*Today marks 70 years that the SS Empire Windrush arrived in Britain with Caribbean immigrants after the Second World War. On May 27, 1948, the Empire Windrush sailed from Jamaica for Trinidad before sailing to England, United Kingdom, the colonial motherland.
Close to a month later, on June 22, the former troop-carrying steamship made its way up the Thames and docked at Tilbury with some 500 settlers from Jamaica onboard (and several stowaways) disembarked, taking their first steps towards a brighter future.
The arrival of this first wave of West Indian immigrants was the first wave of large-scale immigration in post-war Britain to recruit labour from the Commonwealth to cover employment shortages in state-run services.
One such immigrant is the late Sam King who later became a former and first black Mayor of Southwark in South East London and was always at hand to tell stories about Windrush in the Southwark community and beyond to keep the Windrush story flame burning. He has a video recorded of him telling his story. He died aged 90 in 2016. It seems Brirtain is set to do it all over again with her exit from the EU and will have to recruit again from Commonwealth nations albeit with very tightly controlled border. By the 1970s, West Indians had become an integral part of the fabric of British society, influencing and impacting on everything from culture to politics to education to sports to entertainment and more. Africans did as well if I must say.
TAYO Fatunla is an award-winning Nigerian Comic Artist, Editorial Cartoonist, Writer, and Illustrator. He is a graduate of the prestigious The Kubert School, in New Jersey, US. He is recipient of the 2018 ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrated OUR ROOTS series – Famous people in Black History – www.tayofatunla.com
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