In 1964 it was still legal in the UK to refuse service on the basis of someone’s skin colour. Signs saying “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” were commonplace in pubs and the windows of boarding houses, creating a hostile environment for Black people. The civil rights activist Paul Stephenson, who has died aged 87, played a key role in events that led to the Race Relations Act of 1965 and the outlawing of racial discrimination in Britain.
He was the first Black youth worker in Bristol when, in 1963, members of the community decided to challenge the “colour bar” of the Bristol Omnibus Company. The bus company would hire Black and Asian workers only as cleaners, and not in the more lucrative roles of drivers and conductors – a policy backed by the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) despite a reported labour shortage.
Out of the five main organisers of the action – including Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown – Stephenson was the only native Briton, and he used his English accent to good effect.
He called the bus company to ask if they had any vacancies, and they, assuming from his voice that he was not one of the dark-skinned immigrants, invited him to send the young man he had recommended for one of the plentiful jobs. When they saw the face of Guy Reid-Bailey, a recent migrant from Jamaica, they promptly informed him that there were no vacancies.
The ensuing boycott lasted for four months, and included blocking the buses from moving freely through the city centre. Stephenson was the protesters’ spokesman and won an important legal battle, suing Ron Nethercott, the regional secretary of the TGWU, after Nethercott had called him “irresponsible and dishonest” in the Daily Herald. Stephenson was awarded £500 in damages.
The Black community, with support from university students and the local MP, Tony Benn, eventually forced the Bristol Omnibus Company to lift the colour bar. In an overlap with the struggle across the Atlantic, the bus company made the announcement the same day – 28 August – as Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech at the March on Washington.
Not satisfied with that victory, in 1964 Stephenson staged a one-man sit-in at the Bay Horse pub in Bristol, which was notorious for refusing service to people of colour. Stephenson was initially served by a barman, but when the landlord spotted him, he was told to leave. When he refused, the police were called. Eight officers escorted him from the pub to the police cells for failing to leave a licensed premises. However, following the bus boycott Stephenson was a high-profile figure, and his arrest made national news. He not only beat the charges in court, but later won a defamation case against the pub and the Daily Express. The new Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, sent him a telegram promising to outlaw racial discrimination. Benn, who had been active in the boycott and was close to Stephenson, was a member of the Wilson government that introduced the Race Relations Act in 1965.
Paul’s birth in Rochford, Essex, before the outbreak of the second world war, serves as a reminder that there were Black people in England long before the Windrush landed in 1948. His father, from whom he was estranged, was west African, and his mother, Olive Stephenson, of west African and white British descent.
At three years old he was evacuated to a children’s home at Great Dunmow, in the Essex countryside. Paul ended up spending seven years at the home, and grew so attached to country living that he wept when he had to leave.
He attended Forest Gate secondary school in east London until, aged 16, he joined the RAF as a cadet, serving until 1960. He then did a diploma in sociology and community development at Westhill College, Birmingham, before moving to Bristol in 1962.
Following his civil rights actions, Stephenson lost his job in Bristol, but he was in demand for roles created by the Race Relations Act, and was also invited on a tour of the US by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
In 1968 he moved to Coventry as a senior community relations officer, then in 1972 joined what became Commission for Racial Equality in London. During this time he met and befriended Muhammad Ali, with whom he founded the Muhammad Ali Sports Development Association to open up sports opportunities for inner-city communities in the UK. In 1975 he was appointed to the Sports Council, where he campaigned against playing sport with apartheid South Africa.
Returning to Bristol in 1992, Stephenson played an active role in attempts to get the city to publicly acknowledge its involvement in slavery, and later worked with Unesco over the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade.
Stephenson was granted the freedom of the city of Bristol in 2008, made OBE the following year, and given a Pride of Britain award in 2017.
He pointedly called his 2011 autobiography Memoirs of a Black Englishman, to remind everyone that he was no foreigner in the country.
He met his wife, Joyce (nee Annakie), a psychiatric nurse, in 1965, when he knocked on her door to ask her to sign a petition to improve housing in Bristol, and they married later that year. They had two children, Funmi and Paul Jr, and fostered eight more.
In later life he had Parkinson’s and dementia, but his spirit remained undimmed. He died just after the end of the Black History Month themed around “reclaiming narratives”. A common refrain throughout the month is that we need to recover more of the history of Black people in Britain, rather than relying on American figures. A start would be to recognise Stephenson and those of his generation who fought so hard against racism in the UK.
Joyce died in 2019. He is survived by his children.
• Paul Stephenson, civil rights campaigner and official, born 6 May 1937; died 2 November 2024
