Dr Paul Stephenson: A British Civil Rights Pioneer
Dr Paul Stephenson is a name I first discovered by pure chance whilst completing a couple of weeks of work experience last April. I remember reading a short biography of his life on the Pride of Britain website and feeling, first, in awe but quickly after shocked and a little angered that this was the first time I’d come across him – and I’d only done so by stumbling upon him myself. I did a little more reading, wrote up my short summary of why I thought he deserved a 15-minute interview for a segment on a Japanese TV news network and that was that. As I say, this was in April 2020. A month later, on 25 May 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, after Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. The murder sparked outrage around the world. It also brought the spotlight on to other murders of black Americans at the hands of American police officers. For weeks, protests continued on the streets of America. It didn’t take long for those protests to spread around the globe.
In Britain, tens of thousands took the streets to demand a change in attitude towards racial minorities from the police and other institutions, and it’s fair to say public opinion was broadly supportive of these protests. But a significant minority were not. For some the opposition was based on their overtly racist opinions, of which they made little, if any, attempt to disguise. Others opposed the protests on the grounds that ‘it was America’s problem not ours’ or ‘yeah, the odd act of racism occurs here, but it’s nowhere near as bad as in America so stop making such a fuss about it’ or ‘Britain is one of the best places for ethnic minorities, just look at our history’. For this second wing of opposition to the protests I have a little sympathy, and I would still have time for because, especially if your skin colour is the same as mine (I mean white in general, not those just as pale as I am), you’ve not experienced the discrimination that many ethnic minority groups in Britain have done. So when a) you don’t experience racism on the day to day, b) your education on the slave trade taught you that it was Britons that first abolished the slave trade (without going into detail at just how integral Britain was in its establishment, the fact that its blatant immorality had less of a role in its abolishment than is assumed, and that until 2015 the ancestors of slave traders were being paid reparations for the loss of income by taxpayers, whilst the ancestors of the slaves who were stolen from their homes have not received a penny) and c) your education on civil rights focused entirely on the movement in the USA and the racism African-Americans and other ethnic minorities had to fight against, all the while the struggle for civil rights in Britain is side-lined, it’s entirely conceivable for someone to reach the conclusion that things are perfectly fine here for minorities. But that is not the truth. And when your parameters for arguing whether or not things are good for ethnic minorities includes murder at the hands of the police, you have lost touch with reality. There should be no debate there.
Sure, progress has been made, but it is often only made after tragedy or a moment of steadfast defiance against heavy backlash from those in power. The best way to stop change coming only after a family has to endure heartache is to embrace education on the issue. Education is the key. I could go into so much more detail on this issue by wading in on the statue debate, but by entertaining that debate in the summer, the focus was lost on why the protests started in the first place. So I won’t touch that today. The same can be said for the Churchill debate (of which I believe both sides of the extremes in this particular argument have gaping flaws. Maybe I’ll write a blog on that one day, but I doubt it’ll be very popular!) Instead, I’ll just link The Black Curriculum, who are doing exactly what needs to be done.
The protests in the summer worked. It took a lot of noise, but Derek Chauvin was eventually charged and is on trial as I write. Of course, the purpose of the protests was not just to put Derek Chauvin on trial. The primary mission was to invoke systemic change. That is yet to occur. If genuine change is going to occur, then people need to know the history behind the civil rights movements, abroad but also here in Britain. In understanding that history, we can then measure what progress has been made and see what still needs to be achieved. To that end, I thought I’d share Dr Stephenson’s story.
Dr Paul Stephenson was born in Rochford, Essex to an English mother and West African father on 6 May 1937. At the age of three, and during Britain’s darkest days of the second world war, he was evacuated to a care home in the more rural Great Dunmow, Essex where he stayed for seven years. At sixteen he joined the Royal Air Force. He would serve with the RAF for seven years, leaving in 1960. In 1962 he moved to Bristol, working as a community development officer, and by doing so he became Bristol’s first black social worker. In this role he built relationships with many of the West Indians who arrived as part of the Windrush generation. These relationships would become vital for the success of the bus boycott he would lead the following year.
In January 1955, the Bristol Omnibus Company passed a resolution banning black and ethnic minority workers from employment on the buses in any capacity. This resolution which was passed by the votes of the local branch of the Transport and General Workers Union (the union that all staff members of the Bristol Omnibus Company were a part of) and went largely under the radar until 1961. That year, the Bristol Evening Post exposed the ban, which became known as the ‘colour bar’. When the bar became public knowledge, Bristol Omnibus’ General Manager Ian Patey defended the company’s racist policy and claimed the decision was backed by the local council. It was through these articles Stephenson became aware of the colour bar.
The West Indian Development Council (WIDC) was initially founded by four Jamaican men who were frustrated at the slow progress in the battle against racial discrimination: Owen Henry, Roy Hackett, Prince Brown & Audley Evans. They soon joined forces with Dr Paul Stephenson, who would become the group’s spokesman. In order to bring the colour bar to wider public attention, Stephenson decided irrefutable evidence of the bar was needed to produce a reaction suitable enough for change. So, he put forward a young Jamaican man, Guy Bailey, for a bus conductor vacancy. As part of his duties as Development Officer, Stephenson taught night classes to young people and Bailey was one of his students. Well spoken, educated and a regular churchgoer, there was nothing in Bailey’s character that Stephenson believed should have stopped him getting the job, and yet, unlike Bailey himself who was going to the interview expecting to be given a fair shot, Stephenson knew he would not get it. Once the receptionist for the bus company realised he was a black Jamaican, Bailey was refused an interview. After some protestation on Bailey’s part, the manager told him there was no point in the interview, because ‘we don’t employ black people.’ Bailey returned to Stephenson downbeat; unaware he had just lit the fuse for a boycott that would become a watershed moment for the British civil rights movement.
Stephenson had been watching the rise of the civil rights movement in the US closely, and drew inspiration from the efforts of people such as Martin Luther King Jr. Another American who inspired Stephenson greatly was a woman who instigated the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama. Rosa Parks. A name which is probably more familiar to you than Dr Paul Stephenson, such is the way the issue of civil rights is taught in Britain. Describing her refusal to sit in the seats reserved for black people as a ‘defiant struggle’, Stephenson felt compelled to take on a struggle of his own. After Bailey was refused an interview, a press conference was called by the WIDC at which local media outlets were in attendance. In it, Stephenson called for an immediate boycott of the Bristol Omnibus company until the colour bar was revoked. Stephenson later recalled that the powers that be at Bristol Omnibus encouraged the WIDC to go ahead with the boycott, so confident were they that it would not lead to any change. But that confidence was short lived. The boycott was fully embraced by the West Indian community in Bristol, and it gained support from students and some of the local white community too. Marches were organised in support of the boycott and to maintain media interest and keep the motivations for it firmly in the spotlight, Stephenson gave a number of press conferences during the boycott period. As a result, the boycott gained regional, then national and then international press coverage. Stephenson invited the High Commissioners of the newly independent nations of Jamaica and Trinidad to Bristol to show their support for the boycott. The Trinidadian High Commissioner Sir Learie Constantine (who in his younger years was a West Indian cricketer and the first man to take a test wicket for the West Indies) was forced out of his position by Trinidad’s Prime Minister Eric Williams due to his active involvement in supporting the boycott.
To invoke systemic change in Britain however, Stephenson needed the vocal support of British political figures. He got that first in the form of Tony Benn, Labour MP for Bristol South East and then shortly after from Leader of the Opposition and Labour Party leader, Harold Wilson. Wilson told Stephenson that should he become Prime Minister, he would introduce laws against racial discrimination.
28 August 1963 was a hugely symbolic day in the history of civil rights. It was the day Martin Luther King Jr took to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his ‘I have a dream’ masterpiece. The 28 August was also the day Ian Patey announced the end of the colour bar, likely under threat of the sack by Sir Phillip Walter, the chairman of Bristol Omnibus’ parent company. Stephenson and the WIDC had won. In 1964 Harold Wilson became Prime Minister. Before he could come good on his earlier promise to Stephenson by introducing the first Race Relations Act (which came into law on 8 December 1965, banning discrimination on the basis of race in public places), Stephenson would once again have to take a stand against racism.
In 1964, Stephenson was approached by two West Indian men who had just been turned away from a pub in Bristol because of the colour of their skin. Understandably outraged by the news, Stephenson went to the pub to see if this truly was the case. Upon arrival, he was served by one of the bar staff. However, after just a few sips the landlord came out on to the pub floor and demanded Stephenson down his drink and get out, as they did not serve black people. Stephenson refused, and when the landlord threatened to call the police, the WIDC’s spokesman explained he was doing nothing wrong. The police arrived all the same, eight in total with snarling police dogs for company. Stephenson was arrested for refusing to leave a licensed premise. A patron of the pub, who saw the whole incident unfold, later visited the police station to give a statement in support of Stephenson. The statement was dismissed, and the eyewitness told to go home. In Stephenson’s own words, he believed the police thought ‘they’d got him now’ and this ‘would stop him campaigning for the rights of blacks.’
The case went to trial, and once again the nation was watching. Each of the eight policemen’s accounts of the incident differed, with the only claim made that was unanimous being that Stephenson was ‘aggressive’ and had attempted to ‘force he way back into the pub’, both statements that would have been disputed by the eyewitness account had it not been thrown out at the Police station. The trial lasted a week and culminated in a not guilty verdict. The result was a shock to the city of Bristol and signalled a change in the attitude of landlords across the city. Following his win in the courts, Stephenson received a letter from Wilson telling him he would make good on his promise and introduce legislation which would tackle racism. Without the trial and the previous year’s boycott, it is widely believed Harold Wilson would not have had the support needed to introduce anti-discrimination laws. So, it is beyond question that Dr Paul Stephenson’s actions in the mid-sixties were crucial in achieving the first steps towards racial equality in Britain.
In the years to follow Stephenson had a diverse career. He joined the Commission for Racial Equality and Press Council. He also became a member of the Sports Council in 1975. In this role he campaigned against any sporting competition with South Africa, who were in the midst of Apartheid. He also built a relationship with Heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali. Stephenson first met Ali in the foyer of the Hilton, London. Ali had just beaten George Foreman, fighting in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in what became known as the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, and was spending some time in the UK before heading home to the States. At this point, Stephenson was a governor at Tulse Hill School in Brixton, so he grasped the opportunity to ask Ali if he would give a talk to the students. Ali asked how much Stephenson would pay him. He told him he could not pay him anything.
‘You’ve got more nerve than Frazier.’
But Ali agreed to go. It sparked the beginning of a partnership that would launch the Muhammad Ali Sports Development Association. The Association encouraged hundreds of black and ethnic minority children to participate in sports they were not usually associated with such as Angling, Golf & Tennis to name a few. In 2009, Stephenson was awarded an OBE ‘for his services to equal opportunities and to community relations in Bristol.’ In 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award at the Pride of Britain Awards. Lenny Henry was on hand to give Stephenson his award, and while doing so said ‘it is a well-known saying that to achieve greatness you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. You really are a giant. So without you, there wouldn’t be any black or Asian politicians.’
Dr Paul Stephenson, now 83, has dedicated most of his adult life to ending racial discrimination; to giving people both young and old a fair shot regardless of skin colour. It is rather poetic that he, being one of the most influential people in the British civil rights movement, would draw parallels in his own life with two of the most influential Black men in American history, and indeed the world. 28 August 1963 has rightly gone down as a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement, but it was as symbolic a day in Britain too. With Muhammad Ali the coincidental repetition of fate is less welcome. Sadly, Stephenson now suffers with Parkinson’s disease, as Muhammad Ali did. But just with Ali, it has not dampened his resolve to challenge injustice. Speaking before accepting the 2017 Pride of Britain Lifetime Achievement Award, Stephenson said, ‘Every generation has a duty to fight against racism, otherwise it will find its way into our country and into our homes. Addressing this challenge is our duty if we wish to seek a happy and prosperous existence’. A sentiment as true now as it has ever been.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23795655
https://www.prideofbritain.com/history/2017/dr-paul-stephenson-obe
https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/stories/bristol-bus-boycott/
https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-heroes/the-bristol-bus-boycott-of-1963/
https://news.sky.com/story/muhammad-alis-surprise-visit-to-brixton-school-10383508#
History Extra Podcast, The Downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots and a British Civil Rights struggle
