The Day I Called Malcolm X to Fight Racism in Birmingham's White Only Establishments
14 February 2015
London Mirror
By Laura Connor
This week marks 50 years since the legendary Malcolm X helped fight oppression in the UK
ne of the most influential and powerful civil rights activists in African American history.
A hard man so incensed by racism in his own country he famously said it must be defeated “by any means necessary” – including violence.
But when Malcolm X experienced the racism pulsing through a small British town 50 years ago, even he was shocked to the core.
He came to Smethwick in the West Midlands after hearing of plans to stop black and Asian residents buying houses. Malcolm X had spent years battling the worst examples of racism in the US. But Smethwick proved an eye-opener.
Its MP Tory Peter Griffiths, now dead, had won his seat a year earlier with the appalling campaign slogan: ‘If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour’.
MirrorpixMalcolm XMidlands visit: Malcolm X in Smethwick
There were colours bars in clubs. Locals had successfully petitioned the council to buy up empty homes in a street and ban non-white families from moving in.
As Malcolm X walked down that very road, Marshall Street, on February 12 in 1965 he was jeered by white residents who told him they didn’t want ‘any more black people’ living there.
And in a pub down the road he was ejected from the smoking room because he was black.
Nine days after his trip to Smethwick, Malcolm X was assassinated in hail of bullets in a New York ballroom aged just 39. And last week, the man who helped organise his visit to the UK relived his memories of the day he met Malcolm X on Marshall Street.
Avtar Singh Jouhl was general secretary of the Indian Workers’ Association. Now 77, he was then one of the region’s strongest voices over anti-racism. “As we walked down the street they were shouting, ‘We don’t want any more black people here’ and ‘What is your business here?’. But Malcolm didn’t make any response to any racism. He kept his calm.
“There was no shouting match. He just calmly walked down the street.”
As white residents jeered Malcolm X, Avtar remembers the few Asian people living in the area cheering him on. Speaking from his home in Birmingham, retired lecturer Avtar says the abuse of the civil rights activist never stopped throughout his visit.
“We went to the Blue Gate Pub,” says the dad-of-two. “It was notorious in those days for racism. Black people were only served in the bar room and weren’t allowed in the lounge or smoke room.
“Indian and Asian people were only served out of glasses with a handle. The plain glasses were for white people only. It was to create that distinction.
“We went into the smoke room. There was a white barmaid who knew me because I had been in there many times before and she said to me, ‘You know we don’t serve black people here’.
“I didn’t make any response. I just wanted to show Malcolm what it was like. The landlady said, ‘If you want a drink, go round the bar’. And Malcolm said, ‘Let’s go round the bar’. He didn’t get upset but he was surprised. He had a brown ale and tasted it and said it was very nice.” Outwardly Malcolm X maintained a calm demeanour, but inside he was disgusted.
This wasn’t Birmingham, Alabama, the scene of a sickening race riot in 1963. This was a town next to Birmingham in Great Britain. But he believed the racism was as bad as the worst he had seen in America.
He even compared the plight of black and Asian people in Smethwick to victims of the Nazis, saying they were “being treated as Jews were under Hitler”.
And he chillingly warned: “I would not wait for the fascist elements in Smethwick to erect gas ovens.”
As far as Avtar is concerned, Malcolm X’s fears weren’t far off the mark.
He recalls: “I tried to have my hair cut once and the barber told me, ‘No, no, no, no. I don’t cut your people’s hair. We don’t cut coloured people’s hair’. That was the sort of situation we were living in. It made me feel sick.” For widower Avtar and hundreds of other immigrants who moved to the West Midlands in the 1950s and 60s, racism was the norm.
“We were subjected to physical attacks,” he recalls. “Me and my brother were out drinking on the high street one night and, as we were walking home, we got set on by a group of young white youths. They were saying: ‘Blacks go home’.”
Avtar, who volunteers at a community centre, says his attackers were convicted for the assault. But racism and race hate weren’t crimes in those days – one of the many things Malcolm X helped to change.
Hardev Singh Mund, 75, a committee member at the famous Guru Nanak Gurdwara temple, says: “Indian people here were not allowed to buy houses in Smethwick. When we did find places to live the conditions were appalling and Peter Griffiths tried to ensure none of us could find homes.”
Another committee member who grew up in the area during Malcolm X’s visit was forced to cut his hair, take off his turban and shave his beard in order to get a job. Yarnail Singh, 79, says: “We had no powers to change that.”
But after the charismatic militant’s visit, Avtar and others in his community noticed things changing for the better. “Racism was talked about in the 1964 election but then it didn’t have international dimensions,” he says. “Malcolm’s visit put racism in Britain on the international map.
“It was a shot in the arm for the anti-racism movement which gained more solidarity. The visit spawned messages from international movements and it raised awareness for the anti-racism movements. After he visited, things started changing.” One of those first changes came just a year later with the Race Relations Act – the first piece of legislation in the UK to address racial discrimination.
Half a century on, Malcolm X would barely recognise the Smethwick which exists today. Proudly multi-cultural, it boasts the first and largest Sikh temple in all of Europe. Its notorious ‘colour bars’ are long gone.
One pub that banned black people, the Ivy Bush on Marshall Street, now has a Sikh landlord. Lakhbir Singh Gill, 53, has owned it for 21 years. He says: “There have been an awful lot of changes. There were a lot of race fights here back in the day.
“There were a lot of colour bars and there was one here. The landlord in the 60s and 70s would tell Asians, ‘You aren’t customers, you can’t come here’. It was really rough when I was 18. When I went out drinking people used to say, ‘who is this brown chap coming in this pub?’.
“I was the only Asian. You had to be really tough. I was tough, but some people found it more difficult.”
One of the men who wasn’t allowed to drink in the pub was Harbhajan Dardi, 67, who now lives just a few doors down from The Ivy Bush.
“I used to get called a ‘P**i” and a ‘f***ing Indian dog’. It is very difficult to reply to that,” he says. “It makes you feel like you don’t have any value, like there is something wrong with us. It has a very negative impact on people’s lives. It was very, very hurtful. But we were helpless.”
For him, there has been a huge shift 50 years on from Malcolm X’s visit. And now in his street there is a blue plaque commemorating Malcolm X’s visit.
“For us, it was marvellous,” he says. “It was a historical day for him to visit that street. It changed things because it was in the media. It made people very much aware, to sit up and listen.
“It gave people the courage to stand up against racism and that’s something that will be remembered forever.”
14 February 2015
London Mirror
By Laura Connor
This week marks 50 years since the legendary Malcolm X helped fight oppression in the UK
ne of the most influential and powerful civil rights activists in African American history.
A hard man so incensed by racism in his own country he famously said it must be defeated “by any means necessary” – including violence.
But when Malcolm X experienced the racism pulsing through a small British town 50 years ago, even he was shocked to the core.
He came to Smethwick in the West Midlands after hearing of plans to stop black and Asian residents buying houses. Malcolm X had spent years battling the worst examples of racism in the US. But Smethwick proved an eye-opener.
Its MP Tory Peter Griffiths, now dead, had won his seat a year earlier with the appalling campaign slogan: ‘If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour’.
MirrorpixMalcolm XMidlands visit: Malcolm X in Smethwick
There were colours bars in clubs. Locals had successfully petitioned the council to buy up empty homes in a street and ban non-white families from moving in.
As Malcolm X walked down that very road, Marshall Street, on February 12 in 1965 he was jeered by white residents who told him they didn’t want ‘any more black people’ living there.
And in a pub down the road he was ejected from the smoking room because he was black.
Nine days after his trip to Smethwick, Malcolm X was assassinated in hail of bullets in a New York ballroom aged just 39. And last week, the man who helped organise his visit to the UK relived his memories of the day he met Malcolm X on Marshall Street.
Avtar Singh Jouhl was general secretary of the Indian Workers’ Association. Now 77, he was then one of the region’s strongest voices over anti-racism. “As we walked down the street they were shouting, ‘We don’t want any more black people here’ and ‘What is your business here?’. But Malcolm didn’t make any response to any racism. He kept his calm.
“There was no shouting match. He just calmly walked down the street.”
As white residents jeered Malcolm X, Avtar remembers the few Asian people living in the area cheering him on. Speaking from his home in Birmingham, retired lecturer Avtar says the abuse of the civil rights activist never stopped throughout his visit.
“We went to the Blue Gate Pub,” says the dad-of-two. “It was notorious in those days for racism. Black people were only served in the bar room and weren’t allowed in the lounge or smoke room.
“Indian and Asian people were only served out of glasses with a handle. The plain glasses were for white people only. It was to create that distinction.
“We went into the smoke room. There was a white barmaid who knew me because I had been in there many times before and she said to me, ‘You know we don’t serve black people here’.
“I didn’t make any response. I just wanted to show Malcolm what it was like. The landlady said, ‘If you want a drink, go round the bar’. And Malcolm said, ‘Let’s go round the bar’. He didn’t get upset but he was surprised. He had a brown ale and tasted it and said it was very nice.” Outwardly Malcolm X maintained a calm demeanour, but inside he was disgusted.
This wasn’t Birmingham, Alabama, the scene of a sickening race riot in 1963. This was a town next to Birmingham in Great Britain. But he believed the racism was as bad as the worst he had seen in America.
He even compared the plight of black and Asian people in Smethwick to victims of the Nazis, saying they were “being treated as Jews were under Hitler”.
And he chillingly warned: “I would not wait for the fascist elements in Smethwick to erect gas ovens.”
As far as Avtar is concerned, Malcolm X’s fears weren’t far off the mark.
He recalls: “I tried to have my hair cut once and the barber told me, ‘No, no, no, no. I don’t cut your people’s hair. We don’t cut coloured people’s hair’. That was the sort of situation we were living in. It made me feel sick.” For widower Avtar and hundreds of other immigrants who moved to the West Midlands in the 1950s and 60s, racism was the norm.
“We were subjected to physical attacks,” he recalls. “Me and my brother were out drinking on the high street one night and, as we were walking home, we got set on by a group of young white youths. They were saying: ‘Blacks go home’.”
Avtar, who volunteers at a community centre, says his attackers were convicted for the assault. But racism and race hate weren’t crimes in those days – one of the many things Malcolm X helped to change.
Hardev Singh Mund, 75, a committee member at the famous Guru Nanak Gurdwara temple, says: “Indian people here were not allowed to buy houses in Smethwick. When we did find places to live the conditions were appalling and Peter Griffiths tried to ensure none of us could find homes.”
Another committee member who grew up in the area during Malcolm X’s visit was forced to cut his hair, take off his turban and shave his beard in order to get a job. Yarnail Singh, 79, says: “We had no powers to change that.”
But after the charismatic militant’s visit, Avtar and others in his community noticed things changing for the better. “Racism was talked about in the 1964 election but then it didn’t have international dimensions,” he says. “Malcolm’s visit put racism in Britain on the international map.
“It was a shot in the arm for the anti-racism movement which gained more solidarity. The visit spawned messages from international movements and it raised awareness for the anti-racism movements. After he visited, things started changing.” One of those first changes came just a year later with the Race Relations Act – the first piece of legislation in the UK to address racial discrimination.
Half a century on, Malcolm X would barely recognise the Smethwick which exists today. Proudly multi-cultural, it boasts the first and largest Sikh temple in all of Europe. Its notorious ‘colour bars’ are long gone.
One pub that banned black people, the Ivy Bush on Marshall Street, now has a Sikh landlord. Lakhbir Singh Gill, 53, has owned it for 21 years. He says: “There have been an awful lot of changes. There were a lot of race fights here back in the day.
“There were a lot of colour bars and there was one here. The landlord in the 60s and 70s would tell Asians, ‘You aren’t customers, you can’t come here’. It was really rough when I was 18. When I went out drinking people used to say, ‘who is this brown chap coming in this pub?’.
“I was the only Asian. You had to be really tough. I was tough, but some people found it more difficult.”
One of the men who wasn’t allowed to drink in the pub was Harbhajan Dardi, 67, who now lives just a few doors down from The Ivy Bush.
“I used to get called a ‘P**i” and a ‘f***ing Indian dog’. It is very difficult to reply to that,” he says. “It makes you feel like you don’t have any value, like there is something wrong with us. It has a very negative impact on people’s lives. It was very, very hurtful. But we were helpless.”
For him, there has been a huge shift 50 years on from Malcolm X’s visit. And now in his street there is a blue plaque commemorating Malcolm X’s visit.
“For us, it was marvellous,” he says. “It was a historical day for him to visit that street. It changed things because it was in the media. It made people very much aware, to sit up and listen.
“It gave people the courage to stand up against racism and that’s something that will be remembered forever.”
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