Containing Racism? The London Experience, 1957–1968

Abstract

“What sort of people are they in Little Rock, Arkansas,” asked the South London Press (SLP) as the crisis at Little Rock unfolded in September 1957, “who look upon Negroes as sub-human—second-class members of the human race who mustn’t mix with the white herrenvolk?”¹ The question was not entirely condescending; the editorial was prompted not just by events in Arkansas but also by a letter published in the paper three weeks earlier, whose author fears that

Every month thousands of immigrants pour into London. Here in Brixton one can see West Indians, Irish, Poles, Cypriots, Maltese, Italians and Pakistanis. I must admit that I have not yet seen an Eskimo but no doubt there are one or two wandering around. Meanwhile the native cockney is slowly but surely disappearing.²

I am grateful to Rosie Wild, Jed Fazakarley, and Joana Duyster Borredà for comments and suggestions, to Queen Mary University of London Archives for permission to quote from the Donald Chesworth papers and to Rachael Takens-Milne and the Trust for London for access to the City Parochial Foundation minutes.