commentaries
45 YEARS ON: REMEMBERING THE STRIKE AT IMPERIAL TYPEWRITERS
Here writers and activists discuss topics ranging from political life in the 1970s to stereotypes of black and Asian workers as well as the rise of the far-right then and now. We have a chance to gain a broader understanding of the strike, weaving together themes of race, gender, and workers’ rights.
Their reflections stand alongside our oral history interviewees and help us reclaim this forgotten Leicester story of resistance. Learning about the strike at Imperial Typewriters can help inspire individual and collective action in these troubled times.
Commentaries featuring: Amrit Wilson, Professor Emerita Avtar Brah, Dr Carlton Howson, Sujata Aurora, Tariq Ali and Yuri Prasad.
“POLITICALLY BLACK”
“STRIKE LEGACY”
“THEN AND NOW”
writers & activists
Amrit Wilson is a renowned activist and writer on issues of gender and race. Her books on South Asian women in Britain include the ‘Finding a Voice – Asian women in Britain’ (1978) and ‘Dreams Questions and Struggles –South Asian women in Britain’ (2006).
She is a founder member of the South Asia Solidarity Group, and board member of Imkaan, a Black, South Asian and minority ethnic women’s organisation dedicated to combating violence against women in Britain.
Avtar Brah is Professor Emerita at Birkbeck College. She writes on issues of race, gender, class, and diaspora studies. She is the author of Cartographies of Diaspora/ Contesting identities. Her most recent articles include ‘Multiple Axis of Power: articulations of diaspora and intersectionality’ in Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader (2018) and ‘Borders, Boundaries and the Question of Commonality and Connectivity’ in Beyond Borders and Boundaries (2018). She is from Uganda.
Carlton Howson grew up in the Spinney Hill area of Leicester and now teaches at De Montfort University where he developed a Black Perspectives module. He has had many roles such as Chair of School Learning and Teaching Group, developing and disseminating innovative practices in learning and teaching.
He is a member of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre Steering Group and has over thirty years of experience in challenging injustice and inequality working with groups such as the Imani Ujima Centre, Highfields Workshop Centre, Belgrave Asian Youth Project, One Voice, Self Help Neighborhood Project.
Sujata Aurora was chair of the Grunwick 40 steering group (2016-2018), which commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the Grunwick strike. She has been active in anti-racist movements for 30 years, both nationally and within her local community in North West London.
Tariq Ali is a British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He has been a leading figure of the international left since the 1960s. His recent publications include The Obama Syndrome (2010) and The Extreme Centre: A Warning (2015).
Tariq visited Leicester a couple of times in 1974 to speak to Imperial Typewriter strikers and to bring awareness of their cause.
Yuri Prasad writes for the Socialist Worker newspaper. His research into Asian workers strikes across the 1960s and 1970s culminated in the article, ‘Here to Stay, Here to Fight: How Asians Transformed the British Working Class’ (2016) which was published in the International Socialism journal.
He also contributed to Say It Loud: Marxism and the Fight Against Racism (2013). Yuri is author of A Rebel’s Guide to Martin Luther King (2018). He is advisor on the Strike at Imperial Typewriters project.
