The Empire Windrush generation and their community, 25 years on
Robert Golden: photographer
Shaniqua Benjamin: poet
These photographs were made throughout the
1970s, beginning about 25 years after the arrival of
the original Empire Windrush generation. The older
people in the pictures, some of whom are amongst
the original group, can be seen responding to
social, cultural and economic conditions, perhaps
as any group of migrants or strangers in a strange
land have forever responded.
In their home islands the UK dispossessed them of
their freedoms and their economic survival; in the
UK they were dispossessed through rejection,
arbitrary racism, harassment by the public, police,
bureaucrats, landlords and politicians, and
condemned as ‘Other’.
They had imagined a life in a cold, distant land
being better for them and their children than living
in what was too often an economic and cultural
dead-end on the island domains left impoverished
once the value of tobacco, sugarcane and cotton
dropped and the strategic value of the islands no
longer existed for the British Empire.
***
Their children were even more harassed, finding
less solace in the church and in the hostile
population of the so-called Motherland. ‘So-called’
because in mythologies, Mothers embraces their
children and cares for them. She is of the earth and
nurtures the children physically and cares for their
souls.
The Empire generation’s children, suffering
discrimination, harassment and with fewer
opportunities, with their potential and abilities
ignored because of skin pigmentation, remained
exiles in England, cast out from their mother’s
embrace. Some revolted, finding a voice in race
and class based ideologies.
Others turned their backs as best they could on the dominant culture and attempted to forge their own way, some in desperation were tragically
criminalized, but others, against the odds, succeeded culturally, educationally and professionally.
***
How did I, a young white foreign photojournalist
become accepted? Previously I played a part in the
American Civil Rights Movement and in the anti-
Vietnam War struggles. When I moved to London
from New York I became engaged in the Right To
Work Campaigns and the anti-Nazi campaigns as a
photographer/designer and as a participant. In brief
and for reasons of my own history, upbringing, self-
education and my studying history, not only did I
find racism and nationalism emotionally
unacceptable, but intellectually hollow and morally
repugnant. I found people I met in the black
communities, warm, friendly and accepting.
***
Look at these images. Look closely. What you may
see, if you spend time, is what state of mind
individuals were in at that moment of being
photographed in that place, illuminated by that
light. What you can see is that I was either invisible
or accepted because the people in the pictures
sensed I was to be trusted. At best they liked me; at
worse they simply ‘paid me no mind’.
These pictures are about creating image equivalents
to my underlying always evolving story: that too
many human beings are in struggle against
economic, bureaucratic and political bullies, and
that many of those in struggle possess dignity and
untold strengths, even as they are forced to carry
unacceptable burdens, they do so with grace and
modesty; both worthy of embracing, celebrating
and admiring.