This Black History Month, we’ve enlisted Tony Warner, the founder of Black History Walks, to provide a snapshot of some of London’s most important landmarks.
1. Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, Bloomsbury
Black British civil rights activist and world-famous Trinidadian cricketer Learie Constantine made history with his legal action against this hotel. On September 3, 1943, Baron Constantine and his family were refused accommodation despite having booked in advance. Baron Constantine was a welfare officer helping the British government fight the Nazis during the Second World War.
In the Forties and Fifties there were no laws against race discrimination despite groups like the League of Coloured Peoples demanding such. Baron Constantine sued the hotel for breach of contract and won the case. This publicised the colour bar in hotels and the discrimination faced by black people much less famous than himself. The case promoted the argument for a law against racist behaviour. In 1963, Baron Constantine supported the equally pioneering and successful Bristol bus boycott. This directly led to the first law against racial discrimination: the Race Relations Act of 1965. Baron Constantine also became the first black member of the House of Lords in 1969.
2. YMCA, 112 Great Russell Street
Set up by Jamaican doctor Harold Moody in 1931, the League of Coloured Peoples fought for racial equality in housing, employment and the military, 17 years before the Windrush arrived. Dr Moody attended King’s College London, came top of his class but could not get a hospital job due to his colour. He set up his own practice at 164 Queens Road and became the first black doctor in Peckham. His experiences led him to establish the League which met at the YMCA. Activists like Baron Constantine, Una Marson, CLR James and even Paul Robeson were all associates. One of the League’s achievements was to break the colour bar against black people getting commissions in the armed forces, active until the Second World War. Five of Dr Moody’s six children became Army or RAF officers. Dr Moody was also a preacher, but a British audience will be much more familiar with the civil rights activism of fellow preacher Dr Martin Luther King, who only came to prominence with the US Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. In 2019, Black History Walks sponsored a Nubian Jak blue plaque to the League at the YMCA.
3. Oxford Street/Regent Street
In the late Sixties, black people were not allowed to have customer-facing jobs in these streets. They could only work in the kitchens or warehouses. Dame Jocelyn Barrow, founder of the Campaign against Racial Discrimination, was looking to test the 1968 Race Relations Act. She arranged a meeting with Lord Sieff, head of Marks & Spencer, and convinced him to agree to employ “some pretty black girls” which would then encourage his business colleagues in the area to follow. That is how the colour bar in the West End was broken. Thousands of black staff now work there but that is only because of the negotiating skills of groups like CARD. You can see Dame Jocelyn discussing her strategy in the BBC documentary, Playing the Race Card.
4. Mangrove Restaurant/Community centre, 8 All Saints Road, Notting Hill
Set up by Frank Crichlow, the food was so good it attracted celebrities like Bob Marley, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Muhammad Ali and Vanessa Redgrave. Apart from being a good businessman, Crichlow sponsored local youth via the Mangrove steel band which still exists. He also supported the Black Panther movement and had a lawyer on site giving free legal advice to black people who had been unfairly arrested under the infamous “Sus” law. This successful black business and anti-racist activism led to the Mangrove being targeted in frequent police raids. This resulted in the 1971 Mangrove Nine trial, which marked a turning point in the relationship between the black community and the British state as in effect the former was on trial for fighting against racism. When the Mangrove Nine won their case, it marked the first time that institutional racism was exposed in public. There is a Nubian Jak blue plaque on the site installed in 2011. Sir Steve McQueen made a film about the case, Mangrove, which can be seen on BBC iPlayer.
5. Blueprint for All, 39 Brookmill Road, Lewisham
The original 2008 building was named the Stephen Lawrence Centre. It was built as a direct result of his racist murder in 1993 and the family’s decades-long campaign for justice. This physical legacy is a visible aspect of the far greater legal, cultural and societal impact which led to, among many other things, the Race Relations Amendment Act of 2000. This law impacts on many areas of professional life and led to the establishment of thousands of black staff groups and diversity initiatives.
The Museum of London houses an extensive selection of skeletons, among which are several of African people living in Roman London 2,000 years ago
6. Museum of London, Barbican/Smithfields
This venue is highly significant as among its extensive selection of skeletons are several of African people living in Roman London 2,000 years ago. This proves how far back the black presence goes, long before Windrush and long before European chattel slavery. It is a direct contradiction to the myth that black people have only been in England since the Forties.
7. West India Docks, Better known as Canary Wharf
This massive dock complex was completed in 1802 specifically to handle the huge amount of trade that was coming from the West Indies, hence the name. British slavery did not end until 1838. The enormous amounts of rum, sugar, tobacco, mahogany etc landed at these docks up until then were produced by forced African labour in the Caribbean. This location provides physical evidence of the enormous legacy of slavery in London. The multinational corporations based there are literally built on a foundation of captured labour. The docks were funded by rich “merchants” like George Hibbert and Robert Milligan, who were both directly involved in human trafficking. Their money funded the huge structure which then generated even more wealth. Milligan had a statue in front of the Museum of Docklands (a former sugar warehouse) which was removed in a belated response to the murder of George Floyd.
8. Cleopatra’s Needle Embankment
Preceding European enslavement of Africans by several thousand years, this incredible engineering achievement was carved out of 180 tons of solid granite. It is 68ft tall and was constructed in Africa 1,500 years before London was founded. It was removed from Egypt by the British and erected in London in 1878. Some say that the ancient Egyptians were not black and did not come from Africa. At the Unesco International conference on Egyptology in Cairo in 1974, Dr Cheikh Anta Diop of Senegal and Professor Théophile Obenga of Congo challenged 18 eurocentric scholars and scientifically proved against all objections that the ancient Egyptians were black. This was reported and can still be found in Unesco’s 1974 report, The Peopling of ancient Egypt and the deciphering of Meroitic script (Online report on the 1974 Cairo conference).
