Voices of Windrush

Please join us for #VoWFest 2023, featuring 6 weeks of events and celebrations to mark #Windrush75 and to honour those who came to be known as the Windrush generation. #voicesofwindrush #pleaseshare Please click link for tickets: vowfest.eventbrite.com

Complicity in State Betrayal @AskProfGusJohn / askprofjohn@gmail.com If you do not elect to be part of the solution, you are implicitly consenting to be part of the problem. Download drive.google.com/file/d/1wh4NyR…

60 Years Of Struggle: Civil Rights..... and Caribbean In Crisis Film Screening Link drive.google.com/file/d/1HDP61_… Saturday 11 April 2026 2.30pm – 6.30pm Grove House 27 Hammersmith Grove London W6 0NE Queries: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk

Lambeth Council does not appear to be on X but if anyone at the council reads this, please act. I have been trying to secure an appointment for a citizenship ceremony since the 19th Feb. The applicant is elderly, unwell & desperately in need of a British passport to make what he calls a last journey. For various reasons he cannot get a passport from his country of birth. If you have a responsibility for this stage in the citizenship process, you should be able to fulfil your obligations. It's a mandatory step that must be satisfied within 3 months of the grant. Not only are there no appointments, you have not responded to a single email to an address you advertise. #LambethCouncil #HomeOffice

I am thankful to the Voice Newspaper's Richard Sudan for this feature in March's edition focusing on women for #InternationalWomensDay2026. Today my thoughts are with women being bombed by evil men, victims of male abuse & violence, & all those who continue to face inequality.

Rev Jesse Jackson, veteran civil rights campaigner and two-time Presidential candidate, dies at 84 Family says he died peacefully surrounded by loved ones as tributes pour in for a movement giant who ‘mobilised millions’ Rest in Power ✊🏾 Read more here➡️voice-online.co.uk/news/world-new…

Windrush Listening and Engagement with Windrush Commissioner & Home Office: Birmingham. Now in progess

Windrush Cricket by Michael Collins | @TheTLS Book review the-tls.com/culture/sport/…

Really saddened to learn of the death of Eric Huntley, doyen of Black publishing and politcal activism in the UK. With his wife Jessica Huntley, who prdeceased him in 2013, they set up Bogle L'Overture book publishing in the late 1960s, enabling many Black writers to get into print, including Walter Rodney and Bernard Coard, ran a bookshop and helped set up the first International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books in 1981. Eric and Jessica Huntley arrived in the UK from Guyana in the 1950’s and there's was a life long commitment to struggle through activism, protests and by setting up practical projects including, supplementary schools, the Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association and the Black Parents Movement; they were also instrumental in a campaign to challenge Haringey Council’s plans to assess pupils using the now discredited IQ tests to establish teaching bands, and there was hardly a march or meeting following the US invasion of Grenada that they weren't present at. In 2005 the Huntleys gave their archives to the London Metropolitan Archives, managed by Friends of the Huntley Archives. Below are photos I took at their 60th wedding anniversary in 2010 and a beautiful black and white one from stock photography, widely in circulation today. It'll be hard to forget Eric. He was 95 and still attending activities and meetings. May he now rest peacefully whilst future generations benefit from a stoic and important collection of works he leaves behind.

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the New Cross Fire (18 January 1981), in which 13 young Black people at a birthday party perished in a fire - a 14th, Anthony, took his own life 2 years later reportedly due to psychological trauma. I returned to live in the UK the November of that year and the fire, deaths, and reports of police inertia in their investigation were uppermost in the minds of the Black community. Protests were still happening and this tagedy, more than any other, served as an early and pivotal education of the experience and condition of Black people in Britain. Years later I got to know Charlie Collins whose son Steve was one of the 13 victims. Getting justice for his son, not achieved in his lifetime, overwhelmed him. The late Dr Aggrey Burke, eminent psychiatrist who will be buried on Wednesday, explained how the fire and state reaction to it, not only impacted the lives of those directly effected, but the wider community who came to further understand inequality in treatment and that justice would evade them. How the fire started remains a mystery. Some still suspect a racist arson attack, possibly by the far-right National Front, who were active in the area at the time. Two inquests returned an open verdict. A later forensic report suggested the fire started inside the house. I don't know the answer to what started the fire but the police investigation was widely seen to have been influenced by institutional racism. Since then, there have been numerous examples of this, not least the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The indifference of the police and state led to the Black People’s Day of Action in March 1981, where 20,000 people marched through London under the slogan "13 Dead, Nothing Said". #NewCrossFire

Every immigration minister & Home Secretary, since Amber Rudd, has promised to right the wrongs flowing from the Windrush Scandal which came into the public domain late 2017. Here we go again in 2026, more than 8 years on ...! Faster decisions and resolution of the outstanding issues around pensions is all a very good thing. Campaigners and lawyers have been making these demands since the outset, and reform has been promised for at least the past 5 years. But as a practioner in this space, the most important things right now are to get the decisions right - far too many go from nil and low figures to over 6 figures after a review, and these reviews can take 2/3 years. Secondly, claimants must be treated with respect and dignity. If a claimant is represented, deal with the representative and stop trying to confuse a mainly elderly cohort of victims with emails and letters that they should not have to deal with.

If the Home Office's Windrush Team are going to speed things up (and they've said this several times over several years - the scandal came to light in 2018) and deal with the issues that have long plagued the scheme, including occupational pensions and contributions for state pensions, this is a good outcome following years of campaigners and lawyers making these demands. That it's taken so long defines the way the cohort of Windrush victims are perceived. But for me, the most problematic issues concerning the scheme are the erroneous decisions, including the number of nil offers which are clearly wrong, and the number of low offers which are eventually increased but only after several reviews, sometimes taking 2 years. There is no point making quicker decisions which are wrong. Take your time, bring in qualified caseworkers and get the decision making right. And the bureaucracy!!! Agreeing that some claimants need medico legal reports and agreeing to pay for these is a good thing. Demanding three quotes from providers beforehand is unnecessary. #WindrushScandal

The Windrush Compensation Scheme is exhausting, years stuck in a scandal caused by the Home Office, to then get stuck in a hostile compensation scheme (run by the Home Office) which is offering nothing or very little is not justice.

PM Keir Starmer seems unable to say whether kidnapping a country's president & his wife, invading a sovereign country, bombing civilians, killing fishermen in boats, & declaring that a foreign government will take over the running of a state, is a violation of international law.

#AfricanOdysseys #Film Screening (with guests):  THE BLACK PEOPLE'S DAY OF ACTION Saturday 28 February 2026 2.30pm - 5.30pm University of London (Malet Street) Email: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk Tickets drive.google.com/file/d/1UZHsQw…

✨ Happy New Year✨ Grab your copy of the January 2026 issue of The Voice Newspaper 📰 Inside this month’s issue: ▶ £100m Windrush-linked money unclaimed – Families urged to check old paperwork as millions in unclaimed Premium Bonds remain untouched. Report by @S_Fleary1 ▶ Justice system under fire – David Lammy faces an MP rebellion over plans to scrap jury trials, with critics warning of deeper racial injustice. Report by @richardsudan ▶ In his own words – Windrush Commissioner Rev. Clive Foster explains why he’s in a hurry to deliver justice for families nationwide. Plus much you don’t want to miss! 🔗 Link in bio! #britainsonlyblacknewspaper #voicenewspaper #communityfirst #januaryissue

The Windrush scandal continues with the compensation scheme

We go into 2026 with the same hostile compensation scheme, run by the department that caused the windrush scandal. We still have no inquiry, no legal support and over 60% of victims are refused compensation.

#AskProfGusJohn  I was very sad yesterday when I received news of Dr. Aggrey's passing. In solidarity and strength! #Dr_Aggrey_Burke Download drive.google.com/file/d/1VF671g…

Hmm, did relocation to UK actually trap people?😇😇😇

Dr Aggrey Burke FRCPsych, a renowned psychiatrist and academic, and someone I was pleased to call a friend, has died at the age of 82 - he was the UK's first Black consultant psychiatrist. Dr Burke specialised in examining the impact racism and deprivation had on mental health, challenged discriminatory practices in admitting students to medical school, served as a counsellor to the bereaved families of the New Cross fire, researched the serious harm inflicted on people with mental health diagnoses wrongly deported from the UK, particularly those sent to Jamaica's Bellevue Hospital, and until recently, was assisting me on understanding the mental harm caused by the Windrush Scandal. From Professor Gus John, we learn not only of Dr Burke's medical work, but also of his activism as a member of the George Padmore Institute, Alliance of the Black Parents Movement, the Black Youth Movement, New Beacon Books, Race Today Collective, and of his involvement in the Saturday school movement. Dr Burke provided me with much insight into how racism, including in immigration policies, law and practice, caused serious harm to communities. In the photo below, he presented his thoughts on this to the Voices of Windrush Festival in 2023. Rest peacefully Sir. We will try to honour your work, and your legacy. #DrAggreyBurke #WindrushScandal #Blackpsychiatry