Southall: symbol of resistance

Jasbinder Nijjar will be speaking at this month's Sociology and Communications seminar series. See his abstract below.

Twenty-third April 2019 marked forty years since the murder of Blair Peach, who was a teacher and anti-racist activist killed by police in Southall, west London while protesting against the far Right’s attack on the town. In the spirit of what Howard Zinn called ‘radical history’, this paper recalls the violent events in Southall four decades ago, with a view to discussing their significance for anti-racist practice today and their roots in colonial occupation.

Jas Nijjar is a third-generation Southall resident, and a PhD student at Brunel University London (examining the relationship between institutional racism and the militarisation of policing). He also works with leading anti-racist charities such as the Monitoring Group and Institute of Race Relations, and has written for journals including Race & Class, Popular Communication and Social Justice.