Black in Europe

Lilian Bader – One of the first black women to join the British Armed Forces

Lilian Bader was born in 1918 in Liverpool’s Toxteth Park neighbourhood to Marcus Bailey, a merchant seaman from Barbados who fought for the British in the First World War, and Lilian, a British …

Windrush Day

Windrush Day is observed in the UK on 22 June to mark the arrival of the Empire Windrush and to honour the contribution of the Windrush Generation and their descendants. Windrush Day was …

Justin Fashanu – First out gay footballer

In 1990 Justin Fashanu stunned the football world as the first professional footballer to come out as gay. At this time racism and homophobia were endemic in football. Justin’s early …

5 facts about the Black Lives Matter movement

What is Black Lives Matter? The Black Lives Matter movement started as a hashtag on social networks and officially began in the United States in 2013 after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of …

The Windrush scandal and the hostile environment

What is the Windrush scandal? The Windrush scandal mainly affected UK citizens originally from the Caribbean. It came to light in 2018 after it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth …

The untold story of Black British children wrongly classified as subnormal

‍In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of black children in Britain were wrongly classified as “educationally subnormal” and sent to special schools. These schools were designed for students …

The Accra Riots of 1948: A turning point in Ghana’s quest for independence

The Accra Riots of 1948 stand as a pivotal moment in Ghana’s history, marking a significant step towards the country’s eventual independence from British colonial rule. Central to this …

Malcolm X visits Smethwick, West Midlands

In February 1965, civil rights campaigner Malcolm X was in Britain to speak at the London School of Economics. Avtar Singh Jouhl, general secretary of the Indian Workers Association, invited him to …

Remembering the 13 young people killed in the New Cross fire

On Sunday 18 January 1981 a fire broke out in a house in New Cross Road, Deptford, South East London, killing 13 young people and marking a massive change for black people in Britain. Thirteen …

The life of Francis Barber

Most people believe that black people came to Britain after the Second World War with the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. But Black people have had a presence in Britain for as far back as …

1919 race riots in Britain

Britain’s 1919 race riots started at the end of the First World War starting with an outbreak of violence in Glasgow in January, race riots happened around the United Kingdom until late in the …

UK race riots – The murder of Charles Wotten

Charles Wotten was a 24-year-old ship’s fireman from Bermuda who was murdered by an angry white mob during the Liverpool race riots of 1919. What led to Charles Wotten’s …