Colour Bars in Leicester - Leicester's Radical History

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&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Leicester now has a national and international reputation for its community cohesion and is seen as Britain’s premier multicultural city . Sixty years ago things were very different. &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;I think it is safe to assume that discrimination in jobs, housing and public places was widespread during the 1950s and 1960s. After all, it was not illegal – it just went unreported. It was only when discrimination was challenged that it made the news. This post tells the story of the attempts that were made to break colours bars in Leicester.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;h2&gt;Coffee Bar Colour Bar, 1959&lt;/h2&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-medium is-style-default&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-432&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/El-Casa-Bolero-33-Castle-Street-295×300.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;El Casa Bolero, Castle Street. (now demolished)&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;When the El Casa Bolero in the late 1950s at 33 Castle Street, it boasted the city’s first espresso machine. It was the first coffee bar in Leicester and was owned by Olga and Leslie Pepper who then opened the Temple Gardens coffee bar on Rutland Street. By the mid 1960s they were part of a thriving local coffee bar scene.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large is-resized&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-431&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1959-June-24-LM-1024×484.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;1024&quot; height=&quot;484&quot;&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;A protest march was organised in &lt;strong&gt;June 1959&lt;/strong&gt;.26&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Although the Casa Bolero and Temple Gardens let beatniks in, the Peppers barred what were then called ‘coloured people.’ Both of these premises have now been demolished.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;by This It was followed by the Espresso Bar on New Bond Street and others until, The El Casa on Castle Street had bikers upstairs and a more beatnik crowd downstairs&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;The only reason why &amp;nbsp;the colour bar in these two coffee shops was reported, was because because a student was refused to be served. This led to a protest march against the colour bar organised by University students.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;The University played a very important role in the early days of the local anti-racist movment Leicester in the 1950s was a predominantly white monocultural society. The University was one of few places where multiculturalism was practised and accepted. It had both overseas students and lecturers. During the 1960s, it was the university, both staff and students, who became the core of the anti-racist movement in Leicester.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large is-resized&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-430&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Brickmakers-Arms-1961-LM-1024×682.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;1024&quot; height=&quot;682&quot;&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Brickmakers Arms at the junction of Northampton Square and Charles Street, Leicester, in 1959&lt;/strong&gt; (Leicester Mercury)&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;h2&gt;The Brickmakers’ Arms Colour Bar, 1961&lt;/h2&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;According to the &lt;em&gt;Daily Herald&lt;/em&gt; three 19 year old student teachers, &lt;strong&gt;Tony Wood, Michael English and lan Reid &lt;/strong&gt;were shocked when they saw four &#039;coloured&#039; men refused drinks in the lounge of the Brickmakers’ Arms in St. George-street Leicester. The students asked them to stay and tried to buy them four pints of bitter, but the landlord ordered them all out. Apparently, the landlord&amp;nbsp; had banned West Indians and coloured American airmen from the lounge and smoke room.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large is-resized&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-444&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1961-Students-protesting-at-the-Brickmakers-Arms-October-1961b-1-1024×677.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;1024&quot; height=&quot;677&quot;&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;A Committee Against Racial Prejudice was formed and the students wrote a letter protest to the pub&#039;s brewers Bass at Burton. The students &amp;nbsp;called for the boycott of the pub and eighty students from Leicester University held a picket outside the pub. These photos were taken by David Francis and later published in Ripple, the student magazine.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;George Claricoates, the manager of the Brickmaker&#039;s Arms, told the Daily Herald that: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Part of an Englishman&#039;s pub should be reserved for Englishmen. If I allowed one coloured person in, others would follow and trouble now confined to the public bar would spread to the entire place.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;The organiser of the demonstration, Mr Barrie Evans, aged 21, said: &lt;em&gt;&quot;Numerous organisations in the City are joining our committee. We intend to hold mass demonstrations wherever we find a colour bar operating.&quot; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large is-resized&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-434&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1961-Students-protesting-at-the-Brickmakers-Arms-October-1961e-1024×645.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;1024&quot; height=&quot;645&quot;&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;I think this form of segregation was widespread. In those days of public bars, smoke rooms, snugs and lounge bars, this layout inside the pub lent itself to both formal and informal segregation. Public bars being mixed and lounge bars being reserved for white customers. In some pubs women were not allowed into public bars. At present I do&amp;nbsp; not know whether the picket of this pub had any effect.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-447&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1961-Oct-LM-2-1024×995.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;Leicester Mercury&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;h2&gt;The Admiral Nelson Colour Bar, 1964&lt;/h2&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-449&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Humberstone-Gate-Admiral-Nelson-1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;The Admiral Nelson pub, Humberstone Gate. public bar was on the ground floor and the lounge bar and smoke rooms were upstairs. Like the Brickmaker’s Arms the colour bar was not operated in the public bar but only operated in these upstairs room .&lt;em&gt; (Memories of Leicester)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;figcaption&gt;Humberstone Gate before the building of the Haymarket Centre&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;A member of the University staff, Dipak Nandy, and his wife,&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/whoswho/G.html#Maggie%20Gracie%20(Nandy)&quot;&gt; Maggie,&lt;/a&gt; were refused to be served purely on the grounds of Dipak’s ethnicity. This led to a series of demonstrations and pickets during the autumn of 1964.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;On the evening of Sunday 8th November 1964 a sit-down demonstration was staged lounge bar in protest against an the colour bare. This was the second demonstration to be organised. A a group of British and international students – black, Asian, and white – and lecturers including Dipak Nandy went up to the lounge bar and sat together. The landlady called the police who literally threw them out. There were four arrests including. On of those arrested was David Angel. He told the court:&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Angel said in evidence that he was a member of the Leicester University Anti-Racialist Committee and that &lt;em&gt;&#039;&quot;It was to be an orderly demonstration. I went into the lounge bar with three others for a drink. Before we were served the landlord pointed us out to his staff and told them not to serve us. We asked politely why we could not be served, but were given no reason. We were not quarellsome in the slightest.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;“The landlord asked us to leave, and again we asked for a reason. About ten minutes later the police arrived and I was ejected. As I was being taken down the stairs by the landlord and a policeman I asked the officer for his number and to see his superior officer&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Dotun Adepegba (27) a Nigerian student, 18, Gopsall Street, Leicester, told the court that he went into the lounge bar for a drink. I sat in the corner and asked some students to buy me a drink. &lt;em&gt;&quot;While I was drinking the landlord&#039; came up to me and said: &#039;You get out. You are a black man&amp;nbsp; and&amp;nbsp; are&amp;nbsp; not&amp;nbsp;wanted&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; here….two policemen then came in. They later came up to me and one of them said, &#039;Don&#039;t you know that blacks are not wanted here.&#039;&quot;&lt;/em&gt; Dotun Adepegba later became professor at Lagos University)&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Mr. Adepegba said that he asked if he could finish his drink but was told: &quot;I am not going to give you any time to finish it&quot;. He added that the two police officers then picked him up, carried him to the top of the stairs, and threw him down.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Also arrested was &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/whoswho/W-X-Y-Z.html#Peter%20Wright&quot;&gt;Peter Wright&lt;/a&gt;. He told the court that &lt;em&gt;&quot;It was our intention to protest over this colour bar by speaking to people in the bars and telling them about the landlord&#039;s actions.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; Wright said that there was a large crowd at the bar but they were not being served. &lt;em&gt;&quot;I was later asked to leave and did so. I then saw a Nigerian student being pushed violently down the stairs.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;There was a crowd at the entrance door which began to surge forward. Policemen started to push them back and during the struggle one of the officers fell over, and I tripped over him.&lt;/em&gt; Peter Wright was bound over in the sum of £20 for 12 months to be of good behaviour after being found guilty of committing a breach of the peace by fighting and behaving in a disorderly manner.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Also arrested, John Hardman told the court that &lt;em&gt; &quot;I was standing in the yard with another group of people when I suddenly saw this Nigerian student thrown down the stairs. I asked the policeman who pushed him why he did it so violently, and then the police came down and arrested me.&quot;&lt;/em&gt; John was bound over for 12 months for committing a breach of the peace by fighting and behaving, in a disorderly manner.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Police were called in and the demonstrators were escorted out to the street. The licensee of the Admiral Nelson. Mr. Tom Grant, would make no comment on the incident. Rut a police spokesman said: &quot;Six students will appear in court tomorrow on charges arising from the incident.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figure class=&quot;wp-block-image size-large&quot;&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;wp-image-453&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nednewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1964-Novmeber-Admiral-Nelson-protest-1-Leics-Merc-1024×771.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;
&lt;figcaption&gt;Leicester Mercury&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;On Saturday 21st November 1964, a visiting white American professor was among 30 people who were barred entry to the &quot;colour bar lounge&quot; at the Admiral&amp;nbsp; Nelson,&amp;nbsp; during an anti-racist demonstration. Professor Peter Rose, who is on a Fullbright professorship in sociology for a year at Leicester from the University of Northampton, Mass., said afterwards: &quot; I was given no grounds for being turned out.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Among the others who were turned away from the lounge were 11 Leicester University lecturers, a probation officer, a schoolteacher, several social workers, a number of students, and a design engineer. Some were told &quot;You are a trouble maker&quot; but others were given no reason for being turned away. The organisers of the demonstration, Leicester University Anti-Racialist Committee, claimed later that a number of people not connected with the demonstration were turned away.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;figcaption&gt;Alderman Sidney Bridges became Lord Mayor in 1965&lt;/figcaption&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;Alderman Sidney Bridges voiced his opposition to the colour bar and proposed that the City Council boycott Everards Brewery until the colour bar was lifted. Proposals for a boycott were also put before the University students union. On December 18th, the press reported that the colour bar was to be lifted.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
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