A brief history of BME organisations in the UK

 

Political and social rhetoric on non-white immigration in the 1950s had two effects: immigration and immigrants were equated with blacks, thus mainstream society defined those groups as outsiders, and politicians and the media were concerned about the impact black immigration could have on the character of British identity (Solomos 2003).  Therefore, the government saw state intervention as the primary means to deal with issues of racism and racial discrimination (Goulbourne 1998). This led to the passing of the Race Relations Acts (RRA) of 1965 and 1968 by the Labour government.  These Acts set up bodies that would deal with issues of discrimination, social adjustment, and welfare faced by immigrants and aimed to educate the public about race relations.

 

Prior to the RRA, in 1962 the government established the National Advisory Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NACCI) in conjunction with the 1962 Immigration Act.  Then the 1965 RRA established the Race Relations Board.  The NACCI was supposed to coordinate all local multi-racial organizations and lend support to those organisations while the Race Relations Board, and subsequent Community Relations Commission, was supposed to enforce the RRA (Afridi and Warmington 2010; Solomos 2003; Kushner 1994).

 

Between 1964 and 1965 the NACCI toured the country, encouraging local authorities and others to support existing local BME community organisations, and helped form other organisations where they did not exist.   According to Afridi and Warmington (2010) by the middle of 1965 thirty such committees existed, with one-third of them having full time officers and funding from local authorities or social services departments.  These initial organisations over time were able to provide more welfare services for the communities they served.  The start of an independent voluntary sector provision had begun, paving the way for the future of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Voluntary and Community Third Sector that emerged in the 1990s.

 

The election of New Labour in 1997 brought the BME third sector into the forefront of British politics as Tony Blair, and later Gordon Brown, embraced the ideals of Britain being a modern multicultural society. New Labour commissioned the 1999 Macphersons Report that investigated the death of 18 year-old Stephen Lawrence.  This report led to the passing on the 2000 Race Relations Amendment Act (RRAA), which focused on institutional racism and regulation of the police.  Funding from government to the BME sector focused on creating infrastructure organisations within BME communities, and as a result the number of regional BME organisations around the country formed alongside the creation of one national BME VCO.

 

Yet, events like 9/11, 7/7 and civil unrest in various cities around the country between minority and majority groups led the government to back away from its multicultural stand, and head more towards an old assimilationist model seen in the 1950s and ‘60s (Modood 2007).  The election of the Coalition government in 2010 in turn saw an even greater emphasis away from race in public discussions in favour of policies like the Big Society and Localism, which focused more on de-evolution of power from government to local authorities with little attention paid to issues of race or racism.  Funding was cut and third sector organisations were renamed civil society organisations.  This in turn has led to the closing of many BME organisations, as there is little funding or support for their activities.

 

 

 

Pic credits:

Colin Jones (British, born 1934)

Black British Style Victoria & Albert Museum, London