Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

These individuals came to the Youth Movement through different strands and their
words recounts the different approaches to the events in June 76, perhaps showing that
there is never one coherent voice in our communiites at any given moment.
In August 1976, we also saw the start of the Grunwick strike. In 1976, led by Jayaben Desai,
a group of mainly Asian workers walked out in protest against low pay and poor treatment
by managers at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratory in Willesden. They staged a
strike against their poor working conditions, demanding the right to join a union. Less than
two years later, those six had been joined by 20,000 supporters in an historic dispute fighting
for better rights for poorly treated workers. Predominantly Asian women, these strikers
shattered stereotypes, challenged the establishment, brought a community together to
support the rights of workers and changed the face of trade unionism. Here we recount
the strike through the words of Laxmiben Patel, who was interviewed by Harsha Ahyave,
her daughter. This is followed with the thoughts of Gautam Appa, who supported the strike
through his role at the Indian Workers Association (IWA GB). The IWA (GB) had, by then,
spent almost a decade supporting asian workers through industrial disputes, and some of
these previous disputes are listed in the endnotes.
During the summer heatwave of 1976, England started the series of cricket games
against the West Indies, in confident mood, with their captain Tony Grieg, arrogantly proclaiming
before TV cameras that England would make West Indies “grovel”. These comments
along with the racist coverage of the series, left the West Indians, players and fans
alike so fired up, that by the end of the test series it was the England team that was on its
knees. In 2010 the story was made into a documentary, ‘Fire in Babylon’. The documentary
describes how the West Indians earned the respect, admiration, and love of cricket fans and
even opposing teams from across the world. It was against this background that we witnessed
increased racial tensions due largely in part to the police’s ‘stop and search’ policy.
Three thousand police officers – 10 times the usual number – were assigned to the Notting
Hill Carnival in 1976. According to police reports, on August 30, the last day of the festivities,
officers attempted to arrest a pickpocket near Portobello Road. A number of carnival-goers
– both black and white – came to the pickpocket’s aid and within minutes, this incident escalated
into violence. Those caught up in the riots included Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon,
who later went on to form the band The Clash. The events of August 30 inspired their 1977
song White Riot. In this section we have reproduced the words of Cecil Gutzmore, former
worker at the Notting Hill Advice and Information centre, recounting the story of the Carnival,
and the changes which came about during 1976, and its lasting legacy.
Lastly, we reproduce the words of film-maker, Gurinder Chadha, who attended one
fo the first Rock against Racism concerts.Rock Against Racism (RAR) was a campaign set
up September 1976 as a response to an increase in racial conflict and the growth of white
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