1960s: The Social and Political Background - Entering the Wilderness (Part 6)

Extract from Caribbean Britain: The Cultural and Biographical Directory

by Marjorie H Morgan © 2013

Section 1

1960 – 1969

Entering the Wilderness

1960s –British Caribbean Artists: The Black Cultural Presence in Britain

Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage in the Caribbean had long been an area of contention and at the beginning of the 20^th century Leonard Percival Howell, a Jamaican who was vehemently against oppression and hatred, began to preach about the dignity of the black man and his culture and the plan for black people to journey back to Africa. This religion became known as Rastafarianism. It is a spiritual philosophy that believes that all Africans that have migrated are exiles in ‘Babylon’ and are destined to be delivered from captivity to ‘Zion’ or Africa. It was in the 1960s and 70s that Britain’s disaffected young black people began to find solace in the music of Reggae and the teachings of Rastafarianism when they were increasingly alienated from the society that they were born into and lived. Feeling outcast they embraced Rastafarianism as a symbol of history and identity and in so doing they became an outcast group in British society.

In America the Black Arts Movement was the artistic branch of the Black Power Movement; in Britain the Caribbean artists were continuing the tradition of using the creative arts to break down cultural barriers – they performed to majority white audiences. Black Caribbean artists did not immediately gain recognition as positive public figures in the British Caribbean community. Images portrayed were initially a power struggle as the actors could not choose or write their own realistically representative roles. Arts were a medium through which Caribbean artists could express their own aesthetics and promote their own racial imagery which was often a statement of cultural hybridity.

Samuel Selvon, John LaRose and Andrew Salkey

 - founders of the Caribbean Artists Movement.

The Caribbean Artists Movement that was established in Britain in 1966 used visual and cultural influences to develop the Caribbean British arts scene. This pioneering movement, had similarities with the Black Arts Movement in the USA.

Black Caribbean artists at work in Britain in the 1960s include visual Guyanese artists Frank Bowling, Aubrey Williams and David Locke. Other artists, including intellectuals and writers, from the Caribbean felt the need to travel to the ‘mother of their troubles’ to fulfil their artistic ambitions. This need to migrate was described poignantly by George Lamming in his 1960 book, Pleasures of Exile. Paul Dash, from Barbados, and Errol Lloyd, from Jamaica, were two other artists who were involved with the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) in the 1960s. The members of the CAM were determined to launch bookstores and publishing houses that were concerned with the whole range of political and artistic issues of identity that were growing exponentially in the 1960s. From this central connection several publishing ventures arose: New Beacon Books, Bogle L’Ouverture, and the Race Today Publications are few that were established in the late 1960s and early 1970s that were involved with both the promotion of new writing and the republication of classics.

A Man from the Sun

(Error John, Cy Grant, Colin Douglas)

The years immediately prior to 1960 saw a growth in the black representations in the arts and the entertainment areas within British culture. 1956 had seen the appearance of distinctive black British theatre and the establishment of the Edric Connor Agency which represented black artists in television, theatre and radio.  Additionally the BBC aired John Elliott’s television drama about immigrants from the Caribbean, A Man from the Sun, and Errol John wrote Moon on a Rainbow Shawl.  The Dark Man, a television drama staring Earl Cameron, was shown in 1960; this production explored the prejudices and reactions that the West Indian cab driver (The Dark Man), faced at work. This was the start of the growth of a succession of plays by black writers, and performances, on stage and on television, for black actors. This growing artistic movement continued its progress into the 1960s. The black music industry was also expanding within Britain. Several clubs supported the increasingly popular jazz music as an anti-establishment subversive youth genre. Jazz was seen as a race-less and classless style of musical expression.

Caribbean style and flair was frequently expressed in the arena of sport. Cricket was a particularly popular West Indian pastime. It was a Caribbean reaction to the separatism of leisure activities that led to the creation of many local West Indian Cricket teams and social clubs throughout the country.

Previous Part - Black Power

Part 1 - Caribbean Migration

Part 2 - Immigration Controls (UK and USA)

Part 3 - Discrimination and 'Race' Relations

Part 4 - Notting Hill Carnival and Black Consciousness

(References available on request)