Like so many thousands of other young people of her generation, Rosalind Howells, who has died aged 94, left the Caribbean in 1951 with her head and heart filled with plans and dreams and intent upon her own hopes of a future possible professional career as a lawyer in Britain. Having arrived in London and recognised the grim everyday realities of inequality and discrimination that faced black people, she dedicated the rest of her life to doing something about it.
She spent nearly half a century in south London working to improve the housing, education, health services and lifestyle of her community and then, on official “retirement”, went to the House of Lords in 1999. Tthe next 20 years she spent expounding her demands for equality to a wider audience, at Westminster and on international platforms in China, the Middle East and the US, seeking still to transform society and open the doors for others.
