“They were war veterans called on to rebuild the Mother Country that they had already fought for,” stated Reverend Michael King of these first Windrush Pioneers, who included his late father Sam King MBE. This essential historic context – many of these onboard the Windrush had been former RAF and different servicemen returning to Britain after serving in WW2 – set the scene for a web-based dialogue forward of Windrush Day that spanned the previous, current and future. “Education, property and absolute hard work,” had been the ideas of the Windrush pioneers that want to be handed on to youthful generations, he added.
The event, ‘Why Windrush matters today,’ was convened by the Windrush75 Network, which seeks to assist coordinate efforts throughout the UK over the subsequent 12 months and past to encourage the most public participation in Windrush Day as a nationwide second, as we strategy the 75th anniversary subsequent 12 months.
Siobhan Aarons, co-founder of Conservatives Against Racism For Equality and board member of the Black Equity Organisation, quickly introduced the dialogue to the current day. “Windrush is not just a story, it’s my life,” she stated. “Without my grandparents taking that journey I wouldn’t exist.”
So marking Windrush Day is about historical past but in addition about the descendants of those that got here on the Windrush and the many who adopted and about their contribution and place in our shared society. “It’s not only a marker of what occurred 74 years in the past –…
