2019
Dreaming is Dead Now


“No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.” In post-World War II Britain, this was a menacing sign commonplace in the front windows of many bed and breakfasts and boarding houses. The anti-discrimination pioneer Mahesh Upadhyaya, who immigrated to the United Kingdom in 1961 from Aden, now in south Yemen, recently told the human rights news site Rights Info that when looking for accommodation back then, “it was standard to see signs saying, ‘No blacks, no dogs, no Irish’”.

Until the 1968 Race Relations Act, blatantly racist notices and racial discrimination were legal in Britain. Not long after the act’s introduction, electrical engineer Upadhyaya was the first person to bring a racial discrimination case to court after a person from a housing development in Huddersfield told him casually on the phone that “our policy is not to sell to coloured people because that will jeopardise... (Continues)