What Britain’s treatment of the ‘Empire Windrush generation’ says about our society.

I have fought against prejudice and injustice throughout my adult life and I really thought that in Britain we were, in recent years, seeing the back of it.

But I have been shocked at the stories coming to light in the past week of the treatment of some of those who came over from the Caribbean in the early days of the migration after the Second World War. I lived and worked among them in West London in the 1950s and in Tottenham in the 1960s.

I found the first generation of migrants to be extremely friendly, hard-working and trustworthy people and I had a great love and respect for them. Some of them are still my friends today. Many times I was shocked and angry at the treatment some of them received in London. I used to feel ashamed when I saw the street corner newspaper shops with their adverts for rooms or flats to let with the inevitable caveat, “No coloured, No pets, No Irish”.

The Windrush Generation

The early migrants from the Caribbean faced an enormous amount of prejudice, but they bore it with great patience and humility that won the admiration of those who took the trouble to get to know any of them on a personal basis. They played a vital part in the re-building of Britain after the Blitz, both physically and in terms of its economy which was booming in those days, but there was a shortage of manpower as so many men had been lost during the war.

Many hundreds of worker migrants came to my church in West London in the days before and after the Notting Hill riots of 1958. They not only brought fresh culture and enthusiasm into the fellowship but they also enriched our worship with their singing. We had a quartet that sang beautiful four-part harmony and they took part a number of times in broadcasts from the church.

The large number of migrants coming to my church, however, attracted opposition from the National Front who picketed the church and then attacked my house, throwing white paint over the front door and painting abusive words (‘NIGGER LOVER’) on the pavement outside the house. This atrocity backfired against them as it attracted a huge amount of local support as well as publicity in the press.

Left: Commonwealth Sunday Service 1962, High Cross Church Tottenham. Right: Workmen turning over the paving stones outside the church house, Tottenham, August 1962.

A Prejudiced System

I was a member of the Home Office-sponsored ‘Commonwealth Immigrants Committee’ and I saw at first hand the prejudice in the system that the migrants faced. It was strong in the 1960s because the Home Office was involved in framing the Immigration and Race Relations Acts.

Both the Labour and Conservative parties supported the immigration controls which sent a message to the public that there must be something wrong with these people because their numbers had to be limited. That prejudice continued for decades and became increasingly hostile in the run-up to the 2016 Referendum.

The early Caribbean migrants faced an enormous amount of prejudice, but they bore it with great patience and humility.

Evidence of Discrimination

This past week has seen the 50^th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of blood’ speech that attracted massive publicity and revealed to the world the level of racial prejudice in Britain. The speech shocked many people and was denounced in Parliament by Powell’s own party, but evidence at the time showed that Powell was expressing the views of millions of ordinary people in Britain such as the London dockers who exercised a ban on black workers.

There was plenty of evidence of discrimination in employment, such as black bus conductors being permitted but not black drivers, and it was many years before the first black inspector of buses was appointed by London Transport. There were lots of surveys of prejudice in Britain and many activists calling for social change, but cultural attitudes change slowly.

Heart-Searching Needed

In Britain we don’t like to admit it but we have lots of prejudices: like between north and south – northerners don’t like southerners and Londoners think that civilisation ends at Watford - or over regional accents. And of course, Scots stereotypically don’t like Sassenachs and would like to be independent of the English - while the English have historically not been too keen on foreigners of any origin (hence Brexit can’t come too soon!)!

But our treatment of the ‘Empire Windrush’ generation whose landing passes and other documents were destroyed by the Home Office has really been unforgivable. It is amazing that it has taken so long to come before Parliament and it is only because of media publicity that apologies have been tumbling out of the Government.

Men and women who have lived in Britain for more than 50 years and greatly contributed to this nation have been issued with deportation orders or even locked up in detention centres. Surely this is more than just an administrative error! It means we have never really valued many of those who have come to Britain from the Commonwealth.

In Britain we don’t like to admit it but we have lots of prejudices.

Acknowledging Past Injustice

Our mistreatment of people from the Caribbean islands goes back at least 200 years to the days of slavery under British colonial rule. This legacy of slavery has never been finally expunged from our social attitudes and culture, as we remarked just two weeks ago on Prophecy Today UK.

It is the legacy of slavery that the Movement for Justice and Reconciliation (MJR) is working to overcome. MJR’s Chairman sees this legacy as fuelling knife crime on our city streets (see his article, also in this week’s issue). Why is it that more young men of Caribbean origin are in British prisons than in our universities?

The Bible says “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God” (Prov 14:31). It is surely time to take a hard look at our inner cities to see how we can improve life for those who are often stuck in ghettos of poverty, lacking hope and opportunity. This is not a call for compassion - it is a call for justice and righteousness, because “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Prov 14:34).

More analysis on this issue can be found in ‘Free at Last: The Tottenham Riots and the Legacy of Slavery' (Hill, C, 2014, Wilberforce publications Ltd, London), particularly pp72-74.