Housing discrimination hits West Indian immigrants hard
ONE of the biggest challenges for West Indians, later dubbed the Windrush Generation, was finding suitable places to live in the United Kingdom (UK) during the 1950s and early 1960s.
It was not strange to see signs that read, ‘No coloureds’ and ‘No West Indians’ at homes in major cities, including London, the capital.
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Such discrimination forced many West Indians to live in squalid conditions throughout those early years of settlement. Some lived in shelters and basements which provided little comfort in a country known for its cold weather, especially for people coming from countries with tropical climates.
Dr Les Johnson, a Jamaican-born academic who is a visiting research fellow at Birmingham State University, recently wrote about the hard times people from the islands faced finding suitable homes, for conversation.com.
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Jamaican men, mostly ex-Royal Air Force servicemen, pose for a photo aboard the former troopship, HMT Empire Windrush, before disembarking at Tilbury Docks, England, on June 22, 1948. (Photo: AP)
“Despite the open invitation the reception the Windrush pioneers received was often hostile. Caribbean migrants were (and still are) subjected to poor housing conditions, with accommodation in hostels often overcrowded and lacking basic amenities. In 1948 an underground shelter in Clapham South tube station was used as temporary housing for people from the Caribbean,” he wrote.
Johnson, who left Jamaica for the UK in 1962, is chair of National Windrush Museum in London. He credits the resilience of those pioneers for contributing to the development of key areas in their adopted home.
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“Major urban centres like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds, and Preston became focal points for these communities where they established vibrant neighbourhoods and thriving cultural institutions, contributing to the overall diversity and multicultural fabric of these cities,” Johnson noted.
The most infamous example of the West Indian housing dilemma was seen in Nottingham, a city in East Midlands where Peter Rachman — the notorious, Poland-born, Jewish slumlord — rented them unsanitary flats at high rates.
This exploitation inspired the term “Rachmanism”.
The “open invitation” Johnson refers to was the British Government’s appeal for West Indians to come to the UK, work, and help rebuild an economy devastated by World War II, which ended in 1945. The first wave of Caribbean hopefuls arrived aboard the HMT Empire Windrush in June 1948 at Tilbury Docks, Essex.
Securing comfortable housing was not their only problem. The jobs promised were not the best.
“Types of employment available to the Windrush Generation were often limited to low-paying jobs such as cleaning, factory work, and driving. Created the same year in 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) has been an important source of employment for members of the Windrush community since its inception,” said Johnson. “Many Caribbean migrants found work in hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care facilities, playing a crucial role in the development and functioning of the NHS. They contributed their skills, dedication and expertise, helping to shape and improve health-care provision in the UK.”
By the 1960s, despite still facing rigid racism, West Indians began to thrive by opening small businesses — mainly barber shops, hairdressing parlours and restaurants. Most of those ventures were launched through the ‘pardner’ (informal banking) savings scheme they brought from home.
Today, some of the areas once intolerant of West Indians are represented by first- or second-generation Britons whose parents were part of the Windrush movement. The longest-serving is Dianne Abbott, a daughter of Jamaicans, who has been the Labour Party’s Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987.
