Brixton's Boiling Pot of Anger

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how in April of 1981, the tension between the police and Afro-Caribbean youths living in Inner London exploded in the Brixton Riots. It examines how the riots were the culmination of many factors that had ravaged the community in Brixton including unemployment, poverty and police harassment. It evaluates the then two-year old Conservative government, which had been wrestling already with a major economic downturn the Winter of Discontent in 1979 and the transition from an industrial economy to a post-industrial economy. It covers the main events during the riots and the post effect on other London ethnic minority groups.

From the Paper:

"Beginning in 1975, Britain had seen its general unemployment rise steadily. By 1979, workers in many sectors, including sanitation and transport were striking. The winter of 1978-1979 was called The Winter of Discontent as thousands of people were put out of work and thousands more were striking in a nearly general strike in protest of wage restraint. Bodies were piling up at the morgue, garbage bags on the streets, and the feeling of the working class and poor was growing more and more hostile. Although inflation had stabilized by 1979 unemployment remained stubbornly high, hovering at more than 7%."

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