Racial conflict in London (1959-1982)

Racism and Anti-Sematisum in the East End
Anti-sematisum, sino-phobia and Polonophobia were common place since late Victorian times. Some of the then Jack the Ripper theories were wholly Anti-Semitic in nature and Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist Black Shirts held sway parts of in the East End from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s.

The 'Windrush Boys' arrive


The British Nationality Act 1948 gave British citizenship to all people living in Commonwealth countries, and full rights of entry and settlement in Britain. Many West Indians were attracted by better prospects in what was often referred to as the mother country, which was short of manpower due to the heavy losses incurred in World War 2. Northampton and Reading welcomed them, but London and Nottingham hated them. The traditional Labour voting parts of the East End basically hated any one, who weren't native Londoner/East End Whites. Sir Oswald Mosley had once held much support in parts of it due to his Anti-Semitic views.

In 1958, attacks in the London area of Notting Hill by white youths marred relations with West Indian residents, leading to the creation of the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which was initiated in 1959 as a positive response by the Caribbean community. The continue to celebrate their cultural heritage at the festival to the resent day.

The Kray twins
Twin brothers Ronald "Ronnie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 17 March 1995) and Reginald "Reggie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000) were English gangsters who were the foremost perpetrators of organised crimes including armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults, intimidation and the murders in London's East End of during the 1950s and 1960s. They were non-political and, as far as I know non-raciest, gangsters, but they helped destabilise London all the same and vote chasing politicians even exploited the Kray's criminal acts for there electoral gain.

The 1954 Newspaper Dispute
The walk out disrupted the news papers, including fleet Street in London.

The 1955 Rail Strike
The walk out disrupted the railways, including those in London. Apparently one of the unions was more militant than the other and fell out with the TUC, who are the trades union's collective national organising comity. A communist plot may have been behind the strike.

East End declines
Limehouse Basin was amongst the first docks to close in the late 1960s. later the docks also closed at Whapping and The Isle of Dogs. Other places like Whitechapple and Brick Lane were also in decline for other socio-economic reasons. By 1981, Limehouse had shared the London Docklands-wide physical, social and economic decline which led to the setting up of the London Docklands Development Corporation in these regions. Other places like Whitechapple, Shadwell, the Isle of Dogs, Wapping and the Greenwich Peninsular have been revitalised since the late 1970s.

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London and has grown vastly ever since.

The Special Patrol Group
The Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group (SPG) was a often violent special police squad analogues to the other forces' more law abiding Special/Flying Squad and was active from 1961 to 12 January 1987, then being replaced by the Territorial Support Group. The SPG was accused of racism and abuse of the UK's sus laws.

The offical equerry and police disciplinary inquiry after the death of Blair Peach found variety of unauthorised weapons were either used by and/or found in the possession of SPG officers, including baseball bats, crowbars and sledgehammers.

The Bangladeshis arrive


They fist came over as a result of the 1969-1972 Bangladeshi was of independence against Pakistan. 5 March 1971 saw a demonstration in front Pakistan High Commission in London with a flag burning and memorandum handover to high commissioner for liberation. Similar anti-Pakistan events occurred at this time in both Birmingham and other parts of London, such as Spitalfields. They were later encouraged to move to Britain on mass due to changes in immigration UK laws, natural disasters such as the Bhola cyclone, the aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan, to escape poverty and on the Sylhet region's perception of a better living led Sylheti men bringing their families in the UK. They set up many restaurants, Indian take-away shops, tailor's shops, small clothing firms, newsagents and corner shops in the districts they settled in.

A large immigration to Britain then took place during the 1970s, following the founding of Bangladesh in 1971, leading to the establishment of a British Bangladeshi community. During the 1970s and 1980s, they experienced institutionalised racism (especially with white employers and the police) and racial attacks by thugs aligned to the city's various organised ultra-right fascist groups such as National Front and the then still fledgling British Nationalist Party.

Brick Lane in the 1970s
Brick Lane (Bengali: ব্রিক লেন) is a street in East London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Swanfield Street in the northern part of Bethnal Green, crosses Bethnal Green Road, passes through Spitalfields and is linked to Whitechapel High Street to the south by the short stretch of Osborn Street. Today, it is the heart of the city's Bangladeshi-Sylheti community and is known to some as Banglatown. It is now famous for its many curry houses.

White supremacists skinhead gangs vandalised property and spat at Bengali children in Brick Lane. The neo-fascist National Front handed out leaflets on the streets or Bethnal Green and assembled people at a pub in Cheshire Street. Bengali children were allowed to go home from school early, with their mothers walking to work in groups and parents start imposing curfews on their children for their own safety.

Because of all these racial attacks, Tower Hamlets council fitted their flats with fire-proof letterboxes to protect Bangladeshi tenants from racially motivated arson.

Residents began to fight back by creating committees and youth groups such as the Bangladesh Youth Movement, which was formed by young activists led by Shajahan Lutfur.

25 year old Altab Ali a was murdered on the 4th of May, 1978, in a racist attack, as he walked home from work near the corner of Adler Street and Whitechapel Road by St Mary's Churchyard. The 3 killers were teenage boys, Roy Arnold (White 17-year-old from Limehouse), Carl Ludlow (White 17-year-old from Bow) and unnamed Mixed Race 16-year-old boy who killed him. They left a message on a nearby wall which said, "We’re back.".

This then led to over 7,000 Bangladeshis including others to take part in a demonstration against racist violence and marched behind Altab Ali’s coffin From Hyde Park Corner to Number 10 Downing Street. Some Bangladeshi youths formed local visual-anti gangs and carried out reprisal attacks on their white skinhead opponents. The name of Altab Ali live on as the name of a local park.

A mixed White/Asian/Black demonstration against the National Front took place in Brick Lane, during the June of 1978.

The National Front moved its headquarters from Teddington in West London to Great Eastern Street, a few minutes' walk from Brick Lane in the September of 1978.

1970 Southall peace and unity march
A 25-30 strong Afro-Caribbean and Asian rally occurred near Ealing Broadway station in first week of May.

The 'steaming' of the Nottinghill Canaveral
The 1959 event, held indoors and televised by the BBC, was organised by Trinidadian Claudia Jones

Emslie Horniman's Pleasance (in the nearby Ladbroke Grove area, with Westbourne Park its closest tube station), has been the carnival's traditional starting point.

There was major trouble in 1976 and 1975 with pickpockets in the crowd and police's heavy-handed approach against the large congregation of blacks and it became "no-man's land". The 1,600 strong police force violently broke up the 1976 carnival, resulting in the arrest of 60 people. The mostly white police then understandably bullied, got paranoid about, lied about and racial smeared it for many years. A change of policy came after a confrontation with mostly Jamaican 'Steamers' (crowds off professional muggers, mugging entire clouds of spectators on mass) in 1987. There were a few other muggings, lesser steaming in later years.

The Brick Lane anti-National Front demonstration of June 1978
A mixed White/Asian/Black demonstration against the National Front took place in Brick Lane, during the June of 1978.

The 'Winter of Discontent' in London
The phrase "Winter of Discontent" refers to the British winter of 1978-1979, when widespread strikes marked the largest stoppage of labour since the 1926 General Strike, as the working classes and the Trade Unions rebelled against the hapless Labour Party government of James Callaghan, due to the declining economically. Most of the strikes were  over by the February of 1979, but the Conservatives fed on it and proto-spin-doctored there way to victory in the 1979 general election and then inevitably passed legislation to restrict unions.

Public sector employee strike actions included an unofficial strike by gravediggers working in Liverpool and Tameside, and strikes by refuse collectors. Additionally, NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospital entrances with the result that many hospitals were reduced to taking emergency patients only.

The U.K.'s dustmen (a.k.a. garbage collectors) went on strike trough out most of the strike and caused much chaos in the nation. Feb. 1, 1979, during a strike by dustmen in the London borough of Westminster. Leicester Square Soho, Part of the three-quarter mile backlog of rotting garage in London’s Finsbury Park, waiting to be cleared in 1979. LUL and the buses went on strike at times as well.

The death of Blair Peach
Blair Peach was an active member of the East London Teachers' Association, a branch of the National Union of Teachers, and became its president in the last year of his life. He was also allegedly a member of the Socialist Workers' Party at the time of his death.

He was a campaigner and activist against far right and neo-Nazi organisations and a member of Anti-Nazi League.

Blair Peach attended a 3,000 strong demonstration held by the Anti-Nazi League outside the town hall in Southall on St George's Day, 1979, against a National Front meeting that was taking place in side the town hall, in the run-up to the 1979 UK general election. 2,500 police battled both mobs violent; more than 40 people, including 21 police, were injured and 300 were arrested.

Blair Peach was knocked unconscious in a side street, at the junction of Beachcroft Avenue and Orchard Avenue out side the now-demolished Dominion Cinema at 51.51051°N 0.38034°W, and died the next day in Ealing Hospital. Another demonstrator, Clarence Baker, a singer of the reggae band Misty in Roots, remained in a coma for five months.

A few days after Peach's death, 10,000 marched past the place in Southall where he collapsed and The now-demolished Dominion Cinema, which was where his body was lying in repose, was visited by 8,000 Sikhs on the eve of his funeral. A total of 10,000 people attended his funeral, which took place 51 days after 23 April.

The Public reaction to his death, along with other underlying racial tensions including excessive police use of the Sus law and the rough treatment that Blacks got when they were arrested, ultimately led to the 1981 Brixton riot and a public inquiry lead by Lord Scarman.

Blair Peach's memory lived on as a primary school in Southall was later named in his honer and the song "Reggae Fi Peach", on Linton Kwesi Johnson's album Bass Culture, chronicles the death of Blair Peach in the form of dub poetry, amongst other things.

Monday the 23th April/St George's Day is regarded as a pivotal cultural and moral event by many English fascists and neo-Nazis, especially for the years directly after Blair Peach's death.

The 1980 Britsh Movement's London rallies
They held a roudy rally that ran from Paddington and Marble Arch. London, 1980. there were scuffles with police and some arrests. A couple also occered at a similar time in the East End.

Nicky Crane,Crane was jailed in 1981 for his part in an ambush on black youths at Woolwich Arsenal station. An old bailey judge described Nicky Crane as "worse than an animal" after his part in the May 1978 bus stop attack that involved assault on a unsuspecting black family in Bishopsgate.

The 1981 Brixton riot
Both April and July 1981 saw a series of major riots in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool by poor and jobless people, most of whom were Black. London's political 'Loony Left', the National Front and the National Newspapers soon took sides and started to stoke the flames of discontent. j.

The death of PC Kieth Blakelock
Keith Henry Blakelock, a London Metropolitan Police constable, was killed on 6 October 1985 during rioting on the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, north London. The trouble broke out after a local black woman allegedly cut a tantrum and died of heart failure during a allegedly rough police search of her home. Afro-Carribian and Northern English urban Whites had grown to hate the poice over the years and had for the most pat become lawless and in some cases openly criminal in nature.

PC Blakelock had been assigned on the night of his death to Serial 502, a unit of 10 constables and one sergeant dispatched to protect firefighters and was hacked to death by a Black supremacist mob. He was the first constable to be killed in a riot in Britain since 1833, when PC Robert Culley was stabbed to death in Clerkenwell, London.

The "Baa, Baa, White sheep" issue


The 1986 incident concerned the suposed possible ( and false ) coded racist meaning behind the nersary rhyme, which was originally made hundred of years ago  to mock a medieval wool tax. The original story reported a Parent/Teacher Association (PTA) ban at Beevers Nursery, a privately run nursery school in the borough of Hackney. The  loony Left Hackney council then offered them offical support and thought they were ideologically right.

It was originally reported by Bill Akass, then a journalist at the Daily Star newspaper, in the 15 February 1986 edition under the headline "Now it's Baa Baa Blank Sheep". Bill Akass had heard of a ban issued, by nursery school staff, on the singing of the nursery rhyme "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep", on the grounds that it was racist and portrayed black sheep (allegedly code fore Blacks ) as subservient to the people (allegedly code for the mostly  White  general public). The press then entered a political feeding frenzy for literally  anything  they could find that was a anti-Labour/left-wing in nature,  most of which was false! 

In a unrelated incident at about this time, Brent Council also chose to appoint race-relations advisers to schools and Ealing offered the local gay community 'gay only' days at council run swimming pools and sports centers even though the local gays said they did not want or need it.

Her are some Baa, Baa, Black sheep variations.

Life today


There have been LUL and bus strikes since, and a mixture of anti-capitalists, ecologists, Reclaim the Streets, anti-Iraq war protesters, El Majaroon (a pro-Taliband lot), the Countryside Alliance and ethnic minorities have rallied, marched, protested and rioted since, but is has never been as constant or bad as in the 1970s and 1980s.

Limehouse Basin was amongst the first docks to close in the late 1960s. later the docks also closed at Whapping and The Isle of Dogs. Other places like Whitechapple and Brick Lane were also in decline for other socio-economic reasons. By 1981, Limehouse had shared the London Docklands-wide physical, social and economic decline which led to the setting up of the London Docklands Development Corporation in these regions. Other places like Whitechapple, Shadwell, the Isle of Dogs, Wapping and the Greenwich Peninsular have been revitalised since the late 1970s.

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of London and has grown vastly ever since.

In 2002, the Countryside Alliance organised the Liberty & Livelihood March, then the largest ever demonstration in British history, with almost half a million people marching through London to demonstrate against the proposed ban on fox hunting with hounds.

Also see

 * 1) The Paris riots of the 1960s
 * 2) Italy's Years of Lead
 * 3) Red Army racism and shortages!
 * 4) African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)
 * 5) Soviet Jewish Refuseniks
 * 6) Harlem- 1950-1990
 * 7) Hippies
 * 8) March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
 * 9) Apartheid
 * 10) CND
 * 11) London's political 'Loony Left'
 * 12) "London's Burning" (the political epithet, not the UK TV show)
 * 13) Baa, Baa, Black sheep variations
 * 14) London's political kinky and illegal sex life

Links

 * 1) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/1981_Brixton_riot
 * 2) http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/riot.html
 * 3) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/1981_England_riots
 * 4) http://www.theguardian.com/uk/picture/2013/apr/11/brixton-riots-1981-margaret-thatcher
 * 5) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Royal_Borough_of_Kensington_and_Chelsea
 * 6) http://www.digplanet.com/wiki/Category:UK_miners%27_strike_%281984%E2%80%9385%29
 * 7) http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-522009.html
 * 8) http://wn.com/uk_miners_strike_1984_85
 * 9) http://www.wapping-dispute.org.uk/
 * 10) http://us.wow.com/wiki/UK_miners%27_strike_(1984%E2%80%931985)
 * 11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Bangladeshi#History
 * 12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Keith_Blakelock
 * 13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_miners'_strike_(1984–85)
 * 14) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week#Background
 * 15) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Poll_Tax_Riots
 * 16) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kray_twins
 * 17) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Special_Patrol_Group
 * 18) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Death_of_Blair_Peach
 * 19) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Notting_Hill_Carnival
 * 20) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Clerkenwell
 * 21) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/British_African-Caribbean_people
 * 22) http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/image_galleries/london_thru_lens_gallery.shtml?14
 * 23) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/British_Movement
 * 24) http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/HU007879/british-movement-march-through-london
 * 25) http://bussongs.com/songs/baa-baa-white-sheep.php
 * 26) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Black_sheep
 * 27) http://bussongs.com/songs/baa-baa-black-sheep.php
 * 28) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Baa,_Baa,_Black_Sheep
 * 29) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Paedophile_Information_Exchange
 * 30) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Loony_left
 * 31) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loony_left
 * 32) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sus_law
 * 33) http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/labour-vs-militant-tendency.html
 * 34) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Knight_(politician)
 * 35) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-red-teds-loony-lefties-1593657.html
 * 36) http://bussongs.com/songs/baa-baa-white-sheep.php
 * 37) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/21/1968theyearofrevolt.antiwar
 * 38) http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/march/17/newsid_4090000/4090886.stm
 * 39) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Death_of_Blair_Peach
 * 40) http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/David-Hurn/1968/GB-London-Anti-Vietnam-War-Riots-1968-NN162836.html
 * 41) https://uk.news.yahoo.com/on-this-day--thousands-of-anti-vietnam-protesters-clash-with-police-in-london-161217942.html
 * 42) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway
 * 43) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Wapping_dispute
 * 44) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shirley_Porter
 * 45) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nuclear-free_zone
 * 46) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Homes_for_votes_scandal
 * 47) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shirley_Porter
 * 48) http://www.conservapedia.com/Winter_of_Discontent
 * 49) http://www.businessinsider.com/thatcher-and-the-winter-of-discontent-2013-4#ixzz3iAINpK00
 * 50) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Winter_of_Discontent
 * 51) http://www.businessinsider.com/thatcher-and-the-winter-of-discontent-2013-4?IR=T
 * 52) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hunting_Act_2004
 * 53) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Poll_Tax_Riots
 * 54) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Countryside_Alliance
 * 55) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/21/1968theyearofrevolt.antiwar
 * 56) http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/march/17/newsid_4090000/4090886.stm
 * 57) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Death_of_Blair_Peach
 * 58) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Limehouse
 * 59) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_Bangladeshis_in_the_United_Kingdom
 * 60) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729683.stm
 * 61) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Brick_Lane
 * 62) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729683.stm
 * 63) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Edward_Heath
 * 64) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10794806/Tube-strike-London-Underground-live.html
 * 65) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/1981_Brixton_riot
 * 66) http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/riot.html
 * 67) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/1981_England_riots
 * 68) http://www.theguardian.com/uk/picture/2013/apr/11/brixton-riots-1981-margaret-thatcher
 * 69) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Royal_Borough_of_Kensington_and_Chelsea