powell Powell!!' to excuse their violence although Powell himself never supported racist violence
• Increasing violence against immigrants was more to do with the increasingly gloomy and uncertain economic situation and the threat of unemployment
• Racist violence in the 1970s was part of a wider problem with young people and hooliganism
• According to official statistics, attacks on ethnic minorities increased from 2,700 a year in 1975 to 7,000 in 1981 but the real figures are probably a lot higher as many immigrant groups had lost faith in the police and did not report many attacks
• The 1958 Notting Hill race riots

  • The Notting Hill area of London had been a slum for the poorest white workers even before West Indian immigration in the 1950s
  • Houses were very overcrowded with few facilities
  • There was a lot of crime in the community, which was very poorly policed, and its attraction to immigrants was that it was cheap
  • Notorious crooked property owner Peter Rachman was happy to use the 1957 Rent Act to evict low paying white residents of Notting Hill, making them very resentful towards the West Indian immigrants
  • On one side were the West Indians, mostly lively young black men who spent their free time in ska music clubs and gambling dens
  • On the other side were right-wing organisations like the Union for British Freedom, with slogans like 'Keep Britain White, Niggers Go Home' and 'Niggers Leave Our Girls Alone' common in the area
  • In the summer of 1958 there had already been violent attacks by Teddy Boys on West Indians in the St. Ann's district of Nottingham
  • On 30 August, large gangs of white youths started to attack houses where West Indians lived, using milk bottles, iron bars and later petrol bombs, while shouting slogans like, 'Let's lynch the niggers! Let's burn their homes!'
• There were 140 arrests, mostly of white teenagers, and fortunately there were no deaths
• Consequences of the 1958 Notting Hill race riots

  • It turned wider British public opinion away from unrestricted immigration
  • 1959 saw the rate of West Indians returning home increase from 150 to 4,500
  • From 1959 the Notting Hill Carnival, launched by journalist Claudia Jones - an immigrant from Trinidad - became an increasingly popular annual black cultural celebration which is still enjoyed today by large crowds each year
• Home Secretary Roy Jenkins explained the need to integrate immigrants into UK society in 1966
• Integration


  Not a flattering process of assimilation (making everyone the same) but equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance
• All immigrants into the UK had full civil rights, unlike in other countries around the world
• While the immigration Acts tried to restrict the numbers of new immigrants to the UK, Race Relations Acts tried to help those already here to integrate into UK society
• The 1965 Race Relations Act


  • Made racism in public places legal and created a new offence, incitement to racial hatred
  • The Conservatives argued that this denied the British people their freedom of speech
  • The Labour government set up the Race Relations Board in 1966 to investigate unfair treatment and oversee prosecutions for inciting racial disorder and refusing to serve people
  • The Board investigated 2,967 complaints of unfair treatment between 1966 and 1972, but there were only five court cases, and only three were won
  • On the other hand, 143 complaints against racial stereotypes in adverts were upheld in 1966 alone
• Limitations of the 1965 Race Relations Act

  • It ignored problems in housing and employment
  • The Board could only bring disputing parties together to solve a dispute, it could not prosecute them
  • Prosecutions were for a civil offence rather than a criminal one
  • Incitement to racial hatred' was more often used against black people than white people
  • To get a successful prosecution the person who had suffered racism had to prove the racist person had intended to be racist, which was very difficult to do
• The 1968 Race Relations Act

  • Prohibited discrimination in housing, employment and financial services
  • The Conservatives were deeply divided by this law, but the Conservative leader Edward Heath persuaded them to focus on opposing specific weaknesses in what was being proposed rather than the principle of trying to improve race relations
  • This resulted in Enoch Powell's rebellious 'Rivers of Blood' speech
  • The Act set up the Community Relations Commission, as well as Community Relations Councils in local areas to monitor what was happening in mixed race areas
  • Prosecutions were now extended to discrimination in jobs and housing and they could result in offenders being taken to court but only after all other means of settling the dispute had been used
• Equality campaigners criticised the 1968 Act as government services, like the police, were still not covered by Race Relations laws
• The 1976 Race Relations Act

  • Made racial discrimination illegal in employment, housing and education, as well as in providing services, goods and facilities
  • It was also illegal to use threatening or abusive language to incite racial violence and criminal offences
  • The Act very clearly defined both direct and indirect racism and emphasised that it was the effect of the discrimination, not the intention, that mattered
• Community Relations Commission


  New group set up to monitor what was happening in mixed race areas
• Community Relations Councils


  New local groups set up to monitor what was happening in mixed race areas
• Prosecutions were now extended to discrimination in jobs and housing and they could result in offenders being taken to court but only after all other means of settling the dispute had been used