Notting Hill Carnival Strategic Review - Intelligent Space

surgery of another Trinidadian, Dr (later Lord) David Pitt, to organise approaches to the
Government. But the murder ignited what had already been a smouldering powder keg of black
community discontent and resistance to the poor conditions, treatment and harassment that
they were experiencing. The ensuing Notting Hill race riots 24 , which erupted in late August 25 of
that same year, sent shockwaves throughout the country. Although at the time, an official
police report claimed that the national press had been wrong to portray the street disturbances
as ‘racial riots’ 26 , internal police witness statements confirm that the disturbances were
overwhelmingly caused by a mob of 400-strong ‘Keep Britain White’ Teddy boys who, armed
with iron bars, butcher’s knives and weighted leather belts, roamed the streets of Notting Hill,
breaking into homes and attacking anyone that they could find 27 . The battles raged over the
bank holiday weekend as members of the black community responded by arming themselves and
organising counterattacks. The disturbances continued night after night until they finally
petered out on September 5, 1958.
1.19 The riots had a significant impact on the black community. In the aftermath, nine white youths
were convicted and received sentences of four years each. While those dealt with by the courts
were overwhelmingly white, a large number of black people were also arrested. Official
insistence that the riots had not been racially motivated ‘ensured a legacy of black mistrust’ 28 of
the police that was to resurface in later years. The riots also demonstrated ability of the black
community in Notting Hill to self-organise and, for the first time, defend themselves against
racist attacks. With a heightened sense of unity, purpose and determination, the community was
now unwilling to accept or succumb to the prospect of a life of perpetual oppression and so
emerged a political, social and cultural grassroots organising strategy, designed to achieve
greater equality and social change.
1.20 A number of cultural and social commentators have observed that this politicisation of the black
community had been germinating for some time 29 . After the 1958 riots, organisations such as
the Coordinating Committee Against Racial Discrimination, the Conference of Afro-Asian-
Caribbean Organisations, the Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the Inter-
Racial Friendship Coordinating Committee were established to harness and channel the renewed
energies of the black community into an anti-racist resistance movement where the primary
focus was one of promoting black self-reliance. Excluded by white mainstream institutions,
black communities established their own cultural and political associations, welfare organisations,
churches and fellowships. These networks and groupings provided a much-needed source of
strength, support and social interaction for the community, enabling them to not only “bypass
the existing but un-proclaimed colour bar in white-controlled centres and pubs, but also [give]
black culture the spaces to flourish in a hostile environment” 30 .
24
Riots also broke out in Nottingham and Middlesborough.
25
It is popularly believed that the riots began on the night of Saturday 20 August 1958.
26
In his official report, Detective Sergeant M. Walters of the Notting Hill police stated that “whereas there certainly was some ill feeling
between white and coloured residents in this area, it is abundantly clear much of the trouble was caused by ruffians, both coloured and
white, who seized on this opportunity to indulge in hooliganism.”
27
‘Racial riots in Notting Hill between 31 August and 03 September 1958: Witness statements and police reports’, Records of the
Metropolitan Police Office, National Archives (MEPO 2/9838).
28
‘After 44 years secret papers reveal truth about five nights of violence in Notting Hill’, Alan Travis, The Guardian Newspaper, Saturday
24 August 2002.
29
It was clearly evidenced in a meeting of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester. Prominent African, Caribbean and African-
American thinkers, activists and leaders of the day attended this historic event: Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana; Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya;
George Padmore; Ras Makonnen and W.E.B Dubois.
30
Kwesi Owusu, “The Struggle for Black Arts in Britain: What Can We Consider Better Than Freedom”, p33, Comedia Publishing Group
(1986)
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