WINDRUSH DAY – The stories of some West Indians in Wembley

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant to mark Windrush Day. Written in a personal capacity

1.West Indian immigrant workers search a newspaper for jobs on arrival in 1948. (Image from the internet)

 

Today, 22 June, is Windrush Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the “Empire Windrush” at Tilbury Docks in 1948. The ship brought hundreds of men from the Caribbean, looking for jobs, after the British Nationality Act of 1948 allowed citizens of Commonwealth countries to settle in the UK, to help rebuild the country after the Second World War. 

 

There had been people from the West Indies in Wembley twenty-four years earlier, representing their island nations at the British Empire Exhibition. This is one of the photographs, taken at the time by a Harlesden photographer, which I will be using in a talk I hope to give in October this year at Harlesden Library, as part of the “Becoming Brent” project for the BEE’s centenary:

 

2.Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago in their section of the West Indies Pavilion, 1924.
(Source: Brent Archives – Wembley History Society Collection)

 

I don’t know whether any of the original Windrush passengers came to live in Wembley, but there were certainly other West Indians here that year. Just over three weeks before the “Empire Windrush” docked, the entire West Indies test cricket team came to Vale Farm, at the invitation of Wembley Cricket Club, to play in a benefit match for Learie Constantine (after whom a cultural centre in Willesden is now named). You can read about the match in an article that I will ask Martin to attach below.

 

3.Learie Constantine, at the height of his cricketing popularity. (Image from the internet)

 

Learie Constantine was a remarkable man, braving colour prejudice in the late 1920s and 1930s to become the club professional for the Lancashire Cricket League side, Nelson, where he became very popular. During the Second World War he worked for the Ministry of Labour, looking after the welfare of West Indian men who had come to Britain to work in wartime factories. He went on to become a lawyer, fighting racial discrimination, and played an important part in bringing about Britain’s 1965 Race Relations Act.

 

 

In July and August 1948, Wembley County School in Stanley Avenue played host to the mens’ Olympic Games teams from seven Commonwealth countries, including Bermuda, British Guiana (now Guyana), Jamaica and Trinidad. The school also arranged accommodation, with the families of pupils, for the female members of two teams. Three Jamaican women athletes stayed with the Welson family, shared coconuts and pineapples with them (a rare treat in food-rationed Britain) and cooked them a meal of boiled rice with grated coconut and red beans.

 

 

4.The Jamaican Olympics team at Wembley County School, July 1948. (Courtesy of the Old Alpertonians)

 

 

Most of the Jamaican team, paid for by public subscription to represent their island at the Olympic Games for the first time, had spent twenty-four days on a banana boat to reach England. Their captain, Arthur Wint, was already in London, as he had just finished his first year as a medical student at Barts Hospital. He would win Jamaica’s first Olympic gold medal, but he already had wartime medals. Along with his brothers, Lloyd and Douglas, he had volunteered to join the RAF in Jamaica, been sent to train in Canada, and finished the war as a Spitfire pilot (one of around 500 World War Two “Pilots of the Caribbean”!). Arthur Wint was another remarkable West Indian to have graced Wembley in 1948, the “Windrush” year. You can read my article about his life here.

 

 

But it wasn’t all sunshine for people of the Windrush generation who came from the Caribbean to work in Britain. The work available was mainly in public services, like London Transport, the Post Office or nursing. Several people I collected memories from for a Kingsbury local history project in 2009, had come to this country from the West Indies in the 1950s and 1960s.  One told me of the hostility that many English people showed them when they arrived, just because of the colour of their skin. Many landlords would not accept coloured tenants, and even going to church was not pleasant, as they were made to feel unwelcome at first.

 

 

Another incident recounted to me was about one of the first West Indian families to rent a flat in an old Stonebridge tenement row called Shakespeare Avenue. A live snake was put through their letterbox! Luckily neighbours called a local Englishman, nicknamed “Noah”, who was good with animals. He recognised it was non-poisonous, and soon picked it up and took it away.

 

 

5.Christmas Day in the Children’s Ward, Wembley Hospital (Chaplin Road), 1950s.
(From a nurses recruitment brochure in the Wembley History Society Collection at Brent Archives)

 

One job where accommodation for West Indians was not a problem was as a nurse, or nursing student, at Wembley Hospital. The hospital’s matron welcomed a number of young women from the West Indies in the 1950s, for a two-year training course to become a nurse. You would be paid a £300 a year training allowance, out of which £128 a year was deducted to cover the cost of your board and lodging in the Nurses’ Home. Once you qualified as a State Enrolled Nurse, your annual salary would be £452. I have used the photograph above, of one of these nurses, several times, but I have never discovered the name of the nurse. If you recognise her, please let me know her name in a comment below!

 

 

Barbara came to London from Barbados in 1964, to work as a nurse. By 1970, she and her husband lived in a privately-rented one bedroom flat in Harlesden, costing £3 10s a week. Brent Council had built its Chalkhill Estate, but was finding it hard to let hundreds of homes there, because the rent was so much higher than the “controlled rent” (as low as £1 a week) families in run-down properties were paying. That is when Barbara and her husband, and other hard-working West Indian families, got the chance to become Chalkhill tenants. They had to show their passports, provide references to prove that they were of good character and that they had sufficient income to pay the rent (which was £10 10s for their new two-bedroom flat).

 

 

6.The Chalkhill Estate with Brent Town Hall beyond, 1980s. (Internet image, courtesy of Winston Vaughan)

 

 

Brent Town Hall is a Wembley connection of the last West Indian in my article. Dorman Long was born in St Lucia, and as a young man was a teacher there, before he came to London in 1960. As his teaching qualifications were not recognised, his first job here was as a postman, later going on to work for a housing association, then as a race relations adviser. He soon became involved in local politics, and was a Brent Labour councillor for 33 years. 

 

7.Dorman Long (right) greeting Nelson Mandela at Wembley Stadium, April 1990.
(Source: Brent Archives – “Wembley Observer” newspaper cutting)

 

 

Cllr. Dorman Long was Leader of Brent Council from 1987 to 1990, following a turbulent period when the borough was frequently labelled in the press a “Barmy Brent”. One of his finest hours was welcoming the recently-freed Nelson Mandela to Wembley, and trying to make him a Freeman of Brent. I did not know him personally, but I have read that Dorman Long was a kind person, and a man of principle – excellent qualities for a leader.

 

 

Windrush Day was established to honour the contribution that migrants, particularly those from the West Indies, have made to this country. I hope this article has shown, through just a few examples of both ordinary and extraordinary people, how much our community has benefitted from the diversity and experience they have brought and shared with us.

 

 

Philip Grant.

 

 

 

 

Brent, London, and the struggle against apartheid - Willesden Green Library, noon Tuesday October 31st

 

The statement from 35 Brent Labour councillors yesterday calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East, mentioned Brent conferring the Freedom of the Borough, on Nelson Mandela, as evidence of the borough's tradition of standing on the 'right side of history'.

This talk at Willesden Green Library tomorrow, Tuesday 31st October noon-1pm, goes into the history of the Anti-Apartheid movement and Brent's part in the struggle for justice in South Africa:

In this talk discover how London was a hub for the international opposition to apartheid South Africa. As well as providing a home for many exiled opponents of the racist regime including Oliver Tambo, President of the African National Congress, London was the HQ of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, which played a leading role in the international campaign to end apartheid. Brent in the 1980s and 1990s had an active local Anti-Apartheid Group and Wembley Stadium hosted the two international Nelson Mandela Concerts in 1988 and 1990.

 

Mugs first produced by the Brent Anti-Apartheid group, telling the story of a Black South African worker sentenced to 18 months in custody for writing ‘Release Nelson Mandela’ on his tea mug.

Courtesy Anti-Apartheid Legacy & Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives

Long time Brent resident Suresh Kamath was Vice-Chair of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and chaired the organising committee of the two Mandela concerts. He is currently a Trustee of Action for Southern Africa and the Liliesleaf Trust UK.

RESERVE TICKETS HERE (FREE)

The Wembley Park Story - Part 5

The fourth part of Philip Grant's series on the history of Wembley Park

Thank you for joining me again, on our journey through Wembley Park’s history. Part 4 is here, if you missed it. We are moving into times within the life of many of you, so please feel free to add your own memories to (or correct, if necessary!) anything that I write from now on.

1. Wembley Park, seen from above the station, late summer 1948. (Britain from Above image EAW018314)

After the Olympic Games, in the summer of 1948, Wembley Park returned to “business as usual”. The Palace of Industry was a warehouse for His (then Her) Majesty’s Stationery Office, storing stocks of its publications, from Acts of Parliament to the Highway Code, and millions of envelopes and paperclips for the Civil Service. A wide variety of businesses used other surviving buildings in the former (British Empire) Exhibition grounds.

2. Two adverts from the early 1950's for businesses at Wembley Park. (Brent Archives – local directories)

The Empire Pool’s swimming bath was never used again after the Olympics, and the arena became a year-round sports and entertainment venue. The Wembley Lions ice hockey team played there throughout the 1950s, but ice pantomimes also began here in 1950. Other regular annual fixtures from that year were the All-England Badminton Championships and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball matches. Six-day cycle races, and amateur and professional boxing, also featured in the programme, together with the Horse of the Year Show from 1959.

3. Harlem Globetrotters basketball and six-day cycling action at the Empire Pool, 1950s. (From old books)

In 1955, a second television channel was launched in Britain, funded by showing adverts. The ITV franchise for weekdays in the London area was awarded to Associated-Rediffusion, who bought the former film studios in Wembley Park Drive to use for making programmes. They soon had more ambitious plans, and built the largest TV studio in Europe, next door to their existing premises. Wembley Park’s Studio 5 opened in June 1960 with “An Arabian Night”, a spectacular 3-hour show which was broadcast live across the whole ITV network.

4. A cutting from the "Wembley Observer", about plans for the new studio. (From the late Richard Graham)

More building work was going on nearby, with several new office blocks appearing on either side of Olympic Way, close to Wembley Park Station. Apart from that, however, much of the former British Empire Exhibition site remained in drab industrial and commercial use, with firms such as Johnson Matthey & Co (metals) and Fisher Foils among them. Even the former Neverstop Railway station in North End Road was used, as a car repair workshop.

5. South Way, Wembley Park, looking towards the stadium, 1960. (Brent Archives online image 4841)

6. North End Road in the 1960s, with the old Neverstop Railway Station, and Danes Court flats beyond.
(Wembley History Society Collection - Brent Archives online image 9502)

My own first memory of Wembley is arriving on a chartered train, packed with boys from East Sussex, in April 1959. Schoolboy football international matches had begun at the stadium in 1950 (women’s hockey internationals, to attract groups of schoolgirls, started the following year), and I was one of the 95,000 who had come to watch England v. West Germany. We won 2-0, but I have fonder memories of another Wembley match between the two countries, seven years later, which I saw (in black and white) on a television set at home with my family!

7. A 1963 poster and 1966 programme for famous events at Wembley Stadium. (Internet / Terry Lomas)

Wembley Stadium had been fitted with a new roof in 1963, so that all spectators would be undercover. This did not apply to events where part of the crowd was “on the pitch”, such as the memorable boxing match in June that year. Henry Cooper, who lived in Wembley, knocked down Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali), but still lost the contest. The 1960s also saw a new sport come to Wembley Park, with the opening of a 24-lane ten pin bowling alley, the Wembley Bowl and Starlight Restaurant, between the arena and Empire Way. This was converted to a Squash Centre in 1974, and later to a bingo club.

8. Wembley Conference Centre, in Empire Way near Wembley Hill Road, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)

Sir Arthur Elvin had died in 1957, and by the 1970s his Wembley Stadium company had become a subsidiary of the British industrial conglomerate, BET. They set about adding to Wembley Park’s attractions, with a new hotel, large exhibition halls and the Conference Centre. This opened in 1977, just in time to stage the Eurovision Song Contest. It hosted many other major events including, from 1979, the Benson & Hedges Masters Snooker Tournament. From the 1970s, the stadium car parks were home to the popular Wembley Stadium Sunday Market.

9. Wembley Stadium Sunday Market, c.1990s. (Image from the internet)

Popular music shows at the Empire Pool had begun in 1959, with the first single act concert by The Monkees in July 1967. Wembley hosted its first Stadium concerts in the early 1970s, and within a few years had become one of the “must play” venues for top performers on their tours. In July 1985, it staged the Live Aid charity concert, raising funds for famine relief in Africa, watched on television by an estimated 1.9 billion people around the world. The “Free Nelson Mandela” 70^th birthday concert in 1988 helped to bring about his release from prison, and Brent’s Mayor was able to welcome him to Wembley for an anti-apartheid concert in 1990.

10. The logo for Live Aid in 1985, and the 1988 birthday concert for Nelson Mandela. (From the internet)

The former Palace of Engineering was demolished in the early 1980s, to make way for more modern commercial and retail buildings. Under the planning agreement for this development, Brent Council adopted Olympic Way (a private road, built by Wembley Stadium in 1947/48) as a public highway. In 1991, when Wembley was a key part of England’s bid for UEFA’s Euro ’96 football tournament, the Council decided to pedestrianize this main route to the stadium.

As part of this scheme, a wide subway was created under Bridge Road, to give people on foot a safer journey to Olympic Way from Wembley Park Station. The walls of the subway were decorated with specially designed ceramic tile murals, celebrating sports and entertainment events from the history of the stadium and arena. Named “The Bobby Moore Bridge”, the new structure was opened in September 1993, by the widow of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning captain, who had died from cancer a few months earlier.

11. Two of the tile mural scenes in the Bobby Moore Bridge subway. (Photos by Philip Grant, 2009)

Wembley Stadium had been made all-seated (following the report on the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy), so that when Euro ’96 was staged in June 1996 it had a capacity of 76,500. England played all three of their group-stage matches there, including a 2-0 victory over Scotland. Wembley also saw the host nation’s quarter and semi-final games, and the final, won 2-1 by the reunited Germany v. the Czech Republic, after beating England on penalties in the semis.

12. Fans heading up Olympic Way for the England v. Scotland match, June 1996. (Image from internet)

Even before Euro ’96, Wembley Stadium was showing its age, and with its cast reinforced concrete structure, it was difficult to make major improvements. In 1995, the Sports Council announced that it would hold a competition to decide where a new National Football Stadium should be built. The prize would be £120 million, of National Lottery funding, towards the cost of building the new venue.

As well as other English cities, a number of boroughs in London wanted the new stadium sited in their area. Luckily, they were persuaded that Wembley had the best chance of success for the capital, and the final competition shortlist was between bids from Birmingham, Manchester and London. In the end, it was the world-famous name of Wembley, and the heritage of “the Venue of Legends”, built up since 1923, which won the day!

Next weekend, in the final part of this series, we will reach the 21^st century, and see how the new stadium, and other developments, changed the face of Wembley Park. I hope you will join me then.

Please feel free to add your memories, questions or comments in the box below.

Philip Grant.

Brent's leading role in the anti-apartheid struggle has lessons for us today

Friday's talk about Nelson Mandela, the Anti-Apartheid struggle and Brent, organised by the Wembley Hisotry Society,  not only brought back memories for many of those attending, but also provoked thoughts about that campaign and what can be learned from it for those of us campaigning now on issues such as Palestine and Divestment from Fossil fuels.

Nelson Mandela first came to Brent in 1962 when he visited what was then Willesden Trades Council. Campaigners in Brent founded a Boycott South African Goods campaign in 1960 answering a call from Chief Albert Luthili, President of the African National Congress (ANC) LINK.

South African fruit was a particular target and small groups were set up across the country and in universities with at its peak  140-150 groups.  The deaths of two students in 1976 in the Soweto Students Uprising generated further support for action against apartheid and in 1984 Brent Anti-Apartheid was working with the National Union of Students, women's groups and black organisations appealing to Trade Unions not to handle South African goods. 

There were calls for boycotts that  have similarities with those promoted today by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign with a wider focus targeting sporting links, divest from companies profiting from apartheid, pension fund divestment, arms embargo and the release of political prisoners.  Barclays Bank, the biggest  high street  bank in South Africa,was targeted locally and Brent Labour Party moved its account to the Co-operative Bank.

In contrast with today's  timid Labour Council, the Labour Council at the time was part of a local authority delegation to Margaret Thatcher to present a petition if favour of the boycott and the Council stopped contracts with firms with South African links and councillors took part in pickets of supermarkets urging them not to stock South African goods.

All this helped the borough earn the 'Barmy Brent' label - they weren't 'barny' - just ahead of their time. In 1981   Brent was one of the first to name streets and buildings after Nelson Mandela with Mandela Close and then named Winnie Mandela House in London Road, Wembley.

1988  saw the huge Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday concert at Wembley Stadium broadcast to 57 countries and watched by more than 600 million people - a huge impetus to the struggle. One of the audience at Friday's talk pointed out that there was no commemoration of the concert at Wembley Stadium or the Quintain development and urged the present council to make sure that this omission is put right.

With Mandela now seen as a heroic figure, celebrated throughout the world and locally in Brent schools during Black History month,  it is important to remember that he was denounced as a terrorist by Margaret Thatcher and Young Tories sported t-shirts calling for him to be hanged. Supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle were attacked as extremists, and supporters of terrorism, in newspapers and the House of Commons. Sound familiar?

As recently as 1990 as you will see in the video Tories in Brent went to the High Court to stop Mandela being honoured by the borough and this was only put right in 2013 at the instigation of Jim Moher, former councillor and  chair of Wembley History Society.

Local historian Philip Grant adds:
 

FOR INFORMATION:

Brent Council still has the scroll, pictured above, which would have been presented to Nelson Mandela in April 1990 if the Council had passed its resolution to make him a Freeman of the Borough.

It was brought along to the Wembley History meeting on 18 January by the Leader of the Council, Cllr. Butt, and shown to the c.40 people who had come to the talk.

It is hoped that the scroll, and the silver casket made to hold it, will be on public display at Brent Museum later this year. Look out for further news, if you would like to see it! 

 

The Anti-Apartheid Movement and Nelson Mandela in Brent – learning from history

 I am pleased to kick off the New Year with this fascinating article from Philip Grant. Thank you very much Philip for your many valuable contributions to Wembley Matters.
 

The struggle against apartheid in South Africa is now history, and a talk at Wembley History Society on Friday 18^th January will relate how Brent and London played a part in the movement which helped to bring about freedom, equality and democracy in that country.

But is the Anti-Apartheid story, and that of Nelson Mandela, the key figure who symbolised the struggle, still relevant today? I would say that the answer is a definite “Yes”. Many abuses of human rights remain in our world, and there are lessons to be learned about why and how they should be challenged, and how they can be overcome. 

Visitors are welcome at the history society’s talk, and I hope that many will come, and be inspired by it. By way of encouragement, I will share with you a little “local history” about Nelson Mandela.

The African National Congress, a multi-racial organisation seeking the right to vote for all South Africans, not just those who were white, was in its infancy when Nelson Mandela was born in 1918. He joined the ANC in 1943, while working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. His active involvement in the campaign against apartheid (the racial segregation imposed on his country by a hard-line white-only government) often saw him arrested for alleged sedition, and even prosecuted (unsuccessfully) for treason in 1956.

After the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went “underground” to organise resistance against South Africa’s repressive government. Early in 1962, he secretly left the country, visiting a number of African countries and coming to England in April. It was during that visit that he addressed a meeting of the Willesden Trades Council at Anson Hall. I have not been able to find any mention of this event in the “Willesden Chronicle” microfilm records at Brent Archives, so the only item I have to illustrate his visit to the borough that year is a photo of the hall.

Anson Hall, Cricklewood, in 1960
(from Brent Archives online photos, No.82

On his return to South Africa, Nelson Mandela was arrested in August 1962, and jailed for five years, after being convicted of leaving the country without permission. While serving that term, he was charged, along with other ANC activists, with sabotage (which he admitted) and plotting the violent overthrow of the government. Following a trial in 1964, at which Mandela’s defence speech gained world-wide attention (despite the South African government’s attempts to censor it), he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. 

That might have been the end of the story, but Suresh Kamath’s talk will show that it was not. The Anti-Apartheid Movement in this country eventually led to a “Free Nelson Mandela” concert at Wembley Stadium in July 1988, marking his 70^th birthday. The growing pressure for change in South Africa, from this and other initiatives, finally saw President F.W. de Klerk lift the ban on the ANC and release Mandela from prison in February 1990.

Badge for the 1990 Wembley Stadium concert (from Brent Museum).

There is much more evidence of Nelson Mandela’s second visit to Brent, in April 1990, than the one 28 years earlier (with all but a few months of that time as a prisoner). He was invited to address a “Free South Africa” concert organised in his honour, at Wembley Stadium on Easter Monday. He came, and gave a moving speech calling for a continued effort to end apartheid, and bring democracy for all in his country. This aim was finally achieved four years later.

Front page report of Nelson Mandela
at Wembley, from the “Wembley Observer” 19 April 1990.

Unfortunately, although the front page of the “Wembley Observer” showed a smiling Nelson Mandela meeting Brent dignitaries, it was another local story that grabbed the headlines. Brent had planned to mark the occasion by making Mandela a Freeman of the Borough, but the plans went wrong at a Special Meeting of the Council the previous Thursday. Party leaders had agreed that it should be a free vote, but at the last minute Conservative councillors were instructed to vote against awarding the honour, and the resolution did not gain the necessary two-thirds majority.

Extract from the scroll which would have been presented to Nelson Mandela in April 1990, making him a Freeman of Brent. 

In an attempt to ensure that ‘it was duly resolved’ to award the honour to Nelson Mandela, a second vote was taken, and this time the resolution was passed. However, in order to stop the Mayor and Council Leader (Labour’s Dorman Long) from going ahead with the presentation of the scroll and ceremonial casket (which had already been prepared, at a cost of £1,500), the Conservatives obtained a High Court injunction, on the grounds that the second vote was void. 

If anyone who was at that Special Council meeting would like to add a comment below, I would be interested to know what the reasons were for the preventing Brent’s award of the Freedom of the Borough to Nelson Mandela in 1990. 

It was not until June 2013, a few months before his death at the age of 95, that our Council unanimously resolved to confer the honour of Freeman of the London Borough of Brent on Nelson Mandela LINK . By that time it was clear to all, from Nelson Mandela’s words, actions and example, that this was a man worthy of the honour. Even though his time in our area was only a brief one, Brent’s links with his name and the anti-apartheid struggle, and the lessons to our community from all that he stood for, are strong.

Last year, on the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, Martin posted a blog calling for some lasting recognition in Wembley for the 70^th birthday concert at the Stadium, which ‘did an enormous amount to communicate the struggle against apartheid’. LINK 

With the Council gearing-up its plans to celebrate being London Borough of Culture in 2020, it is surely time to push for a permanent memorial to Nelson Mandela’s links with Wembley.

Philip Grant

Mandela's 100th birthday - time for Wembley to remember his 70th birthday concert

As the world celebrates Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday and contrasts his qualities with those of our present leaders, perhaps it is time for us to recognise the importance of the 1988 concert held at Wembley Stadium to mark his 70th birthday.

The concert watched by over 600 million people world-wide  did an enormous amount to communicate the struggle against apartheid. Quintain have mounted an exhibition of key events in the history of Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park along Olympic Way and elsewhere in their development, but the concert is not included.

The video above gives just a glimpse of the energy and enthusiasm of the occasion. It is time to correct this oversight which is part of our local history remembered by many.

55 years after Sharpville the struggle continues against racism and apartheid

Today was Stand Up to Racism Day in London, part of the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It is celebrated on March 21st because that is the day in 1960 when 69 people were killed by police who opened fire on an anti-pass laws demonstrators in Sharpville, South Africa.

Sharpville was an event that seared itself on my memory as it did many of my generation. LINK

It was fitting that in an event  founded on marking the crimes of South African apartheid that Friends of Al Aqsa LINK were in Trafalgar Square collecting messages calling for the end of the apartheid wall in Israel that separates Palestinians from each other and from Israel.

The public were asked to write a message on the wall which included the statement from Nelson Mandela: 'Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people'.

 It was the first major outing for the recently formed Green party BME group.

Rebecca Johnson, Green candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn Stands Up to Racism

 Although I marched with the Green Party is was good to see Brent Anti-Racism Campaign on the march with their much admired banner.