Windrush75 The legacy of Windrush

Four community leaders speak on how we can honour the Windrush generation in the future. By Richard Sudan

WHAT DOES the legacy of Windrush mean for Britain today?

As we mark Windrush 75, experts and voices from our community offer their thoughts on how the Black community can make sure the struggles of the pioneers were not in vain.

In an increasingly hostile political landscape, honouring the foremothers and fathers is crucial to preserving the culture and traditions of the past.

The experts say Britain’s Black Caribbean communities must seek an economic foundation to become the bedrock of the very cultures and gains which our ancestors fought so hard for. It’s no longer simply about fighting for a seat at the table, following the old 20th century political model which we are attuned to.

It’s now about recognizing that we built the table, that there is no table without us, recognising our power in that regard, and moving forward collectively and accordingly.

It’s now about much more than simply becoming the change we want to see.

Because, we’ve already changed the world. We now need to cement our futures by protecting our culture, as much as celebrating it.

Mackayla Forde

ACADEMIC and poet Mackayla

Forde is a third generation Windrush descendant.

Forde’s grandmother arrived in the UK from Barbados in the late 1950s, and describes remembering Britain being cold and grey. Her mother and aunt at one point were the only Black students in their school in Sydenham.

Forde has a clear message about the best way to pay homage to our communities as we mark Windrush 75, and in the light of the Windrush scandal.

CLEAR

Amina Taylor

AMINA TAYLOR is a journalist and broadcaster. Her mother arrived in the UK in the 1960s, but then returned to Jamaica, where Amina was born in the 1970s before moving to the UK in the 1990s.

It’s an experience which has given her a unique perspective. Taylor is both the daughter of a Windrush era arrival, but is Jamaican born, and has lived in the UK through some of the country’s most tumultuous periods.

“At the moment being a Jamaican in Britain is a complicated affair,” she explains.

“It’s about the very complex relationship we share with the country which many still see as the ideal.

“Being Jamaican in Britain means you have a front seat to all of the politics, the social and political conversations – maybe more so

‘COMPLEX AFFAIR’: Journalist Amina Taylor than a Jamaican living in Jamaica. You get to be in the belly of the beast, to understand how it works.

“We have that history of colonisation. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why we had a Governor General. I didn’t understand that that was the Queen’s representative in my country.

“Britain is often still seen as the ‘motherland’. But it’s the kind of mother land which still sees you as an errant step-child.

“You’re not really welcome, but you stay out of some strange sense of responsibility and there’s an umbilical cord that we still haven’t cut. Whether or not Britain accepts us as that, Jamaicans to a large extent still feel that connection. But Britain has shown us that it’s kind of one-way traffic.”

PAUL OBINNA is an historian, born in Preston in the late 1950s, and is of Nigerian Igbo and British heritage. Obinna is not a Windrush descendant, but is an expert on the dynamics of race and race relations in Britain.

“Black people from the Windrush generation? There is no nursing without them,” he told The Voice “The transport infrastructure falls down flat without their work. There’s been contributions made left right and centre to this society.

“But you just became part of the norm, you’re absorbed into the norm of society, and now you’re an oversight unless you’ve done something wrong.”

Obinna added that the future survival of Windrush communities and safeguarding the Windrush legacy, depends on communities investing in themselves and focusing less on assimilation.

“The African-Caribbean community is the only one that’s actually reducing in presence. The reason is that most people in the community, the first thing they want to do, is get out of that community and integrate into another community.

“In the sense of that, what it means is that down the line there will be no African Caribbean community. The effect of that is that you don’t exist anymore, you’re absorbed into the white society.”

“They could honour the Windrush generation by giving all black families, their children, and their children’s children, uninterrupted and unconditional access to learning and higher education.”

Maxie Hayles MBE

MAXIE HAYLES MBE arrived from Jamaica to the UK as a 16-year-old boy in 1960, following his father and step-mother who’d arrived in 1955.

Hayles first worked in a factory in Birmingham, experiencing hardship in the early days, which would compel him to spend years on the frontlines fighting racial injustice.

There wasn’t enough room for the young Hayles to stay with his father and step-mother when he first arrived in the country, and so a room was rented for him in tough conditions.

It was not until the Race Relations Act in 1968 that refusing lodging to individuals on the basis of skin colour became illegal.

FOCUS: Human rights activist Maxie Hayles MBE

“People my age used to go around in groups for safety, because the Teddy Boys were out, and if you had any argument with them they would soon want to fight you. Carrying knives is not new. We had to carry knives to protect ourselves – by any means necessary – because the police would not protect us.”

Hayles says he was once stopped six times by police in one evening alone. He’s adamant that ongoing injustices still felt by the Windrush community must give new energy and renewed focus on challenging racial profiling, and continue the strong legacy and proud traditions grounded in the battles fought by the first Caribbean arrivals.