October 2022
Race Today 1986 and 1987
This month's object of the moment explores copies of Race Today within the library's archive with a focus on editions edited by Leila Hassan from the mid 1980s.
Race Today is an essential resource for those studying the history of Black community struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. The magazine started life as a journal produced by the Institute of Race Relations in the 1960s, but following an ideological dispute severed its links with the IRR in the early 1870s and was thereafter run by a collective whose members included Farrukh Dhondy, Leila Hassan, Darcus Howe, Gus John and Linton Kwesi Johnson. Race Today appeared monthly from May 1969 to 1978, and bi-monthly from 1979 to 1988. The Working Class Movement has a significant but unfortuantely not complete run of the journal.
Here to Fight, Here to Stay
These editions of Race Today were edited by Leila Hassan. Hassan was a member of the Race Today Collective from the outset, was the magazine’s deputy editor from 1973 and took over as the editor in 1986. Together Leila Hassan and Darcus Howe transformed the publication to become, ‘a beacon of black radical thought and practice’. In 1981 she and Howe helped organize the huge protest march in response to the New Cross Fire in March 1981 which was dubbed the National Black’s People’s Day of Action and is now seen as a turning point in Black British identity. In 2019 Hassan co-edited a book, ‘Here to Stay, Here to Fight’, a collection of Race Today articles which aimed to introduce new audiences to Britain’s black radical politics and is also available at the library.
The June-July 1987 edition includes an in-depth and illuminating interview with Jayaden Desai by Arthur Scargill which explores the lessons learnt from the Grunwick Strike. The Grunwick Strike of 1976-1978 was one of the most significant strikes of the 1970s. At its height it involved thousands of trade unionists and police in confrontations outside a small film processing factory in North London, with over 500 arrests on the picket line and frequent police violence. It was also one of the first strikes to involve Asian women, among them Jayaben Desai, who became a national figure. The Working Class Movement Library also holds a large collection of material relating to the Grunwick Strike.
You can see these copies of Race Today on display at the library throughout October. If you would like to access other copies of Race Today in our Reading Room, please contact us to make an appointment. We are free and open to everyone.