The final journey of one of Bristol’s most important figures of the past 70 years - Roy Hackett - will begin this morning (Fri, Sept 16) as he is laid to rest. And after a lifetime of community work, activism and mentoring generations of younger Bristolians, the 93-year-old’s final journey will take in a place he will be forever associated with - the city’s bus station.
The funeral cortege will travel from his home in St Werburghs, through St Pauls and to the Elim Church, where hundreds will gather. But there will be one important, poignant, detour.
When the cortege reaches Stokes Croft, instead of heading for the church on the appropriately named Jamaica Street, it will turn left and head for the city’s bus station. For it was there back almost 60 years ago, that Roy and a group of other young black Bristolians took a stand, and changed Britain forever.
Read more: Poignant detour to Bus Station for Bristol civil rights leader Roy Hackett's last journey
The bus station has been rebuilt since then, but it was in the spot between Marlborough Street and St James’ church back in the spring and summer of 1963, when Roy and his group of determined activists embarked on a journey that didn’t physically take them anywhere, but became what was effectively Britain’s own civil rights movement.
Now, 59 years after those challenging months, and after 59 years of continuing to dedicate his life to his community, young people and what was then known as ‘race relations’, Roy’s final journey will include a pause there to acknowledge the gravity of what he and the others did.
The key roads of Stokes Croft, the Bearpit and Marlborough Street in the city centre are expected to come to a standstill. The route and timings have been published to allow people the opportunity to line the route, and pay their respects.
In the past week Roy's passing, like many others, may feel overshadowed by the death of the Quuen but for Bristol this week, it will be an important final goodbye to one of the city’s legendary figures.
Roy was born in Jamaica in 1928 and arrived in Britain as one of the pioneers of what became known as the Windrush generation in 1952. A British citizen, he was invited over by the recruitment drives undertaken by the post-war British Governments, promising a welcome, a job, a good life.
He found the reality very different, and struggled to find anywhere he felt welcome, arriving in Liverpool, Birmingham and London before his first night in Bristol in 1956 saw him sleeping in a doorway, surrounded by the shockingly ubiquitous ‘no blacks, no dogs, no Irish’ signs on the boarding houses and lodgings.
But he did settle in Bristol, working as a builder for Robert McAlpine on sites in Wales, the early starts exacerbated by the long commutes. After a few years, he and others began setting up groups and committees to organise the growing number of Caribbean arrivals to Bristol, lobbying for better housing conditions, greater availability of jobs.
For years, firms big and small operated an unspoken ‘colour bar’, refusing to recruit black or Asian workers. None was more obvious or visible than the Bristol Bus Company, the corporation-run transport firm where bosses and union leaders conspired to make sure the drivers and ‘clippies’ were white men and women, and the only dark faces you’d see at the city’s bus station and depots, were the ones washing the buses each night.
Roy’s committee, with Paul Stephenson a well-spoken frontman, organised a boycott which ultimately won. From there, the hard work was to come, with trips to London to work on the legislation to make such discrimination on grounds of race or religion or gender illegal.
Back in Bristol, Roy continued to be an advocate for change, a community organiser and campaigner, playing a prominent part in the creation of what became the St Pauls Carnival - originally intended as a way to showcase Caribbean culture to bring black and white Bristolians together. The first one happened in torrential rain. The sun-kissed visions of white and black faces dancing in the streets to music are still the fundamental image of carnival today, albeit the music’s a bit louder in the 2020s.
With his passing another link to that post-war generation of change-makers is lost. The Bus Boycott and its place in modern British history seems to have been suppressed, with young people in classrooms in the UK more likely to learn about Martin Luther King and marches in Alabama than Roy Hackett and marches in Bristol.
Today’s Bristol activists are acting to change that, mentored and guided by Roy in his later years, from Aisha Thomas and her work on a One Bristol curriculum to Lawrence Hoo and the CARGO programme.
Education charity Facing History has also produced resources for schools. Its boss Beki Martin said Roy and his story should be known by everyone. “The Bristol Bus Boycott highlights how, against the odds, people can challenge injustice and oppressive social systems that deny them agency and power, and win,” she said. “Moreover, Hackett’s story can also help young people learn about strategies they can use to bring about change in the world around them,” she added.
Roy Hackett lived a long life, and the Bus Boycott was just half a year out of his 93. Generations of people in St Pauls, Easton and across Bristol have their own memories, experiences and relationships with Roy, whose life globally might be defined by the bus boycott, but in Bristol was much more than that.
“I will miss his warm smile, quick wit and charm as well as his deep and lasting commitment to the people of Bristol,” said his MP, Thangam Debbonaire. “He was an inspiration to so many and taught us all so much about standing up for justice and equality.”
He was, along with a tight group of leaders in St Pauls, a stalwart of community work, and by the turn of the century and into the present day already ‘a living legend’, said deputy mayor Asher Craig.
“Roy was already a living legend so his legacy, is already documented but there is so much more to this great man than what we hear about him in the media or in books,” she said.
“Roy was a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, friend, and colleague who continued to fight against racism and inequality until his passing. Many of us will continue his work and many young people will be inspired by Roy’s story and will pick up the mantle as we continue to strive towards the elimination of racial discrimination in both this City and around the world,” she added.
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