Chris Mullard and Black radicalism in Newcastle 1968-73

Chris Mullard's Black Britain was one of the first works to express the anger of the 'second generation' of postwar Black Britons. Published in spring 1973, his study was described as the first ever book published by a Black writer, born and raised in the United Kingdom. Its actual and lasting innovation lay more in the consistency with which Mullard argued that the problems of his own generation were different from those faced by their parents, who had arrived in the 1940s and 1950s. 'A Black man born in Britain is a shadow of a man', Mullard wrote, 'A form but no identity:

'You are not West Indian, Indian, Pakistani or African, because you were born in Britain, and know little or nothing about your parents' country. Even if you wished to you cannot pretend you are a Black immigrant, because embedded in your being is the knowledge that you are not. If you choose to ignore this then it is forced upon you by the way Black immigrants see you, treat you, and react towards you when in the presence of fellow Black immigrants or white people. Similarly if you choose to identify with whites the same mechanism goes into reverse gear. In the end you have no alternative but to remain alone, insecure, without an identity of your own making.'[i]

In passages such as these, Mullard was dealing with questions of the internal impact of racism on its victims. Although Fanon was not cited as one his sources, there is a clear affinity with his work on the psychological impact of colonialism.[ii] There are echoes forward as well, not least to Homi Bhaba and the argument that the disadvantaged will always respond to domination by mimicking their oppressors.[iii]

Yet rather than simply celebrating an already well-known work, the focus of this paper is on comparing Mullard's book to the account of events that appears in press records and archive sources, including the minutes of the Tyne and Wear Special Committee on Commonwealth Immigrants (1966-8), the forerunner of the Newcastle Community Relations Council, by which Mullard was later employed. Part of Black Britain was a memoir of political activity in anti-racist circles. Mullard's frustration was not merely occasioned by the presence of racism within society, for any manner of political conclusions could have been drawn from that fact. Instead, Chris Mullard was arguing for a distinct political strategy of radical Black militancy. To reach that conclusion, Black Britain had to argue that alternative strategies were flawed, including multi-racial organising and race relations campaigning. In the course of the article, we will try to give some meaning to these three strategies. First, however, we will place Mullard's campaigning in historical and geographical context.

The Second Generation

There were already some 20,000 Black people in Britain by 1945, but the great symbol of post-war migration to Britain was the arrival of the Empire Windrush on 8 June 1948, with 400 Caribbean workers on board. Over the following ten years some 125,000 West Indians and 55,000 Indians and Pakistanis, came to Britain.[iv] The arrivals were British Commonwealth citizens, and had full rights to settle in 'their' country. On arrival, however, Black and Asian people in Britain were frequently treated with contempt. Customs officials treated every Black face as a potential criminal. Homes, hotels and pubs were barred. Even some workers saw immigrants as potential competition. The first major piece of postwar immigration law was passed in 1962, yet Labour promised its repeal. Following the victory of Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths at Smethwick in 1964, both parties came to the conclusion that the public would vote for immigration controls.[v] Since then, every single government has passed legislation making it harder for Black arrivals to settle.

The sociologist John Rex describes two main forms of inequality experienced by migrants to Britain. The first was inequality in the workplace. 'In the field of employment, even if one looks at those who are stably employed, one should also notice that the jobs in which immigrants find themselves have low initial skill requirements or require only skills learned on the job, that these are jobs which young white men do not want but which were previously held by white people who have now reached retirement, that the jobs are often dirty and boring, that they involve a lot of shiftwork and also often involve longer hours than equivalent paid work amongst whites.' The second was discrimination in housing, 'When we look at the immigrant population some ten to twenty years after their first arrival, we find that they do indeed have roofs over their heads and that they often own those roofs. But it is still the case that they are where they are primarily because of disadvantage arising out of the system of housing allocation.'[vi]

Countless surveys have since confirmed this general picture of racial discrimination. The 1961 census found evidence that Black workers origin were less likely than their white counterparts to be employed in high status careers. They were more likely to work as labourers, and twice as likely to be unemployed.  

Patterns of occupation by place of birth, 1961[vii]

One report, commissioned in 1968 for the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, looked at the experience of Asians living Newcastle's West End. Eight-eight respondents gave examples of racial discrimination they had suffered while living in the area or at work. Sixteen people complained of job discrimination, many of them working on the buses. Six people complained of difficulties in getting mortgages. 'The only case of discrimination in the sale of houses discovered was a blatant one. A Pakistani offered the full purchase price but was told "No coloureds". This happened, significantly, in Benwell, a better-class area with few coloured residents.'[viii]

In face of a society that discriminated, one solution was self-organisation. As Paul Gilroy points out, 'Blacks have been actively organising in defence of their lives and communities ever since they first set foot in Britain'. Early Black-run or anti-racist organisations included the West Indian Standing Conference, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. The journalist Darcus Howe was an early supporter of CARD. He remembers that, 'It had a huge but rather simple demand: racial prejudice had to be outlawed. The opposition ranged from sections of Harold Wilson's Labour Party to almost the entire Conservative Party.'[ix] Up until the mid-1960s, however, the tone of the organisations remained moderate, elderly businessmen were still to the fore.

Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, the British state (laws, politicians and the press) seemed to become more closed, while the community organisations became more militant in reply. The radicalism of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers had an impression in Britain. Policing seemed more intrusive, less tolerable. White-led trade unions were condemned for the failure to protect Black and Asian workers, from discrimination, or from racist laws. A 1971 demonstration against the Conservatives Immigration Bill, which ended the rights of non-British Commonwealth citizens to settle in Britain, was described by the Times, 'Indian, Pakistani and West Indian immigrant organisations from all over Britain marched through London … protesting against the Immigration Bill … A dozen organisations including the Supreme Council of Sikhs, the Indian Workers Association and the West Indian Standing Conference took part.'[x] Soon there were a plethora of Black political groups to join - in Manchester there was a Black People's Political Alliance, while the (Jamaican) People's National Party organised branches across Britain. The most important groups for Asian workers included the Indian Workers Association and several younger, locally-based Asian Youth Movements (AYMs).[xi]

By the late 1970s, younger Blacks and Asians - the second generation - did not share their parents' naïve sympathy with British democracy and the principles of British justice. Tariq Mehmood was one of the defendants in the 1981 trial of the Bradford twelve, a number of young activists who were accused of stockpiling arms in order to attack the Bradford police. His autobiographical novel, Hand on the Sun, describes a cycle of official racism from the early 1970s onwards, in which every single source of authority worked together to keep young Blacks and Asians down. One result was a generational conflict among the Bradford immigrants themselves. In Hand on the Sun, this struggle is represented by the arguments between Jalib and his father. Jalib is attacked by racist thugs at school and at home. He finds it almost impossible to hold down steady work. He had no understanding of the conditions back home which forced his father to leave Pakistan, the debts, the poverty of rural life. Jalib's father can no more understand why his son is so determined to pick fights, or to get into trouble with the police. The incomprehension is mutual.[xii]

The trend was towards greater activism. Dave Widgery's Beating Time cites a speech from Darcus Howe in the 1970s. 'After an account of his humiliation in his first job in Britain, as a postal sorter in Mount Pleasant, a Bunyanesque railway-station quarter of London, he asserted that the present Black community "is no longer willing to live in the room, traipse after the police, do the employer's bidding so that they can create their wealth. We are no longer that defeated, demoralised working-class. And that is why the authorities are compelled to attack."'[xiii]

One symbol of what felt wrong with Britain was the response of the authorities to the Notting Hill Carnival. Two hundred and fifty thousand people attended the 1975 event. Middle-class whites in North Kensington disliked the Carnival, and in March 1976 were able to find 500 people to sign an anti-Carnival petition. By 1976, the scene was set for clashes. Aggressive policing encouraged youngsters to resist. In the fighting that followed, 325 police were wounded, 60 people arrested and charged.[xiv] Having suffered their wounds, the police then arrested eighteen young men in Islington. These people were first accused of 'suspicious behaviour', then questioned in custody. There, according to the police, the young men volunteered the information that they had gone to the Carnival, in order to steal and attack the police. The status of these 'confessions' was crucial to the case. Seventeen of the men provided evidence that they had been assaulted in police cells. In court, the judge would do all in his power to secure convictions. Eventually, the jury came up with 43 not guilty verdicts, 8 guilty and 28 undecided.[xv]

By the 1970s, a popular movement had grown up against state racism. The Jamaican writer Rodney James was one member of this younger, more radical generation. Born in 1956, he lived in Leeds and then London. He remembers well the political arguments of the late 1970s. One influence on him was Jamaican religion, 'Most of my generation of Afro-Caribbeans in Britain was in one way or another profoundly affected by the Rastafarian movement that swept across the Atlantic to Britain in the early 1970s.' Another strong influence on Rodney James was the image of Black Power, learned from the movement in America.  

Besieged as we and our parents were by British racism, we welcomed its attack upon white supremacy and its attempts to decolonize our minds. From the United States, Black Power also came to Britain and we became familiar with the writings and struggles of George Jackson, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davies and Stokeley Carmichael.

James' political development was shaped by the friendships he made. Through the period, he came into contact with activists from the rest of the Caribbean, Africa and beyond. Politics was about co-operation in the movement. Reading and political discussion made a revolutionary of James, and life itself shaped the generation around him. 'At university in particular, I met people from every part of the British Caribbean community. Under my leadership we established even closer ties with African students on campus. My closest friends at the University of Leeds, where I did my first degree, were from Grenada, Guyana and South Africa.'[xvi]

How much of this tradition was available to an individual like Mullard? Born in sleepy Hampshire, the author of Black Britain was by his own account a model student, diligent and respectful. 'During my youth, I realized I was Black, different from other people I knew, but that was all. I never thought like a Black man.' Only slowly did he realise that white society remained closed to him.

All my thoughts were white, conceived and acted upon within the framework of white society. I had tried to avoid myself by accepting the prejudices of white colleagues. Black men were evil, dirty, rapists, lazy and savage; they were to be despised. Because I held such views my white friends thought I was quite normal, just like themselves. Their satisfaction spurred me on to feed their prejudices, securing for myself acceptance and other benefits which guaranteed my survival through the fifties and into the sixties. Looking back over my childhood and adolescence I now know that I had very little choice but to think and behave the way I did. For all my experience, at school, at home, and in the wider community, taught me to conform.[xvii]

America may well have been an influence on Mullard, as it was for James. 'What transpires in Africa has its effect on race relations here', Mullard wrote, 'What happens in the United States affects what happens in the United Kingdom'.[xviii] When Black Britain appeared, it was published almost immediately in a separate American edition,[xix] and seems to have received if anything more comment abroad.

Part of Mullard's politicisation was bound up with his decision to leave home, and to settle in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In some ways, this was a strange choice. London was the political home of British Black radicalism. Mullard was exchanging just one condition of isolation for another. The 1961 census for example had shown just 732 West Indian people living in the entire North (the North East plus Cumbria), compared to 101,385 in London.[xx] Yet there had been a Black presence on the Tyne for many decades. South Shields became an important centre for Yemeni Arabs from the early 1900s,[xxi] and by the 1930s North Shields played a similar role for West African sailors.[xxii] There were histories of Black settlement in the region.

There was also an internationalist milieu in Newcastle itself. The future Labour councillor T. Dan Smith, for example, was born in Durham in 1915. His father was a Durham miner who moved to Newcastle, a strong supporter of the Russian Bolsheviks, and a fan of Italian opera. Smith's mother was a Cumbrian fell-farmer, who went on to work the telephone exchanges in Wallsend. As a young man, Smith attended the meetings of the Workers Education Association, and through the WEA came into contact with the Newcastle branches of the International Friendship League. There, he met Basque children and Czech refugees. He received the publications of socialist groups from around Europe including the Spanish POUM. Smith was also a regular at the Socialist Society in Newcastle's Old Royal Arcade. Its meetings were attended by Krishnan Menon, later a minister in the Indian government. Speakers included Jomo Kenyatta and Cheddi Jagan, later leading figures in the struggle for national liberation in Africa and Latin America.[xxiii] Nor was Dan Smith's family entirely exceptional. There were Black characters in Jack Common's novels of Edwardian Newcastle.[xxiv] In the 1940s, a Coloured People's Mutual Aid Society was established in South Shields, while fifteen years later CARD had a vibrant branch in Newcastle. A Nigerian student wrote a 1965 piece for the Newcastle Journal concluding 'the farther North you go the stronger the beer becomes and the weaker the racial prejudice.'[xxv]  

The Race Relations Campaigner

While writing his book, Chris Mullard was employed as a full-time officer of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Community Relations Commission (CRC). In his own account of this period, Mullard explained that his distinctive attitude towards race campaigns had been formed by his membership from 1966 of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. It was an alliance of Black factory workers and student intellectuals. 'We began our activities by holding regular educational meetings. Famous white race relations experts were invited to spout their findings and ideas ... One vehemently opposed the use of the phrase racial discrimination: the phrase sounded too crude ... Like this meeting, which spent nearly all night thrashing out terminology, most of the other meetings turned into excuses for apathy.' Mullard contrasted his knowledge of Black Power movements from North America with his experiences of the moderate North East, 'White racists I now hated. Prejudiced patronisers made me angry. What I had to do was work with Black people rather than to talk about them.'

In Newcastle, Mullard worked briefly as a bus conductor. Later surveys of the North East bus companies showed that this was one career among several, where Black workers were concentrated in the very lowest grades.[xxvi] In 1967, Mullard established an office at his home on Tyneside and bought a typewriter. He began to act as a one-man lobbying organisation, representing Black people and working with them in locally-based campaigns. 'I was in the powerful position of the middleman, a position which aggravated the distinction between Black and white. I was doing nothing to bring about equal opportunity, dignity and power for the powerless.'[xxvii]

Mullard was by no means the only Black activist in this period who tried working with white radicals. Rashid Saraba, for example, arrived in the North East in the late 1960s and went on to work as a bus driver and in factories. In his memories of the period, anti-racist whites appear not in the form of middle-class do-gooders but as trade unionists, distant and yet winnable, 'Many of us', he recalls, 'were innocent and had little awareness of the need for trade unions or proper wages':  

Most would take whatever their employer gave them. Gradually, however, some of us worked with the local unions in order to get our community better paid and to secure the sort of wages we deserved. We also informed them what extra hours should be paid as overtime. In that way we fought for better conditions. There were lots of factories in the textile industry which did not have toilets. I know two factories that hired Asians for night shifts who for three years did not have the employees' WCs open at night. There were no sinks to wash our hands and clear health and safety were not displayed.

Our work force was not confident because the British had ruled us for many years and we took this relationship as an extension of the old one. Most of the immigrants who came from the Indian sub-continent at that time were above 22, and as a consequence local government did not have to invest in their upbringing or to offer them normal social service benefits. For a time we were a very, very cheap labour force. We were also unaware of local customs and language and would only mix with our own people. Some of the English disliked us and would say that we were lucky that we were earning so much and that we ought to be grateful to get more money over here than we could possibly earn in Pakistan or India. Other essentially good people used to encourage us by saying that we were doing a good job.[xxviii]

The criticism of a Community Relations campaigning was more fully developed in Mullard's book. Black Britain argued that groups such as the (as then-constituted) Institute of Race Relations were dominated by white, establishment figures with no sympathy for Black issues. Here Mullard was on firm ground. The initiative for the formation of the various community relations groups often began with the local authorities, but the real force driving this model was the government. A national Community Relations Commission (CRC) was established under Labour. A network of local CRCs was encouraged to report to the national body. These organisations were designed as a sort of racialised equivalent of the corporatism that existed in the industrial sphere. They grew in the context of Enoch Powell's infamous April 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech, which warned of the violent consequences that would follow unless migration was halted.[xxix] Powell's speech led immediately to an upsurge of popular racism. In London, Dockers and Smithfield meat porters downed tools in his support. In Newcastle, there were fears that the bitterness might head north. Newcastle Trades Council voted to denounce both Powell in particular and more generally 'the press and the Tories in creating and encouraging racism'.[xxx]

The government sought to create a space for racial conciliation between the forces of Black militancy and white reaction.[xxxi] The CRCs were associated with the Race Relations Act, which passed through parliament in the same year, and began the process of outlawing racial incitement.[xxxii] They also belong to the same period as the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, Labour's attempt to cut off Powellism by conceding its main demands - tightened restrictions on further immigration.

The irony of course is that while Mullard was criticising community relations work, this was at the same time his own employment. When we speak of Mullard's radical Black nationalism, the point is not that he had a fully-developed alternative to institutionalised anti-racism, but rather that he sort to militate within existing structures to reclaim them for a more radical strategy, free from white / establishment domination. Not surprisingly, his employers were cautious to say the least.

When Chris Mullard was eventually appointed to post, as community relations officer for Newcastle upon Tyne, his success sparked a bitter, bureaucratic row between the city council and the CRC in London. The Commission queried Mullard's militancy his and age (24) and recommended that the offer be revoked. The London body withdrew funds from its Newcastle offshoot. On the side of obstruction were a number of respectable figures, including several Tory councillors, the Very Reverend Alfred Jowett, and several police officers who seem to have conducted an ongoing vendetta against Chris Mullard's work.[xxxiii] Eventually, following interventions by the Members of Parliament for Newcastle East (Geoffrey Rhodes) and Sunderland (Gordon Bagier), Mullard was recognised in the post. 'I received my first salary cheque in May 1970, eighteen months after my original appointment.'[xxxiv]

Although there have been few

To make sense of this period, and of Mullard's appointment, we need to understand that the CRC model had only recently been established. It belonged to the period of Harold Wilson's first government. Local authorities were only just beginning to appreciate the scale of migration, and of the new demands that would be placed on them. In January 1968 there were in Northern England nineteen voluntary liaison committees (or community relations councils). By March 1969, the number had increased to twenty-four.[xxxv] Steering committees were established, not just in Newcastle and Middlesbrough, but even in smaller towns like Hartlepool.

There were many reasons for North East local government to sponsor such groups. By the end of the 1960s, press articles had already begun to raise the possibility of what might happen if the councils failed to promote integration. Local authority staff, social workers and councillors read such reports anxiously. The local papers had already developed two opposed narratives of international migration. There were the happy sailors of South Shields, integrated into local society. There were also the more numerous less well-integrated immigrants of Newcastle's West End. Could local government be blamed if the latter rose up in discontent? News from outside the region would have raised a wider set of fears. As well as Powellism, the late 1960s also witnessed Black Power movements in America and the growing self-confidence of Third World campaigns for colonial liberation.

One product of this period was a 'Commonwealth Immigrants Working Group' (sometimes described as a 'Special Committee as to Commonwealth Immigrants'), which met in Newcastle between September 1966 and May 1968. As the numbers of immigrants rose, Newcastle City Council saw a need for a separate forum to discuss race issues. Members of the group included Aldermen Russell and Robson, Councillors Storey and Lewcock, Graham, McCambridge, Abrahams and Abrahart. Abrahart was appointed Chair. Various other locals were invited onto the group, Dr. B. Basu ('Nationality: Indian'), Mr. Neville Pierre ('West Indian'), and Mr. Khwaja ('Pakistani'). Health Service representatives were also invited. Meetings were supposed to be held each month, although their actual frequency was less.[xxxvi]

Chris Mullard was never named as an observer at these meetings. He may have known about them by proxy through figures such as John Rafferty, a member of the Special Committee, and the Organising Secretary of the Newcastle Council of Social Services. The Special Committee is not mentioned once in Black Britain. Yet its very absence their justifies its study here. Precisely because the committee was not named as an instance of the general problem, we can actually approach it afresh and on its own terms. We can use the minutes of the Special Committee, therefore, to ask whether Mullard's criticisms of this entire model were in fact justified.

The main work of the group involved commissioning translations and English classes. Its members hoped to secure the funds for a research worker ('Mrs. Telang, a coloured person'), and ultimately a community centre. One report mentioned that a Reverend Pasmore had tried to establish a community centre, but that this had failed. Pasmore blamed a lack of interest from the migrants themselves. None of the councillors asked how much control of the venture migrants had been offered.[xxxvii]

In November 1967, 'The Chief Constable's representative (Superintendent Bensely) reported on an incident at a school in the City involving coloured and white children. It was noted that the incident had been exaggerated, and was without significance.'[xxxviii] At another meeting, in March 1968, Mr. Rafferty asked about a newspaper report of 'an incident at a City school involving coloured and white children. Mr. Chadderton (for Director of Education) replied; it being noted that the incident was without significance.'[xxxix] The official verdict was that the event was 'without significance', even though it was the second incident in five months.

The March 1968 meeting opened with a presentation from Mr. A. R. Hill, the Assistant Regional Controller at the Ministry of Labour in Newcastle upon Tyne. Hill reported that the Ministry was successfully involved in securing the employment of migrants. Such people did indeed experience difficulties, but none that could not be surmounted, if only the migrants were willing to work at it. 'The main problem was that of effective communication. Prejudices did exist but there was no rigid resistance in Newcastle upon Tyne toward the employment of coloured people.' The second half of the discussion focussed on the 'immigrant community centre', whose opening had taxed the Working Group now for some eighteen months. Mr. Haywards from the City Estate and Property Surveyor's Office reported that Elswick Branch Library could be made available. It would cost some £4,685 to adapt the building, and running costs would be about £1,650 a year. 'The members expressed some concern at the costs and discussed again whether sufficient use would be made of a Community Centre if one was established' and the decision was deferred.

At the next meeting, Mr. J. Rafferty moved a motion 'that this Working Group considers its aims and objects', saying that 'the Group seemed to have made little impact and that it had no powers to achieve anything tangible', Councillor Abrahart replied that 'in the absence of any real racial problems in the City there was not much more that could be done.' Miss Smith spoke up for the appointment of a Liaison Officer. 'She thought that anti-immigrant feelings were spreading from the south and that such an officer should be available to deal with any problems that might arise.' Promises were made to secure a post 'in the not too distant future'.[xl]

The very last recorded meeting took place on 6 May 1968. The group passed a motion calling for the appointment of a part-time Liaison Officer. A report was given on the 1965 Race Relations Bill. Mr. Rafferty made reference to a march against racial discrimination that had been organised by local branches of CARD, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination.[xli] The march was planned for Saturday 11 May. 'Following a lengthy discussion', the minutes record, 'it was agreed that while members of the Working Group present had some sympathy with the aims of the organisers of the protest march, it must, as a sub-committee of the Council, dissociate itself from the march. Although it was sincerely meant to be only a protest march some members feared [that] the possibility of some violence occurring could not be discounted.' Rafferty's motion was remitted to the Planning Committee.

Once again Mr. Rafferty attempted to push the group towards action, tabling a motion that the group should be reconstituted as a full committee of the City Council. Again he was rebuffed. The Chair ended by thanking everyone for their attendance, and looking forward to meeting in the New Year.[xlii] There were no further meetings. Similar bodies were later re-established, but in a new form.[xliii]

Reflecting on the actual record of Newcastle's Special Committee, it is striking that those conflicts that were reported, tended to take place within the group of white councillors. Minority group 'representatives' were appointed, but did not take the decisions. They do not appear either as the champions of a consensual majority, or of the smaller group, the more interventionist minority. The complaints of John Rafferty may possibly have reflected the growing pressure of groups such as the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. Conversely the views of Councillors McLeod and Abrahart may be linked to their generation.

Yet Councillor Abrahart's defence of the Committee should not be disregarded without receiving due consideration. Abrahart was a Newcastle University Lecturer. He had seen active service in the first world war, and was generally associated with the Labour Left. In some ways, he had a point. Post-war England saw no disturbances of the same scale of the East End clashes of the thirties. Nothing in the North East in the 1960s or 1970s could be compared to the lynchings seen in the American South or the pogroms of Tsarist Russia. In the absence of catastrophe, community leaders could argue that relationship between groups were sound. Why then, did militants such as Rafferty (let alone Mullard) complain? From the opposite perspective, meanwhile, it is easy to see that the concerns of the Special Committee were indeed to manage racial conflict rather than secure equality. The consensus at the meeting was far removed from anything that Mullard could have endorsed.  

Rowdyism averted

The conflict between different anti-racist strategies was expressed very clearly in the row surrounding Newcastle's demonstration against Enoch Powell. The demonstration took place at a time of clashes around the country. In London on 1 May, fighting took place between pro-Powell dockers and anti-racist students.[xliv] At Warwick, two days later, a Conservative MP was heckled, after addressing students on the need to remove sanctions against white-dominated Rhodesia.[xlv] In the North East, members of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination called the demonstration to highlight the danger of Powellism, and to oppose it spreading north.

In the 1960s, the regional press was often sympathetic to minorities in its reporting of race issues. While the general picture holds, it does not apply in this case. Right from the start, the Newcastle papers took an attitude of hostility to the march, warning of violence, and instructing their readers not to attend. The hints of rumours were reported as if they were facts, and little attempt was made to compare hostile comment against any favourable view. On 7 May, for example, the Evening Chronicle reported that the organisers of a Black Power campaign in Leeds were planning to send two hundred followers to radicalise the march.[xlvi] On the same day, the Newcastle Journal claimed that the event lacked any backing from the various local communities. Reference was made to the Council's Immigrants Working Group, whose members were asked to disassociate themselves from the expected trouble. 'The Sikh representative, Dr. Naru, said that his community did not support the march, for many of them felt it would cause prejudice among members of the white community. Similar sentiments were expressed by Mrs. Saeeda on behalf of the Pakistani community.' Even Rafferty ended up opposing the May demonstration, as pressure from the police, the council and the press told.[xlvii]

On 11 May, the day of the planned demonstration, the Journal reported the warnings of the police that the march should not be allowed to happen. 'Marchers, fans told to "cool it".' The Northumbria police had apparently checked in the calendars and learned that this Saturday march was due to take place on a match day. Twenty thousand Manchester City fans were expected in the city. 'A meeting of the two may lead to rowdyism'. Attempts by council and the police to have the march called off were reported as if they were the act of genuine sympathisers, 'Last minute attempts by prominent Newcastle moderates to halt the demonstration failed.'[xlviii]

The march went ahead, from Elswick Road to Town Moor. Chris Mullard was identified in the press as the main organiser. No busloads of demonstrators arrived from Leeds. Nor indeed were there any clashes with either the police or football fans from Manchester (we may understand why the press had assumed the hostility of the former, but why should the latter have challenged an anti-racist protest?) The event was entirely peaceful.[xlix] Jimmy Murray, the union convenor from Vickers Armstrong, spoke from the platform. He attacked Powell for encouraging a vile atmosphere of racism. He even joked at Powell's expense, 'And he looks like a South Shields White Arab himself.'[l] Around two hundred people took part. The caption beneath the photograph that appeared in the Journal described the protesters as 'students', and ran beneath the headline, 'Little support for race march'.[li]  

Six years for the locust

Mullard continued to work for the Community Relations Council until autumn 1973, but his period of office was subject to continuous controversy. In June 1969, Harash Naray of the Indian Forum walked out of meetings of the Newcastle CRC, in protest against Mullard's personal style.[lii] That September, the Hindu Temple also walked out, explaining their differences with Mullard in a letter to the city councillors.[liii] In March 1970, Mullard spoke out against the Northumbria police's failure to investigate claims of racial harassment, 'It has reached the stage where immigrants go to police stations in groups of four or five or six, out of fear that they will be pushed around. These fears are largely unfounded but they exist.'[liv] In February 1971, the press asked Mullard to comment on the government's proposed anti-immigration bill. Comparing the Conservatives to the far right, Mullard described Heath's cabinet as 'this Colin Jordan government', he also suggested that 'this Bill is the last step the Government can take before a deportation Order Bill'.[lv]

With such comments, Mullard antagonised two groups in particular. The first were prominent Indian businessmen and local politicians of Asian descent. There were clashes of style, generation and politics. As the head of the CRC, Mullard was charged with representing all minority ethnic groups in the city. Yet some issues and networks came easier to him than others. The second group of consistent critics were town councillors, including Bennie Abrahams. Here the criticism was that in adopting a militant politics of anti-racism, Mullard threatened to bring the city into disrepute. The criticism of the first group was that Mullard was doing the job badly, on his own terms, the criticism of the second group was that he was doing it too well. To put it another way, their anger was that Mullard was using the post as a platform for Black militancy, rather than adopting the proper community relations approach.

One of the strongest points made by Mullard's critics was that having earned the enmity of the London CRC, Mullard had therefore jeopardised the main source of funding for the Newcastle group. Some moneys were still paid, but at a lower level than was required. The city council did also pay a smaller stipend, but the combined income was not enough to keep the CRC going. Already by August 1971, debts were nearing £1000. Accused of courting the press, and neglecting to organise his own body, Mullard was able to fall back on one key ally Richard Harbottle, the chair of the Newcastle CRC, a hard-working advocate of good community relations who gave up much of his spare time to raise money for the council, and who enjoyed the respect of many local anti-racism campaigners. In July 1971, Mullard's critics moved against Harbottle for the first time, a meeting of the CRC passed a no-confidence motion in the chair, and both Harbottle and then Mullard were forced to resign.[lvi] The following month, a confidence motion was passed 24-4 and the two men were reappointed.[lvii]

Over the next eighteen months, the CRC's debts continued to rise, reaching £3000 by January 1973.[lviii] In March 1973, the London CRC stopped all further payments to its Newcastle offshoot, making any further payments dependant on a clearing of all debts. Councillor Abrahams was quoted as saying that 'It is virtually impossible for this debt to be cleared.' The Journal reported a council decision that the CRC would be wound down, all staff sacked, and the organisation reconstituted as a voluntary body.[lix] The effective sacking of Mullard may have been presented as a moderate, compromise measure, but he was not willing to go quietly. The CRC was a sovereign, independent body. Chris Mullard remained in post, attempting to clear the debt through private fundraising. The start of April saw the publication of Mullard's book Black Britain, which contained strong criticism of the police, immigration law, and the community relations model. W. A. Kutub, President of the Tyneside Bangladesh Association criticised the book for being over-militant, Mullard replied by calling him an 'Uncle Tom'.[lx] Richard Harbottle was also brought in to the argument, he attacked Bennie Abrahams for pursuing a vendetta in the council against Mullard.[lxi] Finally, in September 1973, Mullard quit his post for good. He sent a short letter to the press, insisting that he now planned to leave the region altogether.  

Conclusion

Having mentioned some of the obstacles faced by Mullard and his allies, we can end by recalling his politics at their militant height. In March 1970, the Newcastle Journal reported on clashes between the CRC in Newcastle and the London body. Mullard was invited to explain why he thought he authorities were hostile to him? 'I would certainly not call myself a militant', he said, 'but I believe that in some cases the only way to achieve one's aim is by revolution.'[lxii] Three years later, in Black Britain, he began to develop a language of authentic Black delight:  

Already we have started, like Black Americans, to foster the growth of Black identity, without which our struggle is meaningless, doomed to self-destruction or impotence. At long last we are beginning to reject the white myths about ourselves - we are not lazy; we do not live off the dole; we do not breed like rabbits; we are not the cause of this country's social and political problems; we do not smell; we do not bring down house values; we are not maladjusted; we are not educationally sub-normal; and emphatically we are not inferior or ugly.

Our habits, customs and values are just as civilised as anybody else's. We are beautiful. We are just as intelligent as others. We are industrious. We possess a sense of morality. The work we do is of vital importance to white society. We are proud.[lxiii]

One theme of Black Britain was the impossibility of achieving Black self-representation through bodies like the Institute of Race Relations or the Community Relations Councils. For such networks did not only look down, to the Black masses, but up also to the white managers and bosses who ran the country. As far as Mullard could see, the various Community Relations bodies drew their membership from two typical sources. The first were those middle-class whites who took a professional interest in race relations issues. 'They needed the committees more than the committees needed them ... once appointed they treated the committees like children, to be respected, to be brought up to be respectable, to be smacked when naughty.' The second were Black representatives, 'Most of them were puppets ... They liased between themselves and the white establishment. They were all eager to be accepted as respectable members of the community. Chasing after "honourary white status", they were used as barriers between white and Black.'[lxiv]

Implied in these passages, was a rejection not just of two groups of potential allies, but of the political strategies that each was said to advocate. Mullard's own experience as a professional community relations activist - a period of constant internal sniping and conflict - could hardly have challenged views which he had already begun to form by the late 1960s, that is before accepting the post.

So what was Mullard's actual strategy? Most clearly, he rejected the idea of using white-run bodies as a vehicle for achieving a compromise between society as it was and society as it should be. It is more than likely that he would also have rejected cultural strategies of assimilation or integration, or any idea that Black people living in the North East should conceal their previous histories and restrict themselves to being as much like the local whites as possible.[lxv]

Yet there were tensions in Mullard's analysis. Frequently, the whites he encountered were described as 'middle-class', but Black Britain did not specify whether this was because workers (the North East majority) were irredeemably racist, or rather because the community relations bodies were simply uninterested in poor people of any race. Mullard also ran shy from exploring whether the strategies of Black rebellion that he favoured, could be achieved only through Black-run independent groups, or whether there was any basis for action in alliance with authentic white radicals (if they existed). There were other blind spots as well. While Mullard advocated Black equality, he did not provide any test by which success might be judged. When would radicals accept that progress was being made? Faced with the experience of racial hostility, Mullard was clearer as to what he was against than what he was for. Not for the first time in history, a creative strategy for resistance was opened, without all of its contradictions being wholly resolved.