Windrush (1948) and Rivers of Blood (1968)

Legacy and Assessment

Trevor Harris, Trevor Harris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000709001
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia britannica

This volume looks at Britain since 1948 – the year when the Empire Windrush brought a group of 492 hopeful Caribbean immigrants to the United Kingdom. "Post-war Britain" may still be the most common label attached to studies in contemporary British history, but the contributors to this book believe that "post-Windrush Britain" has an explanatory power which is equally useful. The objective is to study the Windrush generation and Enoch Powell's now infamous speech not only in their original historical context but also as a key element in the political, social and cultural make-up of today's Britain. Contributions to the book use a diversity of approaches: from the lucid, forward-looking assessment by Trevor Phillips, which opens the volume; through Patrick Vernon's account of the legacy of Powell's speech in Birmingham and how it inspired him to launch a national campaign for Windrush Day; to the plea from novelist and playwright Chris Hannan for a fully inclusive, national conversation to help overturn deeply ingrained prejudice in all parts of our society.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• PART I Windrush and Powell: Context, reaction, testimony
• 1 2048: Europe one hundred years on from Windrush
• 2 The children of the Windrush generation: An oral history study
• 3 The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship and the Notting Hill riots of 1958
• 4 Many rivers to cross: The legacy of Enoch Powell in Wolverhampton
• 5 Enoch Powell, the Anglosphere and the roots of Brexit
• 6 Citizen backlash correspondence: Letters to Enoch Powell after “Rivers of Blood”
• PART II Caribbean legacies: Culture in Britain since Windrush
• 7 Producing a (cultural) identity: Nation and immigration in Stuart Hall’s writing
• 8 “There soon may not be any West Indian left who made the passage to England”: Caryl Phillips and the Windrush years
• 9 Letters and chronicles from the Windrush generation: Epistolary sorrow, epistolary joy
• 10 “Don’t Call Us Immigrants”: The musical and political legacy of reggae in Britain
• 11 Forever other? Black Britons on screen (1959–2016)
• 12 The Windrush generation in the picture: Armet Francis, Neil Kenlock, Dennis Morris and Charlie Phillips
• 13 Chris Hannan’s What Shadows: what drama? A conversation with the nation
• 14 Trevor Harris in conversation with Chris Hannan, author of What Shadows
• PART III Post-war British immigration policy in context: Two international comparisons
• 15 Framing and legitimising discriminatory immigration policies: A cross-channel survey (1948–1970)
• 16 The Empire Windrush migration in international context: Debates about race and colour of skin in British Canada, 1900s–1960s
• Index