Bus Boycott Paul Stephenson Lecture to be given in city
THE 60th anniversary of the Bristol Bus Boycott and the sit-in at the Bay Horse pub a year later are to be commemorated by bringing the annual Paul Stephenson Lecture to Bristol for the first time.
The annual lecture began at the Houses of Parliament in 2016 and each year sees a speaker tackle subjects connected to the ongoing battle for equality and diversity. This year, to mark the anniversary of the bus boycott and sit-in Paul Stephenson led, the lecture will take place in Bristol, and the keynote speaker will be the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, in what will be his last major speech before his term of office ends.
Mr Rees will speak on the theme of ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,’ and talk about the history of the civil rights movement in the US, here in the UK with the bus boycott around the same time, and its legacy in forming the legislation and change that continues today.
The annual lecture has seen politicians, historians, business leaders and scientists give its keynote speech every year since 2016. However, this is the first time the event has taken place outside of London, and the first time it has come to Bristol, after the organisers from equality charity Diversity UK partnered with Bristol-based Curiousity Unlimited and local ethical bank Triodos, to put on the lecture at the offices of Burges Salmon on April 25.
“Bristol is a proud city of protest, home to the Bristol Bus Boycott and the birthplace of the Race Relations Act 1965,” said event organiser Julz Davis, from Curiosity UnLtd.
“Having played a pivotal role, Paul
Stephenson is not just a Bristol icon but a national hero, and on the 60th anniversary of his one-person sit-in at the Bay Horse Pub, we are delighted to partner with Diversity UK, Burges Salmon, and Triodos Bank.”
The bus boycott began in late April 1963 and saw black people in Bristol and their Bristolian allies boycott the buses in protest at the ‘colour bar’ which saw people of colour not given jobs on the buses as drivers or conductors.
The boycott lasted until late August when – on the same day as Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington – the bus company and the union relented and agreed to the boycott campaign’s demands.
A year later, in April 1964, Paul Stephenson, one of the leaders of the bus boycott a year before, staged a sit-in at the Bay Horse pub calling for a change in the law to stop businesses like pubs, restaurants and shops, as well as landlords of homes, hotels and other public venues from barring people on the basis of the colour of their skin.
The campaign worked, and the following year – 1965 – the first Race Relations Act came into force.
“We are proud to have brought this seminal lecture on race equality to Bristol for the first time: the city plays a large part in Britain’s civil rights movement which has been ongoing since that first Bristol Bus Boycott on April 29, 1963,” said Lopa Patel, the chair of Diversity UK, the equality charity that set up the Paul Stephenson Lecture.
“Given Bristol’s rich history of protest and activism, it’s with some excitement that we look forward to hearing Marvin’s unique thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for racial equality and social justice in Bristol and beyond.”