Badge - Rock Against Racism

Rock against Racism was a campaign set up in 1976 as a response to the increase in racial conflict and the growth of right-wing nationalist groups such as the National Front. The campaign involved musicians staging concerts with an anti-racist theme. The first concert was in Victoria Park on 30 April 1978. 100,000 people marched six miles from Trafalgar Square, through Hackney to an open-air music festival in Victoria Park.

Shared by Ian Rathbone, Hackney activist

"Rock Against Racism was really good because it was about raising awareness of issues that we were seeing on the ground. I was working for two Bangladeshi organisations based in Brick Lane, and people were having fire pushed through their letterboxes. Young teenagers were being attacked. I mean one kid, we took a photo of his back, he was slashed from his shoulder, his neck. They had stuck a knife in and they'd slashed it right to his bum, just like a big slashing scar.

We used to run vigilante patrols on some estates at night (I mean, what we would have done if we'd actually been confronted by some great big Burly skinnies I don't know). But because we were there they didn't attack, because they attacked women on their way home, attacked kids… All kinds of stuff was going on. It wasn't very nice.

Rock Against Racism and other other things as well helped to highlight, maybe not all the details, but it was kind of like you're saying to the police and others who weren't taking any action (I don't know how many times I stood outside Hackney nick, and Bethnal Green nick, just protesting and saying you're not taking action! Look at this flat that was burnt out, why are you not finding out who did it?)

Rock Against Racism and other kind of public events like that helped to remind the authorities that, no, this wasn't some secret little thing going on in the background, that we were only just like minor little people. That it was a public thing, and it was being said again, and again, and again, and again, and again, year on year on year on and so on. That's how you achieve change."

Metal

Plastics