BRISTOL BUS BOYCOTT
Paul was born in Rochford, Essex, with a West Indian father and an English mother. His father walked out on the family and Paul never knew him.
His maternal grandmother, Edie Johnson, was a well-known actress of the 1920s.
Paul’s mother, Olive, was extremely poor, so she joined the military to earn a living
This meant Paul was sent to a children’s residential home at Great Dunmow, Essex, when he was just three years old and stayed there until he was ten.
He absolutely loved the home, which had just eight children (the other seven being white), and remained friends with them for the rest of his life.
Paul loved playing in the fields and streams around the home.
However, there was racism there. A teacher in his primary school cut off a lock of his hair as a good luck charm and people in the village used to stare at him when he went into a shop. A woman said to Paul, “Ooh, you look good enough to eat.” For a while, Paul assumed that’s why there were no other black children in the village – they had all been eaten.
He also experienced another type of prejudice. People would stare when his mother, dressed in her army uniform, came to visit him. They couldn’t conceive of a woman serving in the British army in peacetime, so assumed she was a man.
When he was ten, Paul moved back to live with his mother in London.
Paul was the only black student in his high school in Forest Gate and he remembered the abuse he got from passers-by, going to and from school
After leaving school, Paul joined the RAF, and served for seven years. He was based in Germany and it was there he got an interest in youth work, helping with the Scouts.
He remembered the Queen Mother coming to visit the troops. Upon parade, she said to Paul, “Which part of America are you from?”
Upon leaving the forces, Paul took a diploma in Youth and Community Work, at a college in Birmingham and also trained as a teacher.
His first post-college job was as a youth officer for the city council in Bristol. Paul was the first black social worker the city had ever had. He also worked part-time as a supply teacher.
Finding accommodation wasn’t easy. There were signs up all over the city – ‘No Irish, No Dogs, No Children, No Blacks’. When he did find a room, he had to share it with five other people.
He noted there was simmering racial tension throughout the city. Gangs of youths would attack black people out on their own.
In 1961, the Bristol Evening News exposed the colour bar on Bristol’s buses. Back in 1955, the local TGWU (Transport and General Workers Union), had put forth a resolution to their employers (Bristol Omnibus Company), that ‘Coloured workers should not be employed as bus crews.’
The omnibus company had agreed to this – although it was kept a secret.
When the newspaper expose occurred, the TGWU denied it. However, the company’s General Manager, Ian Patey, admitted to the paper that the bar existed. He claimed he had ‘factual evidence’ that white workers would leave the job if black people were employed – thus diluting the quality of the workforce.
Immediately, the West Indian Development Council was set up to fight this injustice. Paul joined – and because of his educated background, quickly became the spokesman and most high-profile member.
Paul was the only member of the organising committee that was not born in the West Indies. He said of England, “This has always been my country.”
The committee proved the company was prejudiced. Paul, used his educated voice, phoned and asked for a job as a driver. He was invited for an interview.
However, Guy Bailey, newly arrived from the West Indies, went for the interview in his stead. When the manager saw Guy was black, he threw him out of the depot.
Paul went round to the depot to challenge the manager, telling him there would be a protest. The retort was, “You can campaign as much as you like, but you’re not going to change this policy.”
The campaigners called for a bus boycott. They were inspired by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white woman on a bus in Alabama, USA. This had led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, spearheaded by the Rev. Martin Luther King.
The campaign in Bristol attracted national media attention. It was supported by Bristolians of all ages, sexes and colour, as well as the Bristol East MP, Tony Benn, and the Labour leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson.
Learie Constantine, former West Indian cricketer and the High Commissioner for Trinidad, supported the boycott – and was promptly sacked by the Prime Minister of Trinidad for, “Interfering in local issues.”
Paul was delighted that the campaign got the support of the local university. All the students, and many of the staff – predominantly white – marched through Bristol in a sign of unity.
However, the boycott was not supported by everybody in Bristol. The West Indian Association accused Paul of ‘undermining racial harmony in the city’. The Bishop of Bristol, who Paul had formerly called a friend, joined in by criticizing him in public.
The regional secretary of the TGWU, Ron Nethercott, launched a stinging attack on Paul in the Daily Herald, calling him, ‘Irresponsible and dishonest.”
Paul sued Nethercott later, winning £500 in damages.
Paul was also behind a very strong media campaign – one of the first of its kind in Britain.
On the 28th August, 1963, after six months of the boycott, the Bristol Omnibus Company capitulated.
This was the very same day that Martin Luther King gave his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington DC.
Within one month, Raghbir Singh became the first non-white bus conductor in Bristol.
It was not without consequences for Paul though. He was promptly fired from his supply teaching job.
The following year (1964), Paul was trying to buy half a pint in a pub in Bristol, called the ‘Bay Horse’, when the bar manager refused to serve him. He said to Paul, “We don’t want you black people in here – you are a nuisance.”
At the time, it was illegal to refuse to serve somebody because of the colour of their skin.
Paul refused to leave the pub without being served, starting a one-man ‘sit-in’. He was promptly arrested by eight police officers and spent the night in jail. He later said, “They knew I was a civil rights activist.”
The Bristol Evening News, that had supported the bus boycott, had the headline ‘West Indian leader made a fool of himself.’
When his case came to the magistrate’s court, the prosecution accused Paul of aggressive behaviour. All eight police officers had entirely different stories. However, other witnesses who were drinking in the pub, refuted this claim. The case was dismissed, with Paul being awarded £25 in damages. Immediately afterwards, the brewery sacked the bar manager.
Paul received a telegram from Harold Wilson, who had just become Prime Minister. Wilson promised that such injustice would not be allowed to happen again – and indeed the Race Relations Act of 1965 was introduced, outlawing discrimination in public places.
Paul went canvassing in May 1965, asking people to sign a petition demanding equality in housing provision in the city. When he knocked at one door, it was answered by a young lady called Joyce. They were married five months later and would have two children, Paul Junior and Funmilayo.
Also that year, Paul was invited to tour the southern states of the USA by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People).
On his first night in the States, in Richmond, Virginia, his hosts left him at the entrance of his hotel. When Paul went to check in, he was met with a wall of silence and extreme hostility.
It turned out that the law had changed a day earlier, forcing the hotel to accept black guests. The NAACP had used Paul as a test case. He joked, “I thought I’d come to give talks about racism in Great Britain, not to desegregate the south.”
Shortly afterwards, Paul moved to Coventry to become a Senior Community Relations Officer.
There, he was targeted by the National Front. He had his windows smashed and received death threats.
Paul asked for police protection. This was given very reluctantly, because Paul had previously criticized the police over their treatment of the black community.
The police blocked his drive with the car that was supposed to be helping him, and the officers hurled abuse at him.
After that, Paul moved to London to work for the Commission for Racial Equality. He was told that the police across Coventry celebrated his departure.
Whilst working in London, Paul met world champion boxer, Muhammed Ali.
Ali was at a reception in a London hotel. People were still calling him by his previous name, Cassius Clay. Paul was the only one to call him ‘Mr. Ali’. This led to the two men having a friendly chat.
Paul asked Ali if he would pay a visit to the nearby Tulse Hill school in Brixton. He told the boxer that they could not afford to pay him for an appearance.
Muhammed Ali came to the school and gave an assembly. All 1300 pupils attended that day – not a single absence.
The children were delighted when Ali read out a poem he had written, especially for Paul.
‘I admire your school, Mr. Stephenson,
I admire your style.
But your pay is so cheap,
I won’t be back for a while.’
Muhammed Ali and Paul became great friends, working together to set up a sports development foundation in Brixham, which gave working-class black children access to sporting opportunities they would not have had otherwise.
Other celebrities gave their support to Paul, who was running the foundation. These included Daley Thompson, Garth Crooks, Arthur Ashe and John Fashanu.
Paul also worked with musicians Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth to create the ‘Cleo Laine School’s Music Awards’.
In 1975, Paul was appointed to the Sports Council. He worked tirelessly to ensure that sporting links between Britain and apartheid South Africa, were severed. He worked very closely with another world champion boxer, Lloyd Honeyghan.
Politician (and soon to be Prime Minister), Margaret Thatcher, accused Paul of being a “Terrorist sympathiser.”
In 1979, Paul was made the Honarary President of the Bristol West Indian Parents’ Association.
Paul finished his career working for the Press Council and retired back to Bristol.
There, he was very active in the creation of BBAP (Bristol Black Archives Association) – telling the stories of the West Indian community in the city.
The very first donation to the archives was Paul’s own memoir.
In 2012, Paul published his autobiography, entitled ‘Memoirs of a Black Englishman’.
In 2014, a plaque was put up in Bristol bus station, commemorating the boycott that had such a significant impact.
Paul received much recognition, including an OBE, an honorary degree from the University of Bristol and the Freedom of the City of Bristol.
However, he still recognised that the racism problem still existed. “The law has changed – and little else.”
In 2020, there was a campaign in Bristol, to replace the toppled statue of slave trader Edward Colston, with one of Paul.
Additionally, Great West Railway named one of their inter-city trains after Paul.
In his later years, Paul suffered from Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
Just one week before he died, Paul was honoured with another plaque – in the Bay Horse Inn where he had made a stance against racism. Greene King, who now own the pub, made a formal apology.
The pub also has Paul’s corner – an area with a small museum-like tribute to him. They have also created a beer called ‘Sit-In’.
RRIP – Race Relations Inspiring Pioneer
