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A history project with a musical twist London Against Racism is a new oral history project from Eastside Community Heritage, where people of all ages, colours and cultures talk about their experiences over several decades History Got a story to tell? If you have a tale about East End history, write to John Rennie or email him at johnrennie@gmail.com www.eastlondonhistory.com BY JOHN RENNIE THE date was April 30, 1978. The destination: Victoria Park in London’s East End. The event? A rock concert. Big deal. Vicky Park has seen a fair number of those in the years since. But this was different, this was a first. As 10,000 marched from the meeting point in Trafalgar Square, their numbers were being swelled as buses arrived from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and points all over Britain, disgorging their passengers into the park. Opening act X-Ray Spex began their set to an audience of just a few hundred fans. By the time The Clash hit the stage, there were 80,000 in the park. All had gathered under one banner – that of Rock Against Racism. All had come not just to enjoy the music but to take a stand against the rising levels of racism on the streets of Britain and, in particular in the East End. Once again, Victoria Park was earning its nickname of ‘the people’s park’. Bigotry never disappears, merely erupts anew with different faces. A fascinating new oral history website, London Against Racism, allows you to listen to the stories of East Enders, going back many decades. It’s grimly salutary to hear how the same stories come up generation after generation. But it’s also worth noting what has changed… and just how threatening the London of the Seventies could feel. In the 1974 general election, the National Front had polled 5,000 votes across the borough of Newham; by 1977, they were polling 100,000 votes in the GLC elections. At a confrontation between NF marchers and anti-fascists in that year, police used riot shields for the first time. More poignantly, young people were dying. In the weeks leading up to the concert, ten-year-old Kennith Singh was stabbed and beaten to death in Newham; Altab Ali, 24, was stabbed to death in Whitechapel. A local trade union reported that there had been 110 reported racist attacks during the autumn of 1977 in the East End alone, ‘an almost unrelenting and continuous battery of Asian people and their property’. Even pop music seemed to be going mad. In August 1976, Eric Clapton had taken the stage in Birmingham and voiced his support for Enoch Powell, who was the man to stop Britain becoming “a black colony”. The guitarist declared that “we should send them all back”. A month later, David Bowie told a journalist: “I believe very strongly in fascism. The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that’s hanging foul in the air... is a right-wing totally dictatorial tyranny...” The people’s park that has helped to shape history So the nascent Rock Against Racism made a lot of sense, stating that music was about bringing people together, not driving them apart. In 1977, the year of punk, East End GP David Widgery, writing in the RAR magazine Temporary Hoarding, penned what was effectively the infant movement’s manifesto: “We want Rebel music, street music, music that breaks down people’s fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music. Music that knows who the real enemy is. Rock Against Racism. Love Music Hate Racism.” And Victoria Park made a lot of sense too. East London’s sprawling Victorian rus in urbe had a big history of popular meetings. The ‘people’s park’ had never been just about the hoi polloi feeding the ducks or taking a spin on the boating lake. On June 12, 1848 the Chartists organised a ‘monster meeting’ in the park, to press their demands to democratise voting, demanding (among others) universal (male) suffrage and secret ballots. But this was the year of European revolutions – everywhere but Britain that is – and the authorities had already been spooked by a rally in Kennington Park that April. The meeting was declared illegal, and the Government’s response (1,600 bobbies, 500 ‘recalled’ police pensioners, 100 mounted police and the cavalry of the First Life Guards no less) suggested not so much policing but a preparation for battle. The revolution, the authorities apparently feared, was to start in Bow. Hansard, the record of Parliament, the following week records MPs speaking in dismay about the heavy-handed reaction to a peaceful, democratic rally. Ironically, a huge thunderstorm did the job of dispersing the few stalwarts who had ignored the Chartists’ decision to cancel – maybe revolutions don’t flourish in an English summer. And lest we get too misty-eyed, it’s worth remembering that the park was also a favoured rallying point for the British Union of Fascists. Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts were halted in what became the Battle of Cable Street on October 4, 1936,but were marching to a rally at Victoria Park. BUF meetings during the pre-war years regularly drew thousands enthusing to Mosley’s message of hate. But nothing was going to stop the joint efforts of Rock Against Racism and the Anti Nazi League (the Socialist Workers Party’s own anti-fascist organisation) to put on a massive show of defiance. Having built the stage, the organisers guarded it the night before the gig – there was a very real fear that members of the National Front and their cohorts would get on site and destroy the set-up. And so RAR, which had begun with a gig in the Princess Alice pub in east London at the tail end of 1976, saw its finest hour – X-Ray Spex, Patrick Fitzgerald, Tom Robinson, Steel Pulse and the Clash (augmented with more enthusiasm than virtuosity by Sham 69’s Jimmy Pursey). Three years later, RAR would disband after mounting its final festival, in Leeds. And things, if far from perfect, had changed. Neville Staple, of headliners The Specials, looked into the crowd and said: “It’s like a zebra crossing, black and white, black and white as far as you can see.” London Against Racism is a new oral history project from Eastside Community Heritage, where people of all ages, colours and cultures talk about their experiences over several decades. Find out more at londonagainstracism.wordpress.com (Main picture) Tom Robinson band peformed at the RAR concerts. (Above) Ray Spex were the opening act at the RAR concert in 1978 playing to hundreds of fans; (Right) David Hinds the lead singer of Steel Purse (Far right) Paul Simonon entertains the crowds 18 – 24 AUGUST 2014 N E W S F R O M TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL AND YOUR COMMUNITY 13


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