His visit was met with fierce criticism and derision, from those who insisted the ‘race problems’ in England, America and elsewhere were fundamentally different. Griffiths retorted that, “Smethwick rejects the idea of being a multi-racial society”. He went on to pedal segregationist policies, including advocating for children of Indian descent to be taught separately from white British children and housing segregation, until he lost his seat to the Labour candidate in the 1966 election. Yet, for the Community of Colour in Smethwick, Malcolm X’s visit had put their daily struggles and ongoing fight against British racism into the spotlight. Two weeks later in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, Malcolm X was shot dead by an individual associated with the NOI. His actions in the last few weeks of his life, spanned countries and continents, linking up Smethwick, an ordinary and unexceptional British town, with the likes of Harlem, one of the most famous Black communities in the US. Malcolm X’s visit to
Smethwick and the West Midlands, though brief, was of insurmountable importance in pushing back against the prevailing racist culture and highlighting the importance of solidarity and cooperation in the fight against racism in Britain. SOURCES • G. Abernathy, ‘“Not Just an American Problem”: Malcolm X in Britain’, Atlantic Studies, Vol.7, No.3, pp.285-307, (3 September 2010) • E. Buettner, ‘“This is Staffordshire not Alabama”: racial geographies of commonwealth immigration in early 1960s Britain’, The journal of imperial and Commonwealth history, vol.42, no.4, pp.710-740, (2014). • C. Goodwin, ‘If you want a n****r for your neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour’, New African, pp.40-42, (Oct., 2004). • D. Pitts, ‘Malcolm’s Journey to England to organise Blacks there’, New York Amsterdam News, Vol.84, No.2, p.32, (9 Jan, 1993). • J. Street, ‘Malcolm X, Smethwick and the Influence of the African American Freedom Struggle on British Race Relations in the 1960s’, Journal of Black Studies, Vol.38, No.6, pp.932-950, (Jul., 2008).
SECOND WORLD WAR SERVICE AND SACRIFICE HUBERT ‘BARON’ BAKER (1925-1996) Born in Jamaica in 1925, Baker came to Britain in 1944, aged 19. Baker joined the RAF as a policeman, lying saying he was 21, because of his eagerness to fight against Hitler.
Baker found ordinary Britons welcoming to those who were fighting with them, his first experience of racism was to be in a pub in Gloucester where American soldiers refused to drink alongside black customers. Baker, who thought of himself at British reacted angrily. His disgust at racism would lead him to heckle Oswald Mosley as he espoused fascism. Baker had joined the RAF to fight fascism and would continue to fight fascism and racism once the war was over. After being demobilised in 1948 he would fight against British government plans to repatriate Caribbean servicemen after the Second World War. After the Empire Windrush arrived in 1948, beginning the immigration to Britain of thousands of men and women from the Caribbean, many faced immediate
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discrimination in their attempts to find shelter and Baker persuaded the government to open Clapham South’s air raid shelter to provide temporary accommodation. On occasion Baker would stay in the shelter himself. Looking for a longer-term solution Baker and others sought to establish black communities in London. Baker would become known as the ‘man who discovered Brixton’ an area where people from the Caribbean were able to find jobs and homes. Baker would continue to fight against racism both politically and physically.
In race riots in 1958 Baker and his friends using their own military experience met hundreds of white rioters, ultimately chasing the rioters away. Baker would go on to found the United Africa-Asia League to fight discrimination and would make regular speeches against racism at Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner Baker lived the remainder of his life in Notting Hill; he died in 1996. His funeral was held in Kensal Green Cemetery; where he was remembered as a respected and important member of the community.
