Political and community activism
“George was a key part of the glue that linked Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities into the mainstream of politics. George already had a decade of anti-nuclear CND campaigns tucked under his belt by the time we met in the early 70s. We were part of a movement that easily spilled over into education, anti-apartheid and anti-poverty campaigns. George never lost sight of the importance of connecting big picture and small picture politics into a single vision." Alan Simpson
Political organisations he belonged to, supported, or in some cases founded
- Afro-Asian West Indian Union
- Anti-Apartheid Movement
- Anti-Colour Bar Campaign
- Black People’s Freedom Movement
- Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- Commonwealth Citizens Consultative Committee
- Communist Party
- Electrical Trades Union, later the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union
- International Marxist Group
- Joint Afro-Caribbean, Indian and Pakistani Community Project
- Labour Party
- Movement for Colonial Freedom
- National Association for Coloured Development
- National Union of Teachers
- Nottingham and District Trades Council
- Nottingham and District Community Relations Council, later Racial Equality Commission
- Nottingham and District Ex-Servicemen’s Association
- Solidarity for Protection against Deprivation and Exploitation (SPADE)
- Socialist Education Association
- Stop the Seventy’s Tour
- Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
- West Indian Nationals Association
I have taken part in political and industrial activities, supported the anti-colour bar campaigns and anti-colonial groups formed to fight for the independence of colonies and dependent countries of the British Empire (later the British Commonwealth). I joined the Labour movement to fight for equal opportunities for ethnic groups. I have been an Urban District Councillor and a County Councillor, and worked in industry and as a teacher. I have also been instrumental as a founder member of a number of organisations for ethnic minority groups, notably for the Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre (Nottingham) Ltd., which has been a thriving facility since 1971. I am now retired but maintain an active interest in the well-being of my local community.
George Powe July 3, 2008
Notices collected by the Race Relations Board (1969)
Notices such as these were all too prevalent in the 50s and 60s.
The 1950s and 60s were pivotal decades in the United Kingdom's history, marked by significant racial discrimination against black people, particularly those who arrived in the years after the Second World War. To understand the current efforts to combat racism and discrimination in the UK, it is essential to delve deeper into the historical context of these two tumultuous decades.
(The roots of racism: The 1950s and 1960s in the UK)
Race riots in Nottingham 1958
On the 23rd of August 1958, the country's "forgotten" race riot unfolded on the streets of Nottingham, England. This culmination of simmering tensions, sparked finally over opposition to the interracial romance, was a pre-cursor to the mass violence that followed a week later in the London district of Notting Hill...
Violence lasted for many hours and compromised attacks between the white and black male communities. Eight people were reportedly taken to the city hospital; one man required 37 stitches following a wound to the throat. The local newpaper, the Nottingham Evening Post, wrote that "the whole place was like a slaughterhouse". A special police force patrolled the streets of St. Ann's for a while after the riot. A week later crowds gathered again. There were very few black people present and, confusingly, the predominantly white mob turned on itself.
The following extract is taken from an article written by Roger Tanner, an erstwhile teacher and labour activist in Nottingham, which appeared in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Labour History Society’s newsletter in March 2021. It deals with the 1958 riots and an ongoing struggle to change the racially discriminative employment policy at Raleigh Cycles Ltd.
The Afro West Indian Union (AAWIU) was set up by George Powe and others in 1957 to represent ‘colonial workers’ to fight racial discrimination and to support anti-colonial struggles. AAWIU stood for ‘complete unity with the trade unions, co-operatives and labour movements’ and argued that ‘only by organising can we overcome the imperialist oppression in the colonies, and our own difficulties here in Britain’.
As observers at Nottingham Trades Council (NTUC) from January 1958, the AAWIU reported on anti-colonial struggles...
A new challenge for the Trades Council was ... set by events over two weekends of August 1958 in the streets of St. Ann’s. West Indians were blamed for the stabbing of four people in a brawl outside The Chase pub. A thousand or more gathered in the streets, with hostility shown to any black people that were seen. On the following Saturday, 30th August, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 white people gathered, drawn by publicity given to the previous week’s disturbances. It included a large crowd of teddy boys and members of far-right organisations. Members of the black community stayed at home as advised by the police and community leaders. As a result many in the frustrated crowd turned on the police. No one was seriously hurt but a number were arrested.
The far right had tried to stir up street violence and local Tory M.P.s called for immigration controls. The NTUC issued a statement which put the blame for “the shortage of work and house building on Government Policy” and condemned “the reactionary elements who deliberately seek to make the coloured worker the scapegoat for these failures”. By condemning the “actions of a tiny minority of both Black and white people who are making the colour problem an excuse for lawlessness and criminal behaviour”, they also ignored the evidence of growing pressures on the black community.
“As a West Indian, you could not walk on your own in certain places or at certain times. You had to walk in threes and fours. The ‘Teddy Boys’ went around with bicycle chains. When they saw three or four Jamaicans together they would not attack us as we were in a group.”
Nor did the NTUC use this opportunity to highlight continuing colour bars in city workplaces, including at one of the largest employers, Raleigh Industries.
The AAWIU had made representations to the firm without success but an opportunity was presented by one outcome of the riots in Nottingham and in Notting Hill...
Within three weeks politicians from the West Indies visited Nottingham and St Ann’s and met West Indians living in the area. Norman Manley, the Prime Minister of the West Indian Federation, Grantly Adams, Prime Minister of Barbados and Hugh Foot, Governor of Jamaica, came to Nottingham. Norman Manley “toured St Ann’s and vowed to bring about better relations between coloured and white people, both in Nottingham and throughout the country."
Endless conversations went on for decades, as to what the root cause was. Was this solely a racially-motivated incident? Was it a more extreme example of street fights which were common in that area, particularly at weekends, when the pubs were closing, which escalated into racial rivalry? The reaction from the police at the time is epitomised by the following statement:
The authorities were reluctant to acknowledge the Nottingham events as being racially motivated. The Chief Constable at the time, Captain Athelstan Popkess, dismissed claims that the rioting was caused by prejudice.
(Blackpast: Nottingham Riots (1958))
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South from 1992 to 2010, said in his tribute at George’s funeral, “It was never clear whether George Powe was on St. Anns Well Road or not, when Nottingham's ‘race riots' took place in that late August of 1958. It didn't really matter. George knew that if he was not to be defined as 'the riot' he had better be part of the solution.”
The disturbances started well into the evening in an area of Nottingham whose population was, to a very large extent, transitory and disadvantaged. Whether or not he was there, his “part of the solution” would have been to de-escalate the violence and to work towards a better understanding of why this took place. Michael Edwards, Nottingham City Councillor, wrote in The Voice that he “played a role in dissipating St. Anns race riot of August 23rd, 1958.”
The delegation of politicians who came from the West Indies in response to the St Anns riots also had discussions with AAWIU members about the Raleigh Cycle Company’s discriminatory employment policy. Roger Tanner’s article goes on to describe the problem and the outcome.
The Extraordinary Activism of Oswald George Powe
This phrase was coined more than sixty years later as the title of an exhibition at Nottingham Castle which featured two of his most prominent examples of activisim. These were the campaign to reverse the refusal by the world-renowned Raleigh Cycle Company, based in Nottingham, to employ Black people, and the publication of "Don't Blame the Blacks".
"Don’t Blame the Blacks" is an exhibition that highlights the groundbreaking activism of labour unionist Oswald George Powe and showcases the boundless talents of black artists in Nottingham. (It) explores the history of Nottingham’s black communities since the 1950s. The title of the exhibition comes from a seminal text written by Oswald George Powe, a labour unionist, activist, and politician whose life and work is the focus of the collection.
(LeftLion)
Changing employment policy at Raleigh Cycle Co. Ltd. in the 1950s
In the 1950s racial tension was rife, with slogans such as “Keep Britain White” and “Blacks go home”. Black people were often unable to seek employment on blatantly racial grounds. While George was working as an electrician at the Ordnance Depot in Chilwell, he initiated a campaign to secure the right of Black people to be employed by Raleigh. George’s intervention dates back to 1956, as the following letter sent to him, dated April 20th, 1956, shows. As the original is nearly illegible it has been transcribed here.
RALEIGH INDUSTRIES LIMITED
NOTTINGHAM
CONTROLLING
The Raleigh Cycle Co. Ltd
WJR/DB
RUDGE-WHITWORTH LIMITED THE ROBIN HOOD CYCLE CO. LTD
HUMBER LTD (CYCLE DEPT.) THE GAZELLE CYCLE CO. LTD
TRIUMPH CYCLE COMPANY LTD. STURMEY-ARCHER GEARS LTD
RALEIGH INDUSTRIES (GRADUAL PAYMENTS) LTD.
20th April 1956
Mr. O.G. Powe
40 Portland Road,
Sawley,
Derbys.
Dear Sir,
We thank you for your letter of 18th April addressed to our Works Manager and shall be pleased to receive a small delegation to discuss your problems, on Wednesday next, April 25th at 3pm.
Will you please report at our Faraday Road Entrance and asked for the undersigned.
Yours faithfully,
RALEIGH INDUSTRIES LIMITED
[SIGNED]
W.J. Richards
Personnel Manager
Unfortunately, there are no known other existing examples of correspondences between George and Raleigh.
The background to, and process of, this action has been encapsulated in an article by Roger Tanner, which appeared in the March 2021 Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Labour History Society's newsletter. It sheds a welcome light on the national and international implications of the struggle, bringing apartheid into the equation through the company’s connections with South Africa as well as the overt racial tension within the UK in the 1950s.
George Powe and Dick Skyers of AAWIU were among those who met with the politicians above the Co-op grocery store at 279, Alfred Street Central, in a room rented by the Commonwealth Citizen’s Association. They told Manley about the colour bar at Raleigh and asked for his support. The AAWIU’s intervention at the meeting came at an opportune time.
Manley’s party, the Jamaican Peoples National Party (PNP), with the active support of dockers in Kingston who refused to unload goods, supported an embargo on trade with South Africa in protest at the racial policies of South Africa’s National Party government. This would now include Raleigh bicycles.
Raleigh had been proud of its global market, especially in the colonies and former colonies. As well as its European factories it had established another in South Africa in 1951 at Vereeniging. This was four years after the National Party had come to power with its racial policies. However a slump in trade had been developing since 1957, hitting export markets even more seriously than the home one. At the end of 1958, George Wilson, Chairman of Raleigh, wrote in the Raligram: “We have sustained a serious fall of 50% in our profits. The principal cause of this is that for the first time in our experience we have faced during one year a sharp and unforeseeable recession both in our home and export markets.”
In response Raleigh went into talks to merge with British Cycle Corporation/Tube Investments, which also had a plant in South Africa, at Springs. Threat of boycott could not have come at a worse time for the Raleigh Company. The refusal of dockers in Kingston, and in other ports in the West Indies, to unload Raleigh bicycles while colour bar was practiced in their Nottingham factories became caught up in this growing movement.
A recent writer sees “a highly visual image of rebellion” in the “container loads of Nottingham-made Raleigh bicycles sent back to Britain from all parts of the Caribbean.”
Back in Nottingham “Raleigh management was soon to call together their employees’ unions, and said they had to employ black people because if they didn't there was going to be terrible redundancies because people would refuse to buy bicycles.”
Dick Skyers remembers “meeting with a Metal Mechanics shop steward at the Union Stewards Club on Gordon Road”. When telling him that Raleigh management had blamed the unions for insisting on a colour bar, he responded “I don’t know why they told us that because we have never objected to the employment of black people. Management was using the Union as an excuse to discriminate.”
Raleigh management had not previously taken on black employees and did not do so even when representations were made to them by members of the black community. Nor had the Raleigh trade unions taken a stand on this and pressed for an end to the colour bar. Both had questions to answer. […]
“Don’t Blame the Blacks” had argued: “The first and most elementary step is to ensure the unionisation of all the workers, white and coloured. The same gang of useless profiteers live off the labour of white and coloured workers alike, in Britain and in the Colonies.” It also stated; “We can show them that as workers of the world we can unite! The way to do this is to help the coloured workers fight in their own country for a better standard of living. The English workers should join in the struggle because the colonial struggle is part of the whole working-class struggle.”
The dockers in Jamaica and the other colonies of the West Indies had dramatically demonstrated this in the effect of their boycott and now such unity of purpose was to be expected of the unions in the U.K.
Raleigh became one of the largest employers of black people in Nottingham. It was commonly thought that there were very few black families in Nottingham who did not have at least one relative working there.
The former Raleigh building
(image: Historic England)
Oswald George Powe, a leading member of Nottingham's African Caribbean community and an activist for racial equality, campaigned for change to Raleigh's employment policy. Having failed in negotiations with the company, Powe sought the assistance of Jamaica's first premier, Norman Manley, who promptly placed an embargo upon bicycle imports from England. This action helped change the company's policy and led to Raleigh becoming one of the largest employers of African Caribbean workers in Nottingham.
Extract: Nottinghamshire Live - Former heart of Raleigh manufacturing empire becomes listed building
When we worked at Raleigh
The importance of the Raleigh campaign was revived, documented, and publicised by Nottingham Black Archive in a project called 'When we worked at Raleigh' in May 2019. Although the changes in employment policy had taken place over 60 years before, NBA found twenty-five people who had worked at the factory, were involved in the campaign, or knew about it from people who had been there in the early days. NBA’s tried and trusted record of interview-based research has produced a rich tapestry of oral history of that troubled time.
Image featured in Nottingham Black Archive project
When We Worked at Raleigh documents the experiences of members of the Windrush generation, and their descendants, who worked for Raleigh Industries from the 1950s to the 1980s. Over the course of the project, Nottingham Black Archive collected oral histories, documenting arrival and day-to-day experiences, and contributions to challenging racism and increasing workplace equality in one of Nottingham’s most famous industries. As part of the project a series of podcasts were produced, and photographer Vanley Burke created portraits of interviewees.
The image and extract above were included in the exhibition mounted in Nottingham Castle under the title of “Don’t Blame the Blacks” in 2021. It is included here with kind permission from Panya Banjoko.
Although the campaign appeared to have been successful by 1959, instances of racially discriminative behaviour by Raleigh continued for a number of years. In conversations with Dick Skyers and Burnett Anderson, I found they had interesting tales to tell. Dick tried at least three times to gain employment with Raleigh in the 1960s. The first time he was rejected out of hand. The second time he was told that there was a job available to him, but on the day before he was due to start, he received a letter saying that this was no longer the case. Later on, whilst studying at Leicester University to become a Maths teacher, he tried again, hoping to work at Raleigh during the summer holiday, although he did not disclose the fact that he intended to work for a short period. History repeated itself – the job was offered, and a starting date agreed, but the day before that a similar letter was delivered. It is not clear whether these rejections were on racial grounds. Dick’s theory is that the company had done some background research and discovered his political activity including attending a sit-in at a pub which was serving black and white customers in separate rooms! The irony is that he became a successful maths teacher, and went on the achieve a Masters Degree and a PhD.
Burnett Anderson was employed at Raleigh, also in the 1960s, when the company recommended that he should go on a Management Training Course. This he did and returned to his former job. When a vacancy for a management post came up, he applied for it. He was interviewed, but not appointed, only to find that the job had been given to someone with no experience or training in management, who was white.
There were many more stories in this vein, some of which were included in a Nottingham Black Archive exhibition at Nottingham Castle, from June to August 2021, given the title “Don’t Blame the Blacks”, featuring interviews with ex-Raleigh workers.
The connection with George’s involvement in the Raleigh campaign is still a live issue because, as Panya Banjoko of Nottingham Black Archive says, “You can’t go near the Raleigh situation without including George Powe’s involvement."
Don't blame the Blacks
Clarion newspaper
Partly in response to the race riots and the Raleigh employment issue, the AAWIU published "Don't Blame the Blacks". It was circulated widely at the time, but in recent years tracking it down has become extremely difficult. Most of his old political friends had owned a copy, but had at some time mislaid it, passed it on to someone else, or had donated it to an organisation, details of which were long forgotten. We have to thank The Sparrow’s Nest, a Nottingham based Library and Archive for Anarchist and Radical History for discovering a copy which was archived not far away, in the Rare Documents Department of the University of Nottingham.
Was the date of its publication 1956, as suggested by information found in political records of the activity of the AAWIU which George had donated to Nottingham Black Archive, or 1958, the date stamped on a copy of the original pamphlet lodged in the Trades Union Congress’s Library? Conclusive evidence lies in the introduction to the pamphlet. It states that “a well-known MP has had swastikas and similar slogans painted on his house as a punishment for introducing a Bill in the House of Commons to make colour discrimination illegal in public places.”
This MP was Fenner Brockway, Labour MP for Eton and Slough, and the chairman of the Movement for Colonial Freedom. Racist graffiti was painted on his house on May 11, 1958.
From the late 1950s he regularly proposed legislation in Parliament to ban racial discrimination, only to be defeated each time. He strongly opposed the use or possession of nuclear weapons by any nation and was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
There is also recent anecdotal evidence given to Roger Tanner in a 2018 interview with Sylvia Riley and Richard Dick Skyers, a member of the AAWUI from 1957, and its Chair when DBTB was published. They were both, in the late 50s, members of the International Marxist Group, based at the International Bookshop in Dane Street, St. Anns, Nottingham, the main distributor of the pamphlet. They remember it being published after the “race riots” in Nottingham which started on August 23, 1958. Richard remembers at that time Pat Jordan, owner of the bookshop, saying, in a conversation which also included George, “we should get a pamphlet out”.
A Nottingham City of Literature article, St Ann’s, a history and community in print, written by John Baird and published in January 2021 makes reference to George’s political activities and affiliations.
Powe’s links with St Ann’s began in 1952 after he followed his politically minded friends to Nottingham. The Black population at this time was small, with many living four to a room in multi-occupied slum housing that was being rented by racketeers. It was at Pat Jordan’s Dane Street bookshop – the second house of a long, terraced row of three storey houses, off Alfred Street central – that Powe’s ‘Don’t Blame the Blacks’ was printed. Powe knew the radical bookshop to be a place where Black people could meet and chat.
“It was in a street in the heart of the worst of the district that little Pat Jordan kept his shop,” wrote Gosling in his memoir ‘Personal Copy’ (1980). “[His] front room was the shop, with tables piled shoulder-high with Zane Gray and Barbara Cartland.” He added, “Schoolboys would always be in, passing through the dog-eared comic strips, looking for a juicy Nazi tale – not realizing what went on behind the curtained door, in the back room, but knowing something did.”
The literary heritage of St Ann’s is entangled with its own history. Take the race riots as an example. For it was at the bottom of Robin Hood’s Chase, in the late August and early September of 1958, that modern Britain’s first race riot occurred, and “The whole place was like a slaughterhouse,” according to the Evening Post.
At this time, in the midst of the racial tension, and in response to the ‘Keep Britain White’ campaign, a local man, Oswald ‘George’ Powe, wrote ‘Don’t Blame the Blacks’, words to fight racism and industrial inequality. Written for British workers, Powe’s pamphlet aspired to unite them – all races together. With sections on ‘Why we came?’ and ‘Do we cause unemployment?’, the Jamaican born writer explained how political decisions by the ruling class were the real cause of unemployment. His words carried the message, “the working class has been divided, for if it were to become united it might fight back”. Scapegoats were being made of Black immigrants because they stood out, argued Powe, whose pamphlet received orders from as far as America and Africa.
(St Ann’s – a history and community in print)
N.B. 'Don't Blame the Blacks' was actually printed by The Nottingham Printers, Ltd., Stadium Works, Nottingham Road, Basford, and published by O.G. Powe, Secretary, A.A.W.I.U., Notts. Branch, 40 Portland Road, Sawley, Nr. Nottingham. Undoubtedly, its development would have involved many a converstation at the Dane Street bookshop.
LeftLion Review
Don't Blame the Blacks is an exhibition that highlights the groundbreaking activism of labour unionist Oswald George Powe.
(LeftLion)
The following statement, a heading taken from the pamphlet, encapsulates its main argument:
The threat to the white worker is not the coloured worker, but the reactionary policy of the British ruling class.
It was reprinted in 2022 and published by Five Leaves Bookshop, with a new introduction by Panya Banjoko (Nottingham Black Archive), in which she wrote:
George Powe’s Don’t Blame the Blacks is the earliest example of post-war political literature that concentrates on race inequalities in Nottingham ... a distillation of multiple forms of discontent that precede the 1958 Nottingham ‘race riots’, including everyday racial violence, myriad issues with substandard housing, a subpar education for Black children, low employment, and tensions with those white trade unionists who resisted the employment of Black workers.
Long Eaton District Council 1963 to 1966
In May 1963 George was elected as a Councillor in the Long Eaton and District Council, representing Sawley Ward, in the area where he lived. News of this achievement was recorded in the June 1963 edition of the Windward Islands Opinion, a weekly periodical, which was published in Philipsburg, Netherlands Antilles, and is held at the University of Florida.
It also featured in a 1965 edition of 'Ebony', published in the United States, which describes itself as ”Since 1945 EBONY magazine has shined a spotlight on the worlds of Black people in America and worldwide.”
Race Problems in Britain
Politics: No colored man holds a really significant political position. There is not one colored member of Parliament. In London, a West Indian physician, Dr. David Pitt, is a member of the Greater London Council, a sort of "elder statesmen" group which "advises" on metropolitan London affairs. In Nottingham, another West Indian, Eric Irons, is a lay magistrate, which is rather like a U. S. Justice of the Peace. Also in Nottingham, George Powe, also a West Indian, is an urban district councillor, and represents a nearly all-white suburban area. There are three other West Indians sitting as borough councillors in other towns. Though they are able to vote after only six months in Britain, only about half the colored people are registered, and only 30 per cent actually vote. Like many U.S. Negroes, they feel their vote is "too insignificant to matter, and white people will run things any way."
It is in these significant areas that one finds reasons why Britan's "Dark Million" now have to spend their leisure time, not on cricket fields, but in community halls and church basements, organizing "movements" and "campaigns" with such names as Council for Racial Harmony, Committee Against Racial Discrimination, Campaign for Racial Equality, Indian Workers Association, West Indian Standing Conference, and Michael X's RAAS.
Until recently we felt able to suggest that George might have been the first black councillor elected in the United Kingdom. How wrong we were! In the autumn of 2022, we were alerted by a message sent to our Visitors’ page about a black councillor, Henry Sylvester Williams, elected in 1906.
HENRY SYLVESTER WILLIAMS, 1867/9 to 1911
Born in 1867 or 1869, a black barrister, writer, and activist who came to England from Trinidad in 1985. Largely responsible for organising the first Pan-African Conference held in Westminster Town Hall in July 1900. Elected to Marylebone Borough Council in 1906
Further research has revealed three more black councillors, two of whom were elected prior to the WWI, and one in the late 1920s.
ALLAN GLAISYER MINNS, 1858 to 1930
Born in Barbados in 1858, migrated to England in the early 1880s. Elected in 1903 to Thetford Town Council, and as mayor in 1904.
He was largely responsible for organising the first Pan-African Conference held in Westminster Town Hall in July 1900.
(Afropean)
JOHN ARCHER, 1863 to 1932
Born in England 1863 to a Barbadian father and an Irish mother. Elected to Battersea Borough Council in 1906, 1912 and 1918, and as Mayor in 1913.
JAMES ARTHUR HARLEY, 1873 to 1943
Born in Antigua in 1873, the son a of a white father and a black mother. Elected as Urban District Councillor in Shepshed, Leicestershire, serving from 1927 to 1937.
His life and achievements are the subject of “The Adventures of a Black Edwardian Intellectual” written by Pamela Roberts and published in 2022 by Signal Books Oxford.
(The Adventures of a Black Edwardian Intellectual)
It is heartening know of these early trail-blazers, and while the findings show that George was not the first elected councillor in the UK, they do indicate that he was one of a very small number, and possibly the first in the post-Second World War period. The Ebony article below, published in 1965, mentions that as well as George “there are three other West Indians sitting as borough councillors in other towns”. If readers have any information about any other black councillors elected before 1963, they are welcome to contact us using our Visitors’ Page.
The Anti-Colour Bar Campaign, 1967
George and Jill at home
Photo: Jo Metson Scott
This photo was used as part of an exhibition in Nottingham Castle of local people with stories to tell. Our story was about a pub which, in 1967, served black and white people in separate rooms. Below is an extract from my contribution to a meeting held in June 2018, when those of us around in the 60s talked about our experiences. It was a nostalgic look at the events of 1968, and there was a little leeway for our story.
“Having met George in the early sixties through CND and the Labour Party, I became involved in various struggles against what was then called the Colour Bar. We formed the Anti-Colour Bar Campaign particularly to deal with the practice of a local pub, the Mechanics Arms, where black and white people were served in separate rooms. Can you believe this? Were we living under Apartheid?
We distributed leaflets to people who might join in a protest sit-in at the pub, including members of Anti-Apartheid, CND and various left-wing organisations of black and white people. We wanted people to order half pints of beer, staying as long as possible sipping and nursing a single drink, to minimise sales, and to gain publicity for the racial practice. The idea was to go to the pub in mixed groups.
The landlord and landlady were expecting us – one of our leaflets must have been leaked. The bar was full. I ordered beers for George and myself. The landlady, just about to give them to me, realised one was for George. Snatching the drinks back, she said she would sell drinks to Asians, Indians or Chinese, but not to dirty black ******. (Fill that word in for yourselves.) Some people did get drinks. Eventually tempers rose. A Nigerian called Steve, in response to a racial remark, emptied a glass of beer onto the bar. The police were called, and we all left quietly.
A court case ensued and I was one of the witnesses giving evidence of the racially discriminatory remarks and behaviour of the landlady. Both Steve and the landlady were bound over to keep the peace. Months after this the landlady successfully appealed against her order, but by that time the pub had been closed down. We had succeeded in gaining publicity and reducing the pub’s takings, and the pub was closed. It was one of many contributions to the ever-growing fight against racial discrimination.”
Jill Westby
Career change
Having worked in the electrical engineering industry since 1948, when he became resident in this country, he decided, in 1967, to retrain as a teacher. His education in Jamaica had been interrupted when he volunteered to join the RAF, and he had no leaving qualifications. Even if he had they would not have been recognised in the UK. He enrolled at Fircroft College, Selly Oak, Birmingham, and achieved the required qualifications. In 1969, aged 43, he began a three-year teacher training course at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University). He was awarded Qualified Teacher status in 1972 and worked as a mathematics teacher at Robert Mellors Secondary School Arnold, Nottingham until 1982, when he took early retirement.
These life changes had an effect on the time available for political activity. The work of a teacher was in many ways more onerous than that of an electrical engineer, which was definitely a 9-5 situation. After years of campaigning for international and national causes, which often necessitated considerable travel, George concentrated more on voluntary work in the community centred on the black organisations he had founded earlier in Nottingham, the local Labour Party, and ad hoc socialist campaigns.
During his first year of teaching, he became involved in an industrial dispute which was exploiting its workers in a blatantly racialist way. This was the Crepe Sizes dispute, referred to above.
Crepe Sizes Dispute, 1972
photo: Stanley Wilson
Lenton Times. Friar Street - Lenton
Crepe Sizes Ltd. was a textile company based in Friar Street, Lenton, Nottingham, from 1924 until early 1983, when the building was demolished. The site had previously housed the Midland Orphanage for Girls from 1863 until 1922. It was probably never a happy place.
In 1972 an industrial dispute erupted at Crepe Sizes. This was recorded in Brian Simister’s report: on Crepe Sizes, Pakistani Workers Win Lenton Strike.
Crepe Sizes employed 44 Pakistanis and 16 white English workers. The Pakistanis were subject to exploitation in terms of wages, and working conditions which paid scant heed to the health and safety of the workers. They had to share one toilet. This was often filthy and the workers asked for it to be cleaned, even offering to pay for this service out of their wages, but the management refused. There was a history of accidents, particularly to fingers caught in the machinery, including three cases of the loss of a finger or of part of a finger. There was no compensation for these accidents, and the workers were accused of causing them.
The Nottingham Branch of the International Marxist Group, of which George was a member, organised a Solidarity Committee under the banner of Nottingham Worker, to support these workers. The workers managed to join the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), despite there being little or no union sympathy for their plight. The company reacted to this by declaring some workers redundant. These redundancies were challenged, and the workers even offered to accept lower wages in order to reverse the decision. The management rejected all suggestions and the workers went on strike. The picket lines were successful in preventing would-be newly employed workers from entering the building.
The Solidarity Committee then organised a well-attended public meeting to publicise the dispute. Although there had been no prior support from the TGWU, given this public exposure of the situation, the union reversed its position and set up negotiations with the management. The redundant workers were re-instated, the union recognised, as was the status of shop stewards and the working hours were cut from 84 hours to 60 hours a week.
Such exploitation was not uncommon in the textile industry at that time. The last page of Brian Simister’s report includes a leaflet issued by the Black People’s Freedom Movement. It announced a public meeting to fight for better working conditions at Jones Stroud Company Limited, in Long Eaton, to be chaired by George.
Abbreviations
- T&GWU: Transport and General Workers Union,
- NUGMW: National Union of General and Municipal Workers
- EEPTU: Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union
- BPFM: Black Peoples Freedom Movement
- IMG: International Marxist Group
The Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre (ACNA)
For years George had dreamed of setting up a community centre where African-Caribbean people would feel welcome. They were often the object of racial discrimination in situations such as pubs, clubs, restaurants and workplaces. George set up a company with a couple of friends and called it The Sugar Cane Club. They were careful to determine what this would entail, especially the cost of acquiring premises. While this research was useful, there was little or no progress towards satisfying the dream.
"ACNA Centre was set up to improve the quality of life for African Caribbean people living or working in Nottingham.
During the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s racial discrimination affected black people in housing, education, employment and social interaction. It was difficult for African Caribbean people to hire premises for social functions or activities.
Black groups formed to challenge this discrimination and promote social cohesion. These groups included the West Indian Nationals Association (WINA), NACD, SPADE, and the West Indian Students Association (WISA).
The most pressing need at that time was to acquire premises to house the various activities organised by African Caribbean people, [...] SPADE, and the NACD, amalgamated and formed the Black People’s Freedom Movement. It was agreed that this organisation would incorporate and acquire premises where African Caribbean people could develop recreational, social and educational activities for all age groups in the community...
Later, it was agreed that the organisation would be called the “Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre (Nottingham) Ltd.”, and that it should be referred to as the ‘ACNA Centre’...
ACNA soon outgrew the premises. Its activities included: a Supplementary School, a surgery to advise members of the black community about welfare rights and other related issues, camping trips for the black youth, political meetings, recreational activities, and a Senior Citizens Luncheon Club...
Initially it proved difficult to find suitable premises and by late 1977 the Grant Aid had reduced, however, ACNA acquired an old school, which is a listed building, on Hungerhill Road, secured a fifty-year lease and ACNA moved into the Centre 13th September 1978...
Due to changes in funding ACNA had to discontinue the valuable activity and joined forces with the Indian and the Pakistani Centres, to create the Joint Indian, Pakistani and Afro- Caribbean Community Project (JIPAC). After some years, financial constraints forced the closure of this project. Because of the support given by members of ACNA and the Club, the Centre was able to house the Afro-Caribbean Senior Citizens Luncheon Club, ACNA Women’s Group, WINA, the Robin Hood Domino Club, and the Women’s Keep Fit Group."
Tony Brown, bar manager (left), George, company secretary, and members Ike O’Connor, Norman Hall, and Donald Bent relaxing in their newly-opened facility.
At long last they had achieved their aim. They now had their own venue giving greater the opportunity to socialise and organise in order to combat racial discrimination and work towards social cohesion. A fairly immediate consequence was that young Black people, many of who had limited choice of social activities, now had a place to go to, and were less likely to be hanging around the streets.
There two distinct entities within the building are a Community Centre, with, initially, running costs contributed by Nottingham City Council, and a Social Club, whose main function was the provision of a licenced bar, a profit-making enterprise, raised further finance
The Centre provided activities and services for the community, including advice on how to deal with practical matters, such as applications for welfare benefits, passports and visas, and employment and educational issues. A Supplementary School on Saturday mornings, staffed by volunteers, included elements of black history, supported children who needed extra help with basic skills. One of the members provided informal training in painting and decorating for young unemployed people. Elderly people were able to access subsidised lunches. There was also an active Women’s Group. Music groups were given rehearsal space. Space was also rented out for political and cultural meetings.
The Social Club was, importantly a safe place where members could socialise over a drink. There were facilities for playing pool and darts. Dominoes, a favourite African-Caribbean pastime, accompanied by noisy banging down of the pieces, was a popular social activity. Darts and domino teams played within the centre, and the most successful ones were part of leagues which played in competitive events with other Black community centres. Social events, such as dances, post-funeral gatherings and wakes were provided mostly by outside groups, to whom the space was rented out, were hosted.
in the past two decades, the numbers of people using the centre has dwindled. Many of the activities were curtailed as funding from the Council was under threat, and eventually withdrawn. But there was another, and a quite positive reason for this decline. Over the years since ACNA opened it has become much easier for Black people mix with other groups in services provided for the general public.
George and Junior “Berranga” Forbes were pioneers for improving race relations in the city and two founders of ACNA. The following reflections are taken from interviews with Norma Gregory found in her book Jamaicans in Nottingham: Narratives and Reflections.
My name is George Powe and I was born on the 11th August 1926 in Kingston, Jamaica. I am of Chinese and African descent. During the latter part of 1944, I arrived in the UK aged seventeen, not knowing that I would become a resident of the country for over sixty-nine years. After leaving high school in Jamaica, I joined the Royal Air Force where I was taught a history of the British Empire as the ethos of British culture. I had already been entrenched in our education system. I moved to Nottingham in 1951.
The Afro-Caribbean National Artistic Centre (ACNA) is a registered company; it is not a sole ownership. The name for ACNA came about through Louis Morgan. He wanted a centre to house ‘coconut art’ that is produced using the shells of coconuts. He had the idea that we, Jamaicans, could set up a centre for artwork… The people who formed ACNA formed it for semi-political reasons and not for profit. The founders were myself, George Leigh, Charles Washington, Louis Morgan, Milton Crosdale, and Junior ‘Berranga’ Forbes amongst others. ACNA was set up to fight racism, industrial and racial inequality and all the bad things that affected our community. ACNA was first housed in the old Bluecoat School off Mansfield Road, Nottingham. When it was about to be closed down Nottingham City Council did not know what to do with it. There was a suggestion that it should be set up as an International Community Centre so members of the community could rent rooms and carry out social activities.
Dorothy Wood, a community worker with Nottingham City Council, took an interest in securing better co-operation between blacks and whites. She asked Milton Crosdale to call a meeting to invite black organisations to find out how best to utilise the building. At this time, it was very difficult for non-white groups to get a room to rent, to carry out social activities, as ironically it was just as difficult to get a room to live in. At the time, the Black Power Movement was in vogue in America and it seemed to influence black culture and politics in England. At this time we also had the Afro-Caribbean Union. Surprisingly, in the 1950s to the 1970s, there were many black organisations in Nottingham and across the UK.
At first we rented premises on Derby Road in 1971/1972 and set up a trust in 1973. We wanted to build our own community centre but when we calculated the cost, it was about £30,000. When we decided to get premises, we could not. We looked around for premises and were pleasantly surprised to discover a school building on Hungerhill Road, the former Sycamore Primary School, closed down and dilapidated.
Urban Aid, a European funding initiative, was created and in 1975/1976 it became an important opportunity for inner city communities to apply for grants. I think the UK received about £90 million. ACNA was then floated as a limited liability company. We applied for and received a grant, which was supposed to be spent by 1977. However, […] we asked for a dispensation to allow us an extra year to spend the grant.
The rent for the Sycamore Primary School building was set at £20,000 a year and we had no experience of running or managing a large organisation. The building was finally leased by the Council to ACNA for fifty years and we received a grant of £60,000. However, the grant was not enough to refurbish it because of the extent of vandalism. The city council believed we could not fix the building, (but we did) and only contributed 26% of the grant.
Regular members have recently thought about buying the building through the committee but this decision has never been followed through. I resigned from the ACNA Management Committee but was recently co-opted back, in 2012. So far, I have undertaken over forty years’ work supporting and helping to manage the ACNA Centre. The ACNA Centre now needs organisation and effective financial leadership for the future.
During the 1980s George continued to support various political campaigns which had international connections, such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the campaign against participation in the Iraq War. There were also national issues such as support for the National Union of Teachers’ campaign against disadvantageous changes to teachers’ pension rights, and local activity including a demonstration which was successful in preventing the National Front from opening a bookshop in Nottingham which would have been used as a local rallying point for their discriminatory policies and practices.
Nottinghamshire County Council, 1989 to 1992
In the May 1989 Nottinghamshire County Council elections George was elected as the Labour Councillor for Manvers, an inner-city ward, which was, traditionally, and still is, held by the Labour Party.
The winner's rosette
Twenty-five years after George’s first position as an Urban District Councillor in 1963-1966, and his election as a Nottinghamshire County Councillor in1989-1992, there was a definite and substantial increase in the numbers of people of Black and Asian heritage to achieve such positions.
George’s role as a voluntary adviser to the African-Caribbean community
George’s life as an adult could be said to be “book-ended” by Windrush-related events. He stepped back onto Jamaican soil on May 24, 1948, the same day as the Empire Windrush set sail from Kingston to Tilbury Dock, London. He was still an RAF serviceman and waiting to be demobbed. Two months later, on July 28, he was discharged from the service, in Kingston. Had the dates of his arrival and discharge been earlier, I think it likely that he would have travelled back on the Empire Windrush. As it was, he came on the SS Orbita, which arrived at Liverpool on October 2, 1948, approximately four months later.
He was part of the “Windrush generation” but did not sail on the ship of that name, and rarely used the term. That is, until the status of many Black and Asian people was put in jeopardy by the “hostile environment” introduced by the UK Home Secretary, Theresa May.
The Windrush Scandal
In 2012, Theresa May, the Conservative Home Secretary introduced the ‘Hostile Environment’ - a policy response aiming to make life as difficult as possible for people without regular immigration status to live in the UK. Today, the ‘Hostile Environment’ refers to the overarching approach and numerous policies which aim to make it as difficult as possible for migrants.
A crucial difficulty was that documentation originally held by the British government had been destroyed.
The Home Office destroyed thousands of landing card slips recording Windrush immigrants’ arrival dates in the UK, despite staff warnings that the move would make it harder to check the records of older Caribbean-born residents experiencing residency difficulties. A former Home Office employee said the records, stored in the basement of a government tower block, were a vital resource for case workers when they were asked to find information about someone’s arrival date in the UK from the West Indies – usually when the individual was struggling to resolve immigration status problems.
On Thursday 12 May 2016, the Immigration Bill received Royal Assent.
In late 2017, media coverage brought attention to individual cases of long-term UK residents facing hardship due to difficulties proving their lawful immigration status. Subsequent reports highlighted instances of individuals losing their jobs and homes, in addition to access to healthcare and welfare benefits, such as pensions. In some cases, individuals were detained, threatened with deportation, removed from the UK or denied re-entry to the country following trips abroad. The exact number of people affected by the scandal remains unclear.
It took until August 2018 for the government to issue any kind of apology, having revealed two months earlier that the Home Office had mistakenly detained 850 people between 2012 and 2017. In November of that year, the then home secretary Sajid Javid revealed in a Home Affairs Select Committee that officials had confirmed that there were at least 83 cases of people being wrongfully deported, with officials fearing that there could be a further 81, and that at least 11 of these individuals had died.
After months of delay, the Windrush Compensation Scheme was finally launched in April 2019, allowing victims to apply for financial compensation as a result of the losses suffered, from employment to housing. But the scheme has been widely criticised.
In 2022 a critical report on the Windrush Scandal, compiled by a Home Office-commissioned historian, referred to “30 years of racist immigration”. The then Conservative government suppressed it, but it was leaked to the Guardian newspaper.
The origins of the Windrush scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population, according to a leaked government report. The stark conclusion was set out in a Home Office commissioned paper that officials have repeatedly tried to suppress over the past year.
The 52-page analysis by an unnamed historian, which has been seen by the Guardian, describes how “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function”, and sets out how this affected the laws passed in the postwar period.
It concludes that the origins of the “deep-rooted racism of the Windrush scandal” lie in the fact that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”.
By September 2024 the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman produced a damning report on the Home Office Compensation Scheme.
The Ombudsman found that the Scheme, set up by the Home Office in response to the Windrush scandal, is making wrong decisions and refusing payment to those who are entitled to it.
By publishing its findings in a new report, ‘Spotlight on the Windrush Compensation Scheme’, PHSO is hopeful that this will present an opportunity for the Home Office to review and make improvements to the current mechanisms in place for compensating people affected by Windrush.
The report reveals why the Scheme is making wrong decisions.
These are:
• telling people they were not eligible for compensation by wrongly applying their own rules
• not always looking at all the evidence provided
• applying the rules even when they led to unfair outcomes for some people. It is likely that the unfairness of some of the rules may have affected more people than the cases we have seen.
(Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman)
On September 26, 2024, the Guardian revealed how the Government was forced to publish the report which had been repressed.
For the past three years, Home Office staff have worked to bury a hard-hitting research paper that states that roots of the scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population. The 52-page analysis by a Home Office-commissioned historian, who has not been named, described how “the British empire depended on racist ideology in order to function” and explained how this ideology had driven immigration laws passed in the postwar period. The department rejected several freedom of information requests asking for the Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal to be released, arguing that publication might damage affected communities’ “trust in government” and “its future development of immigration policy”.
Officials also argued that disclosure would impair “free and frank” disclosure of advice to the Home Office and threaten the existence of a “safe space” within the department to discuss immigration policy.
James Coombs, a transparency campaigner and an IT worker for a mobile phone company, took the case to the information commissioner arguing that the Home Office was delaying responding because the information was “politically embarrassing”.
His request was rejected last year, but he has won an appeal at the general regulatory chamber Information Rights jurisdiction first-tier tribunal.
(The Guardian September 26, 2024)
The report finally confirms the underlying purpose of all immigration legislation between 1950 and 1981.
The damning report states that the roots of the Windrush scandal can be traced back to to decades of racist immigration legislation which were designed to reduce the number Black and brown people who live and work in the UK.
The report reads: “Gradually, the politics of race and immigration became intertwined with one another to the extent that during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK.”
George had been acutely aware of the difficulties caused by immigration legislation from the 1960s onwards. He had become a self-taught expert in all things to do with immigration law, and well-versed about the pitfalls into which his countrymen and women could fall if they did not keep up with the necessary legislation. Even when in full-time employment or in further or higher education, he was unstinting in terms of the time and effort he put into advising and assisting his countrymen and women. This was not only in matters of immigration, visas, etc., but also with divorce, tax returns, debt, and in any situation where it was clear that racial discrimination stood in the way of employment, educational, or social opportunities. This sometimes involved him accompanying such people to a court, when his advice and support produced successful outcomes. He helped thousands of Jamaicans in and around Nottingham to achieve their rights, usually starting with a meeting round our kitchen table and sometimes ending with accompanying them to a court hearing. He extended this assistance to other ethnic minority people such as Indians and Pakistanis, and from time to time helped white English people to take advantage of opportunities they were entitled to. He would never allow people to pay him for such services.
Had he not died in 2013 he would undoubtedly have continued to campaign and advise on the subsequent application of this legislation, and taken up the issues raised in the Human Rights report on the failures of the compensation scheme.