Clementina’s mother, Lydia, was what we would call a market trader. She and her husband worked hard to provide for her thirteen children. Clementina was the last child..Child 13.
She saw an advert in the Jamaican local newspaper, the Jamaican Gazette, inviting immigrants to the up to come to the UK to help grow the economy. Clementina is known to us all as the Windrush Generation.
I suppose Clementina, my aunty, was always classified as outspoken, however, coming to the UK would be challenging for her small voice. On arrival to the uk, Clementina was told that her ‘appearance’ would not suit a usual office setting, however a factory role with be more suited to her ability and skin colour.
At this time, in the UK, there was an influx of migrants from Jamaica, all answering the same add that Clementina had seen. Men and women. The women were led to be cleaners in hospital settings and factory operatives, the men were led down the same path.
Social Settings presented signs outside their establishments saying:
No Irish
No Dogs
No Blacks
In 1961, Clementina met and fell in love with her then to be husband. After marriage in 1963, she fell pregnant and wish to move out of her shared room with her brother Alex, and sister Ruby, and set up home with her husband and forthcoming child. Every House, flat or room to rent, that was advertised in the newspaper was conveniently unavailable when Clementina and her husband showed up for a viewing.
Tina and her husband worked hard. They worked around the clock….Every advertised home they visited to rent, was conveniently ‘no longer available’ when they showed up for a viewing. By March 1963, Clementina was heavily pregnant and the toil of lack of a skilled job, inadequate accommodation was taking its toll. Clementina was not the only person experiencing this….Guy Bailey, a fellow Windrush peer, applied for a job as a bus driver. Although being qualified for the role, Guy was told that if he drove the busses, White people would boycott using Bristol Omnibus.
Tina and Guy were friends…. They spoke…Tina contacted the BBC television, and a young reported came to interview her. He risked his career and produced a short film called Celebrate What? The film highlighted Clementina’s fight to gain purposeful employment and accommodation because of her skin colour. Clementina and guy continued to work together and engaged the attention of many people including Sir Roy Hackett. They decide that if Guy could not gain employment with Bristol Omnibus, the they would boycott the buses until they gave Guy a job.
Thiis was right up Clementina’s street being the out spoken person that she had always been. On 29th April 1963, Clementina, Guy, Sir Paul Stevenson and many others had arranged protests and decided not to use Bristol Omnibus. They protested in the same style as the Rosa Parks, from 1955. Clementina, Guy and Sir Paul Stephenson, held weekly peaceful protests.
On 28th August of 1963, the same day that Martin Luther King had a dream, Bristol omnibus changed their rhetoric and made a public acclamation that they would employ people of colour to drive and conduct on their buses.
Clementina did not stop campaigning for race equality and worked closely with Guy Bailey, Sir Paul Stephenson and worked along side the Avon and Somerset police to make a significant impact with Race relations.
Clementina fought tirelessly to repair the relationship between the BAME community and the police after the Bristol Riots in 1980 and then spent years, touring the UK as spokesperson, advocating the Race Equality act.
Clementina was invited to Buckingham Palace in 2012 to meet the queen and discuss how the race equality act could be further enhanced.
Her story continues and we hope that we can celebrate her achievements, not just on Racial Justice Sunday, but all year long. She is truly a force to be reckoned with and may her long list of achievements and activism continue to grow!
This blog was written by Douglas Jones, Deputy Diocesan Building Surveyor, Diocese of Southwark
