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Photo: Copyright Wayne Campbell. Windrush Day. Windrush Square. Brixton. Summer 2024.

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The Second World War (1939-1945) Meant That Many Men Were No Longer Alive To Help Try & Rebuild Pre War British Life. In Particular It Created A Shortage of Labour. The Need To Rebuild A Post War Country Added To That Brutal Post War Reality. The British Government Therefore Reached Out To Young Men ‘And’ Women In The Colonies. Therefore Came The Windrush Generation. The Colonizer, The Great British Empire’ Asked The Colonised Countries For Help And In Response The Colonised Citizens Travelled To Britian ‘The Motherland’ To Help Rebuild ‘Great Britain’ In Its Hour of Need.

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Was Britain Great Grateful?

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Some Elements & Citizens Were. But A Small But A Significant Number of Elements And Citizens Weren’t.

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That Minor Difference Manifested In Racial Attacks. Race Riots. And Murder!

Ultimately Institutional Racial Inertia From The Establishment, Including The British Police ‘Force’, Exacerbated The Situation. The Police Were Back Then (And Still Are Now) Recruited From Members of British Society. The Very Same British Society Which Included Those Who Appreciated The New Work Force. And Those Who Didn’t.

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Two Disturbingly Similar Cases, Decades Apart, Highlight This Basic Brutal Fact.

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One Of Them Is Historically Related To The Formation of Notting Hill Carnival. It Occurred In The Same Year That The First Notting Hill Carnival Took Place (Indoors). Just A Mere Four Months Apart. In 1959.

The Other One Occured 34 Years Later In 1993 (And Lead To The Met Police Being Officially Recognised As “Institutionally Racist” For The Very First Time).

They Are The Cases of Kelso Cochrane And Stephen Lawerence Respectively.

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The Windrush Era Is Officially Recognised As 1948 – 1971.

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This Was A Very Difficult, Disorientating And Momentous Time. Especially In The Early Days. But The Windrush Generation Were Made of Exceptionally Tough Stuff And Would Ultimately Achieve Many, Many, Many, Momentous Triumphs.

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Such Triumphs Included Building Europe’s Largest Street Festival, Attracting Visitors From Around The World And Billions To The British Economy.

And

An Official And Judicial Recognition That The Metropolitan Police Are “Institutionally Racist”.

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Journalist, Editor, Founder, And Carnival Creator Claudia Jones

In May 1958 Activist Claudia Jones Established Her WIG Newspaper – The West Indies Gazette – As She Believed That;

“A Community Without A Voice Were Like Lambs To The Slaughter.”

That Was Followed Just Four Months Later By The 1958 London Notting Hill Race Riots, Alongside The Associate 1958 Nottingham Race Riots.

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Then In January 1959, Wintertime, She Established The First (Indoors) Notting Hill Carnival As A Direct Anti-dote To The Previous Year’s Racist Violence. However, Sadly, Tragically, In May 1959, A Young Antiguan Man, Kelso Cochran, Was Racially Attacked And Murdered In Springtime of The Same Year. Over 1, 200 People, Black And White, Male And Female, Young And Old, Attended His Funeral. Ultimately, Tellingly, Five Months Later In October 1959, Now Autumntime, Racist MP Oswald Mosely, Was Decisively Defeated In The Local Elections! Even Then, Back In The Day, The British People Wanted Unity, Not Hostility.

It Was A Triumph For Engagement, Sharing And Integration.

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In 1995 The Mcpherson Report Concluded That The Metropolitan Police ‘Force’ Was “Institutionally Racist”. The Judge Led Enquiry Had Been Commissioned After The High Profile Racist Murder of 17 Year Old Stephen Lawrence Who Was Stabbed To Death By A Gang of White Racists At A Bus Stop In Eltham South East London On His Way Home After An Evening Out With His Friend Dwayne Brooks. Stephen Was Studying To Become An Architect. The Failure of The Met Police To Investigate The Case Properly And Apprehend His Killers Became Notorious.

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Both His Parents Fought Hard For Justice, Transparency And Accountability.

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Despite Their Incalculable Devastation, After Exceptional Dedication, Determination, And Diligence, By Stephen’s Parents, The Five Main Suspects (Known In The Community) Were Eventually Arrested And Charged But Initially All Got Away With Murder.

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But That Injustice Led To A Change In The Law. Previously ‘The Law of Double Jeopardy’ Meant That A Defendant Could Not Be Tried Twice For Murder. However, After A New Police Team (Led By DCI Clive Driscoll) Uncovered Forensic Evidence And Appealed Successfully To The Criminal Court For A Retrial Years Later, 2 of The Original 5 Suspects Were Retried And Convicted.

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It Was A Triumph For Grace, Dignity, And Perseverance In The Face Of Institutionally Racist Policing

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However, Esteemed Lawyer Damn Louise Casey Was Commissioned To Write Another Report Decades Later, As Police Impropriety Sadly, Significantly Continued, After The Original McPherson Report, And She Also Concluded That The Met Was Institutionally Racist.

Still!

Shamefully On The Part of The Police, Not Much Had Changed. Except… Now It Had Also Officially Declared Institutionally Homophobic And Institutionally Misogynistic Too.

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The Pioneering Efforts of Claudia Jones In Building Both ‘Integration Yet Independence’ And Doreen And Neville Lawrence Highlight How Important Building Independent Afro-Caribbean Media And Safe Spaces Is

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