IT IS Easter Friday. The train from Paddington is over-crowded. With difficulty I locate a seat and find myself sitting opposite Record, a well-known Jamaican playwright. He grins at me.
'Why do you think they burnt down Lloyds Bank?', he asks.
I don't know.
perhaps...' 'If you'ré right brother, then it's the most encouraging thing to have happened so far.
And here. Record's chuckles are suddenly transformed into a loud, infectious laugh, appears that I'm the only person to be infected thus. Others pretend they have not heard - an amazing feat given Record's loud voice - and stare out of the window.
At Bristol station local supporters of Socialist Challenge meet me and drive to St. Paul's. The past is clearly visible: old Georgian charming square, state of decay and inhabited largely by immigrants.
Hungarians after the war, West Indians in the Fifties and Asians in the decade that followed. Those who built these houses have been dead for a long time. Their heirs have abandoned the inner-city and live elsewhere in suburban Coller.
Who were the prosperous chants whose wealth was displayed with such grandeur two and a half centuries ago? Bristol, readers will recall, was the first slave port in Britain. Slaves were bought and sold and then transported Lne West Indies. dilapidated mansions now house the descendants of those very slaves who were forcibly uprooted from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
There is a certain irony in this fact.
The bank is for moneyman. The majority of us are unemployed. We are the dole. The represents the Thatcher government. burnt it down...
The chickens, as the late Malcom X used to say, have come home to roost. In this overcrowded district of Bristol one can observe the partitioned houses which acconfores labour from the colonies three decades Here have the colonial plunder in a nutshell.
But St. Paul's is almost a colony within a colony. The early immigrants have moved to better areas. St. Paul's houses. those who are capitalist society and who have rejected it in turn. Most of them are young; they that they no Unemployment amongst black school Socialist Challenge 10 April 1980 Dy Barry symbol Shattuck, "The dreadlocks in St.
staccato though story supportels, community straightforward.
houses; but in an advanced Poles and Grosvenor Road.
allowed to serve drinks.
Knows Marijuana (or grass, herb, and order merThese outside.
the tew hundred black bank savouring the sun.
Margaret fractures a cafe window.
with her son, tells us:
in the club.
the influx of history of used.' the most provocative. rejected by enough, future. and. barricade leavers is somewhere between 60 and 70 La strange coincidence I had debated in Bristol last year the Labour Shadow Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, and the Assistant Chief Constable for Bristol and Avon, a Mr Shattuck. The subject: "The Police are instrumental in the oppression of minority groups.' in particular, had made great play of the fact that Bristol was a 'model' of good police-black relations.
Paul's won't agree with a word you're saying', he had told me. The national press has taken up the same tune. Small wonder then that what has happened here is regarded by the Tories as irrational, illogical and utterly incomprehensible So what did happen on 2 April? The which we have pieced together with the aid of local Socialist Challenge black youths workers SCCHIN fairly 2.30pm: The Black & White cafè lies It is no longer The police have revoked its license. And yet everythat drinks are served. the weed, ganja) is openly smoked. Two plainclothes policemen enter the cafe tea. They are instantly recognised. Rumours have been circulating that the police are about and Bertram Wilkes, the cafe owner, is not surprised. It's obviously the routine Easter raid. He thinks it will be over 3 pm. Police cars and a van pull up Uniformed policemen jump out, are joined by others who have been waiting around a corner and burst into the cafe. Police cordon off both sides of the Grosvenor Road, but by this time youth have already assembled outside the cafe. It is the first real Spring day and people are A police truncheon A black woman resident from the Brunel estate who was walking home 'Vans and cars carrying uniformed and plainclothes police arrived. They jumped out and started attacking those Within minutes there must have been hundreds of police with dogs and truncheons. By this time hundreds of young people started throwing anything they could find. The police began to attack them and I saw dogs being All agree that the use of dogs was 'Pigs are man, a youth told me, 'But why did they have to bring in the dogs?' A battle ensues outside the Black and White cafe and the police rush inside themselves in. The number of black youths outside the cafe grows rapidly.
3.30pm: A police car is overturned and set on fire. Police reinforcements arrive, but more and more people are now coming out on the streets and the police discover that they are not confronting a "troublesome minority', but the community as a whole.
3.30pm-5.30pm: Sporadic fighting continues. There are a number of lulls during which both sides regroup to prepare for the next round. The most amazing, though clearly provocation takes place during period as the police attempt to retrieve their burnt out car; it is surrounded by dozens of policemen who use dustbins as shields and attempt to escort the car which is being lifted by a pick-up truck and driven away. Some of them shout abuse at the blacks. They are greeted by a new charge and are forced to retreat.
6pm-7.30pm: By youths have realised that they have the upper hand. The police are utterly demoralised, have no clear strategy, no LLOYDS BANK JIMNED it...
aims.
unthought, this police cars are set on fire. the police police withdraw.
Asian however, this time the owner, Manzoor, ( when I talk to him. blame? 'The police, Brian Weigh, is not as experienced or The pub skilled as David McNee or David Helm (the "Butcher of Southall'). Some more thought was routine raid has exploded in their face. As the shops begin to be smashed the police chief sounds the retreat and the The shops that are antagonisit attacked are predominantly white. A white youth throws a stone at an Asian food store, but a group of black youths firmly, but fraternally, dissuade him.
supermarket to rotting. attacked and looted. The is extremely Who does he of course First At (West Indian owned) untouched as was the record shop youth explained: 'You don't shit your own doorstep, man!' But why were the shops loo Because the resentment against racism which exists in society as aw came out. While there is virtually towards whites streets, the white shop-keeper is ser some youths as an oppressor: blacks go in and ask for banana make sure its the bunch which is d When they hand us bas change they slap it on to our ha They never count it, as if to imply we can't count.
7.30pm Chief Cons
prejudiced. police to treat us normally. They treat
----- pull-quotes -----
'We feel great. We feel confident. It was a victory and we were worthy of that victory. Yes, worthy of The Bristol Chief Constable,
they come and provoke the youths and gives the order to withdraw. Hea then they can't defend our prope