By the 1960s and 1970s, Britain was still largely white, but its population was changing as people from the Arab world, the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia settled in the UK, encouraged by the 1948 Nationality Act or in the hopes of seeking refuge from conflicts.
New artistic scenes emerged as sound system culture, radical Black publishers, and theatre collectives became vital spaces to celebrate one’s heritage and resist racism amid violent white riots, discrimination in employment, housing and education, and restrictive Immigration Acts.
Writers like C.L.R James fused anticolonial political thought with history, literature and sport while Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) exposed the impact of slavery and colonialism impact on international capitalism; Stuart Hall pioneered the analysis of race in media and cultural studies; Edward Scobie resurfaced little known Black British histories; and Beryl Gilroy’s Black Teacher (1976) offered rare insight into the gendered racism faced by Black women in schools.
These foundations were built on by later voices like Paul Gilroy, Pragna Patel and Hazel V. Carby, whose scholarship and political commentary interrogated diaspora, identity and the intersections of gender and race, while food writers like Madhur Jaffrey recognised Britain’s shifting cultural palate. By the 1980s, writers in Britain were articulating a consciousness that spoke to their identity and heritage as both people of colour and Britons.