Black Power and its Effects

The beginning of black revolutionary activity and the coming of Black Power to Britain cemented a period of collective black solidarity. This expressed itself through the formation of short-lived organizations that legitimized the black presence. It also added power to black struggles through its provision of a political platform to fight grievances. After the 1958 Nottinghill struggles, The West Indian Standing Conference was formed. The visit of several American black power leaders to Britain also inspired the formation of various association

The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was set up in December 1964 after Martin Luther King's visit to London. Malcolm X's brief passage through London served to inspire the formation of The Racial Adjustment Society (RAAS) in February 1965. In June 1967 The Universal Colored People's Association was formed off the inspiration of Stokley Carmichael's visit to London. There were other organizations such as the National Committee For Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI). The Race Relations Board (RRB) served the purpose of safeguarding the rights of Black British citizens in Britain. This was spurred on by increasing levels of discrimination against Black Britons. There were massive raids on social clubs and restaurants and the constant threat of repatriation by The National Front in February 1967. This organization was formed through a merging of The League Of Empire Loyalists, The British National Party and The Racial Preservation Society.

The West Indian generation's show of resistance was important in creating a black community and initiating revolutionary activity. The first Black Power March was held in 1969 by a 5000 strong black gathering protesting police malpractice. The Mangrove Caribbean restaurant was constantly subject to raiding by the police. This spawned the second black power march in 1971. Around this time, the publication of several literary magazines and newsletters also provided the forum for discussing black issues and encouraging black self-expression. Author Sivanandan provides some groundbreaking research on this phenomenon:

Finally there were bookshops cum advice centers, such as the black people's information centres, BLF's Grassroots Storefront and BWM's Unity Bookshop and the weekly or monthly newspapers: Black Voice (BUFP), Grassroots (BLF), Freedom News(BP: Black Panthers) Frontline (BBC Brixton), Uhuru (BPFM: Black People's Freedom Movement) BPFM Weekly and the BWAC Weekly (Black Workers Action Committee) and the less frequent and more theoretical journal Black Liberator.

A theory can be purported that these small publications paved the way for stronger forms of black literary self-expression in the form of poetry and the novel. The connection is valid since this was to happen a few years later in this decade of the black journal.

Nottinghill Carnival

This event gained its greatest inspiration from the riots that were rampant between the Black British West Indians and the police. Tensions began in the 1950's particuarly in the arena of entertainment. Police enjoyed raiding West Indian parties. However they could not stop the moulding in the black society and before long, West Indian culture became transplanted onto the British soil. The event emerged from the Trinidadians who carried the tradition of Trinidad's carnival to Britain. From the beginnings of social festivities in private homes, Carnival developed with the invitation of the steelband to the road in a large procession.

It is not sure exactly how this Carnivel began, but the event saw its earliest established gathering in 1964. Within a couple of years from this time, Carnival became a controversial event that spawned clashes between the police and West Indians. This was particuarly so in 1970's Britain during the time period of renewed struggles between the Black British youth and the police. Nottinghill Carnival still exists today, and it has been named a national festival. Like its resemblance to Trinidad's carnival, it involves the dancing to calypso music (popularly termed soca) and the dressing in costumes to participate in masquerade (termed mas). People dance through the streets to the sounds of the steelband percussion, and masquerade is taken to great heights in the holding of competitions.

The continued presence of Nottinghill Carnival shows the refusal of West Indians to have their culture taken away from them. They also transferred this culture to their Black British children. The event had it beginnings as a unique form of West Indian expression but today Nottinghill Carnival is popular among both the British as well as the immigrant body. Trevor and Michael Phillips comment on the Nottinghill Carnival and its impact on present day Britain in Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain:

Educationally Subnormal Schools

The 1970's decade defined the new struggles for the second and third generation Black British youth. They not only faced increased police brutality but discrimination from the school system. The main task of education in Britain was to fulfill "the successful assimilation of the immigrant child." In June 1965, it was issued that the percentage of immigrant pupils in any one school should not exceed 30% of total population of the school. There was a widespread belief that the black child hindered the progress of the white British child. In 1971, Grenadian Bernard Coard, disclosed that there was a preponderance of West Indian children who were at under-performance levels in Britain. He published a study How The West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Subnormal In The British School System The main reasons he identified were social and cultural factors. These included culture shock, transition problems and the "pathological black family". It was only later down in the 1981 Rampton Report and the 1985 Swaan Report that institutional racism was cited as the main factor for this underachievement.

British Black children were being marginalized in schools due to the racial bias in textbooks. The narrow focus on ethnocentrism denied the black child a history and a culture, and presented narrow racist views against the black. There were no teachers specifically trained to deal with the black child's adjustment problems. The school failed to accommodate this new Black generation of British children, and the education system became a powerful way to deny the Black child self-empowerment and identity. The school system epitomized the sham that was evident in so-called multicultural education.

These Black British children of the second and third generations gained political power through the use of patois, dialects and deliberate misuse of "the Queen's English." Their language was pinpointed as the reason for their underperformance at the school level. However extensive studies point to the conscious use of this broken from of English by young blacks, a phenomenon which developed in adolescence. Linguists Sutcliffe, Sebba and Le Page point to two separate language systems, the Black London English and The London Jamaican. It was noticed that Black British youth code switched between the standard forms of English and their dialects, phenomenon identified by linguist Susan Romaine as recreolization. She cites this pride in talking black as affected by the interplay of several variables including "sex, educational achievements and aspirations and their attitudes towards mainstream society."

Rastafarianism

Language is a powerful way to affirm culture and identity. The attitude of the Black British generations was unlike that of their West Indian immigrant parents. Many refused to do the menial jobs that their parents accepted. British Black youth were militant in claiming their rights as British citizens. This led directly to their embrace of Rastafarianism as a popular subculture. They atttraction to this subculture fed their use of patois as a symbol of black pride. Violence became a valid response to fight off police brutality by meeting aggression with aggression.

These youth faced political marginalization through the law and the state. There was the SUS or Stop and Search Law which was part of the 1824 Vagrancy Act. This law stated that "Every person or reputed thief, frequenting or loitering about in any street highway or avenue leading thereto or any place of public resort with intent to commit an arrestable offence is guilty of that offence." Arrests could be made solely on suspicion and this form of policing became a powerful tactic to imprison and convict hundreds of black youth. By the end of 1980 in Britain the number of black people in prison was 17%. Of this figure, over 36% of the young prisoners were black. The coming of Bob Marley in 1975 to Britain also spread the popularity of reggae, but linked blacks to criminality. It became common knowledge that Rastas were muggers from a report issued by John Brown in 1975 entitled Shades Of Grey.This worsened police-black relations by identifying rastas as a criminalized dreadlock subculture. This led to even greater policing through periodic attacks by an organization called the Special Patrol Group (SPG). Frequent attacks and raids were made on West Indian youth clubs, and the concept of >policing the blacks became a popular slogan for the political control by the state. Unaccustomed to the aggressive attitude of the younger black generations, the police blamed the black youth's deviance on the 'pathological' black family unit. West Indian mothers were blamed because they had to work, and were absent from the homes. It was years later, in 1981, that black youth would erupt in spontaneous acts of violence against police in Brixton. This would carry through to 1982 and 1985, plaguing the entire of the 1980's.

It was the embrace of the Rastafarianism subculture in the 1970's that provided the opening for Black British Literature to arise, initiated by poetry. Marley came to Britain in 1975, making popular the subcultures of dancehall, reggae and bass culture.

It was in this ripe assertive atmosphere that Linton Kwesi Johnson slammed on the scene in the 1970's, with the publication in 1974 of a play, Voices Of The Living And The Dead.This was shortly followed in 1975 by his first poetry collection Dread Beat And Blood. In an interview with Mervyn Morris Johnson declares

From the time I began writing my initial inspiration came from the general working conditions that the black people were living under and what we were experiencing in British society

I have consciously seen it as my function to document the experiences and highlight the moments of the
history of blacks in Britain