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 What is the Runnymede Trust? |
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 One of Britain's foremost think tanks which was set up in 1968 at the height of US civil rights movement. Two British law students, Jim Rose and Anthony Lester went to the States, were very taken with powerful black uprising and brought those ideas back to Britain. The name Runnymede Trust dates back to a Middle Ages when the first human rights charter was signed at Runnymede in Surrey.
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| So, what is its main work? |
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Lobbying the government for legislative and policy change relating to race relations.
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| What sort of documents does the Collection contain? |
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The Collection contains a lot of material from ethnic minority and grass roots organisations from the 1960s right through to the 1990s which they used as evidence for lobbying government. It's really a race policy archive and contains some amazing documents; letters from people asking for help because they are being harassed, personal stories from asylum seekers, government papers about the Race Relations Act. There are also transcripts written by 1970s police cadets about how they feel and think about ethnic minorities.
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| Does the Collection actually belong to Middlesex University or is it on loan? |
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It belongs to the University. We are fortunate that they have donated it to us in 2001 for its safety and well being. It's a wonderful resource for our postgraduate and undergraduate students. I think it's so exciting for me and Judy, the archivist because we'd like to see students realise that archives have so much of their own history. We have a conception of dusty old archives that have nothing to do with you, but this is about people's history. Take me for example, the Runnymede Trust history charts my own life, of the last 40 years growing up in Britain. I remember going to The Anti Nazi League marches against the National Front in the 1970s as a student, and then later on in the 1980s as a young mother we were campaigning for better conditions for black and Asian children in schools.
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| Which items do you consider to be some of the most important in the Collection? |
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I think what we have is a social history of activism and of passion and commitment by different groups of people. You have the grass roots organisations campaigning newsletters, anti-deportation groups saying we shouldn't deport people unfairly because people are going to be killed if they go back. Lawyers who were the backbone of the Trust with their documents and legislative research papers that helped get the 1976 Race Relations Act drafted. And more recently there are documents pertaining to the 2000 Race Relations Amendment Act, which was quite a watershed because it stated that we must have racial equality in our institutions and that we should be held up to be accountable if we don't. Everyone knows about Stephen Lawrence, the young black man killed by racists in the streets of London, but they are so many other stories about unknown victims out there. Stephen Bogle died in police custody because he had sickle cell anaemia, which only black people can have. His pleas for help were ignored, he was treated appallingly and then died. We have a letter from his family to a politician at the time and we'd like his voice to come through from the Collection. All of these people tell the story about multi-cultural Britain. People tend to link civil rights with the US and don't think there has been a civil righs movement here for which people have campaigned and died.
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| It sounds quite inspirational for students who want to get active themselves... |
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Yes,we are trying to develop the Collection as a teaching resource for students. There will be an on-line web resource teaching students about citizenship, showing how you can change things by campaigning. It will give students the knowledge about how the parliamentary system works and how to transform anger and passion into something real. For me, that's the beauty of the Collection because it shows how to do this around issues of health, housing, education, immigration and policing issues.
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| Which are some of the most shocking items in the Collection? |
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One area of the Collection, which I find quite difficult look at is the documentation relating to the fascist element in Britain which is growing daily. The BNP (British National Party) are gaining votes and the government is not dealing with the issue very well. The whole history of fascism in this country is very frightening. There's an organisation called Searchlight which exposes underground fascist organisations' activity. We have some very unpleasant documents that these organisations have put out. Interestingly, the racist literature of the National Front and the BNP has become very sophisticated over the years. It's gone from pictures of black people as gorillas with captions like you don't want these people in your country as seen in the 1970s, to now when the BNP talk like the Labour party. They don't say keep Britain white they say things like we need our history back or housing should be for British people first. They make very logical arguments and it's the way they have metamorphosised over the years that I find very sinister. When you look at some of these journals it makes you want to wash your hands, because racism is a very frightening thing when it's expressed in that way.
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A lot of initiatives that aim to highlight inequality seem to relate to people from the African Diaspora. Does the Runnymede Collection also give an insight into the fight against discrimination for people from other ethnic backgrounds?
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The post-war population has been made up from people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Africa, the Caribbean etc. and all their stories are in the archive. One example is the story of the Ugandan refugee crisis, where the Ugandan Asians came to Britain with British passports amid controversy. Another is the New Cross fire when black teenagers having a party were burnt to death. Then there are stories about the racial abuse suffered by the Vietnamese community; such as their restaurants getting firebombed when they came to the UK in the early 1990s. So there are many different perspectives.
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So, what programmes does Middlesex University offer relating to race relations?
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The Collection underpins some of the postgraduate research we are doing. There is an MA in Racial Equality Studies, which I run from the Centre of Racial Equality Studies, which looks at the theory policy and practice in bringing about racial equality, so we can understand where racism comes from, following onto how we can make our organisations, school, universities more egalitarian. At undergraduate level you can do a Race and Culture degree as a Joint Honours, or take a Race and Culture module as part of the BA Media and Cultural Studies. Additionally, Middlesex University Summer School runs Black London and Black British Theatre courses.
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| What sort of careers do these qualifications lead to? |
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Our first group of MA Racial Equality Studies students have entered a whole range of interesting jobs. One student is now working for the Race Equality Council travelling the country setting up projects; another is a diversity trainer at Hendon for Police recruits; another works for the Greater London Authority (GLA) as a race equality officer; one is a human rights activist working to help asylum seekers in Europe. They are all continuing their careers. For graduates just starting out, they could go into journalism, health, probation, trade unions, personnel, human resources etc. There are a lot of jobs at the moment concerned with diversity.
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| Is the student population of Middlesex University very diverse? |
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Very: 52 percent of our home students are from ethnic minority communities. I think Middlesex University is very grounded and vocational in the way its courses are constructed which attracts these ambitious and realistic students. Also, because we are in north London, we are in one of the most diverse areas in the world, I think there are something like 192 different languages spoken in this area so we pick up students from these global backgrounds.
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What is it like for you being a black professor? |
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Well, there aren't very many of us around! I think at the last count there were four or five in the social sciences, humanities or arts fields that I know of. And we all feel that we have a lot to live up to. We are very much on view and sit on a lot of panels and committees as well as do our work, so more is expected of us. But it's a privilege and quite exciting at the same time. You often walk into a room and it's full of white men in suits and they are shocked to see you there. It takes them time to get used to you, but then after a while, they realise you have what it takes upstairs.
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| Do you think the government's race policies are effective? |
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| I have mixed feelings about its new legislation I don't think it's all it's cracked up to be. If you felt you were being discriminated against by an organisation you would have to take an individual case out and then see that through for five years to get your justice done. That's a lot to ask of someone. On the other hand, one part of it ensures that institutions have policies in place to assess the progress of various ethnic groups. So the legislation is important to have in place. But a lot of racism is about subjectivity and what people think of you and legislation can't change this. If someone doesn't give you a job because of your name what can be done about that? These are issues that still need to be tackled. |
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