In conversation with Silu Pascoe, members of the 'Windrush Generation' share memories and experiences of how they overcame racial discrimination when finding somewhere to live in Bristol. In particular, Joyce Morris-Wisdom recalls the 'pardner-hand' system that enabled her parents to become home-owners. Guy Bailey talks of setting up United Housing Association which was the first Black-led housing association in 1980s Bristol.
Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that escaped fascist rule in World War Two and where neo-Nazi parties have never enjoyed success. Yet over the last decade Ireland, north and south, has seen a new wave of far-right street demonstrations, arson attacks, and racist violence. Historian and best-selling author Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc's new book BURN THEM OUT! A history of fascism and the far-right in Ireland exposes for the first time the hidden histories of the hate filled ideologies […]
‘The enemies of the working-class will arrive in yachts and limousines, not in small boats’ [banner seen in Bristol on Wednesday 7 August 2024] ‘If ever I lie dying on a Nazi street, there’ll be ten dead fascists at my feet’ [anti-fascist trad.] Introduction After a week or so of protests and riots by right wing nationalists and racists in early August, largely orchestrated on social media by far-right propaganda, lies and distortions, we are now faced by a police and government narrative […]
In 2022 Winston Trew of the Oval Four gave a talk at the Bristol Radical History Festival detailing his lifelong campaign for justice for the victims of racist and corrupt police officer Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell. Winston’s devastating story is detailed in his books Black for a Cause… and Rot at the Core: The Serious crimes of a Detective Sergeant . A young Black Power activist in 1973, Winston and three friends were accosted in the Oval tube station by plain clothes police, arrested, […]
The exhibition provides examples of the activism of Bristol Anti-Apartheid Movement (BAAM) in its campaign to raise awareness of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Formed in 1964, BAAM was one of the largest local groups affiliated to the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. Material donated to the Bristol Archives and photographs from the Bristol Post Archive show the diverse range of activities over the group's 30 year history - pickets, boycotts, meetings, fundraising events such as […]
Not In An Event Series
1st October to 17th November 2022: 1st Floor, Bristol Central Reference Library, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TL (now extended to 17th November). Launch event: 4.00pm, Monday 3rd October, Bristol Room, Bristol Central Reference Library Bristol Radical History Group presents an innovative exhibition of resistance to fascism in the city in the 1970s, through a collection of rare contemporary posters, badges, pamphlets, photographs and film. This visually powerful exhibition considers the role that […]
Note: This online event is hosted by The Cube and requires booking. Details here. Join BAFTA-nominated documentary film-maker George Amponsah (The Hard Stop) in conversation with historian Rosie Wild about his latest work, Black Power: a British Story of Resistance. This will be followed by a Q&A session. The recent highly acclaimed history documentary Black Power: a British Story of Resistance (Rogan Productions, 2021) tells the story of Britain’s homegrown Black Power movement from […]
Not A BRHG Event
Note: this an online event organised by Bristol Copwatch. Advance booking is required, please pre-register here in order to attend this meeting. Bristol Copwatch with Institute of Race Relations invite you to join them to hear stories from the work of Community Monitoring Groups who have been on the frontline challenging police abuses of power and racism for decades. Learn more about the police use of force in the UK, taser usage, and the controversial new Violence Suppression Units, and learn […]
Not A BRHG Event
Lilleith Morrison and Richard Jones, co-author and publisher of Dr Paul Stephenson’s autobiography Memoirs Of A Black Englishman (Tangent Books) ask, along with artists and activists, Ros Martin and Rob Mitchell ‘Who will inherit the legacy of the Bristol Bus Boycott?’. The successful Bus Boycott campaign of 1963 was one of the greatest victories of the UK Civil Rights movement as the Black community and progressive thinkers in Bristol united to overthrow the ‘colour bar’ operated by Bristol […]
Black Power in Britain started in 1967, reached its apogee in 1971 and was in terminal decline by the mid-1970s. It was an expression of frustration, anger and – most importantly – resistance to the individual, institutional and state racism experienced by the postwar generations of black immigrants to Britain and their British-born children. The British state took the threat of Black Power very seriously, both at home and across the Commonwealth. When an international conference on Black Power […]
