I’m Reverend Michael King, son of Sam King who was the founder of the Windrush Foundation and all things Windrush in the UK. He was also ex-RAF and this is what I’m involved in. I’m chaplain to some of the West Indian military organisations. For example, the British West Indian Heritage Trust. JESA, Jamaica Ex-Services Association, oh, they’re brilliant guys.

And what you have to realise, one, everybody on the Windrush, 80 per cent were ex-RAF, second world war veterans. They were not economic migrants. And then point two, in Britain, you had to go and fight, you didn’t have a choice. In Jamaica, they had a choice. In fact, there were very good choices because with war comes productivity. They could have gone to America and done farm work and really earned very good money.

My father had options. But no, he volunteered. And all those who came on the Windrush are war heroes ‘cause they’ve volunteered, not conscripted.

So he came, he fought, they were victorious. The country needed rebuilding. So they called to Caribbean, come and rebuild the mother country. And dad came back. He tried a couple of jobs. He said there was loads of work. No housing. You had jobs, but you’d probably be two in a bed. And that means day shift in the bed during the night, and night shift in the bed during the day. Because it was, ‘No dogs. No Blacks. No Irish.’ My dad said that was a blessing in disguise, it forced them to buy their own homes.

Most came on a five-year plan. Work for five years, earn some money, go back home. That was his plan.

But, you know, best-laid plans go astray. And he’s bought a couple houses. He’s met my mum. And they’ve had a child. And then you think of the educational opportunities here are better. So, we’ll go later, and do a bit of education. And then you get assimilated in. You know, it’s almost like the Borg in Star Trek, ‘We assimilate.’ You just get assimilated. And the five-year plan becomes a ten-year, and the next thing, you know, fifteen, and then all of a sudden you’re here. You’re heading back to Jamaica on holiday, having a wonderful time, but come back to Britain.

I was very blessed in my upbringing as a child. I grew up in Dulwich, really. But I think I got this activism gene in me.

I’ve gone and fought the National Front physically as a youngster. And I’d call Black people all over London, I’d go to the worst clubs and dives to get the worst bad men to come and fight the National Front.

And you know who was out there? A very small group of them with me. But there were the Rock Against Racism. There were the trade unions. There’s the Anti-Nazi League. The Jewish Defence League, we’re all standing together. Fantastic. Mainly white people against the evil of the National Front.

Now, a Christian, I pray for them.

I had opportunities, civil service and so on. It’s very dead and boring and, but I liked business. I was a young businessman in Brixton when there weren’t many young businessmen. So we’re talking 70s, 80s. Went into partnership with a good friend, Grant. We bought a shop in Brixton, right on the corner of Atlantic Road and Brixton Road. Very, very heavy footfall, very busy. And we opened another one in Lewisham. And we were haute couture, so we were very upmarket clothing. We had clothes that were in Harrods and Selfridges.

There was a time, I would say, our bank manager used to say, ‘I can’t believe the money you’re turning over!’ You know, and this is just business. Whereas people looked at Black people, said, ‘You’re criminal, drunks,’ all kind of rubbish. But we’re doing business.

So the Brixton uprising happened, and we call it uprising, because that’s what it was. It wasn’t a riot for locals. Swamp 81 had happened where the SPG came into the area and swamped it to combat crime. Special Patrol Group.

The issue with the SPG, they’re all tall, rough, white guys from somewhere else in Britain. They go in a van, about 12 or 15, and they all jump out and swamp and swarm you. And I’ve seen them stop, on Atlantic Road, Seventh-day Adventist people going to church on a Saturday in their suit, husband in the suit and tie, wife in her Sabbath best with her hat. And they’ve stopped the car and shouting and, with all people walking by, ‘Get out the effing car you effing, effing, effing.’ And pull them out the car and treat with such disrespect, elders. Because for them, Black was Black. And they didn’t care, young, old, they treated everybody as a criminal and as the lowest form of life. So the area hated the SPG. So when the riots started, that was the reason. And that was good.

Lord Scarman was called in to oversee what the causes of the riots were, as they called it, and what the possible positive outcomes could be from that and then what actions should be taken. After the Scarman report, it was recognised that the community was terrorised by these jackbooted thugs. It was recognised that the uprising happened because of unfair treatment. It was also recognised and realised that racism was rife within the force and there had to be a change.

And I give them their due. The new officers that came locally were fantastic. The beat police made a point of knowing the local people. We even went out some Saturday nights and took them to clubs, with some of the officers.

There’s many flaws and many problems. And we’re dealing with the problems. We sit with the Met at Scotland Yard and say, ‘Please, we don’t want stop and search. We want targeted stop and search. Target the criminals that you know are criminals and arrest them. Don’t stop these young little Black kids going to school at 14 and fling them to the ground and put your knee in their neck. Listen, it’s not good.’

But we’ll bring change by participating and educating. And that’s educating officers as well as communities.

I love history, Black historian, 1940 to present day. And I love the fact that the truth is now being told. And it wasn’t before.

Dad was a pioneer. He’s the first Jamaican to be a mayor anywhere in the world outside of Jamaica. One of the other things I didn’t realise, the Globe theatre, he was responsible for it, along with others. They came to the Southwark Council for the planning permission to do the Globe. Southwark Council was very leftwing, and it was Labour-run, and they stood and said, ‘We don’t need theatre. They’ve got Drury Lane, they’ve got the West End where all the toffs go. They can go there. Southwark needs housing.’ Which it did. Absolutely needed housing. And that was what was in the council chamber at the time.

Dad was chair of the council. He stood up and said, ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The good that men do is oft interred with their bones and the bad liveth on. Honourable members, in the former colonies we had Shakespeare. Why should not the people of Southwark have Shakespeare as we did in the former colonies?’

And they voted for it because of Sam King’s speech. Shakespeare, from the one Black guy in the chamber.

No Sam King, no Globe. It’s incredible. These are the type of historical contributions that need to be told, need to be known. And for me, our people, Black people in the UK, are getting the proper recognition for the contribution and the right sense of pride for who and what we are.