The annual Notting Hill Carnival has become a cultural institution, attracting up to two million attendees and 40,000 volunteers every year. The history of Notting Hill Carnival represents the resilience and cultural diversity of the migrant communities of London, and the wider history of North Kensington.
The Carnival has its origins in the social and political struggles of post-war migration. Following the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush in June 1948, more than 300,000 people from the Caribbean settled in Britain. Although many of those arriving looked for work in the nearest Labour Exchange in Brixton, having been initially housed in Clapham South air raid shelter, North Kensington became a centre of Black British communities.
However, during this period, Notting Hill was also a stronghold for Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement, a far-right movement which galvanized the local white working-class population to “Keep Britain White”. Caribbean migrants found it difficult to find accommodation as ads for rooms often read “no blacks accepted,” and so they were forced to move into overpriced and sub-standard housing. This racism extended into all aspects of life and denied many access to the services and support given to the white people who were also of British citizenship.
Violence against Black communities reached its peak in 1958, when for four nights in August gangs of Teddy Boys terrorised Caribbean and West Indian communities around Blenheim Crescent. Families blockaded themselves inside the house at No. 9, but many were hospitalized after the chaos. A few months later, a group of white men stabbed Antiguan-born Kelso Cochrane on Golborne Road.
In response to these attacks and increasing tensions, Trinidadian-born activist and founder of the West Indian Gazette newspaper, Claudia Jones, organised a Caribbean Carnival in St. Pancras Town Hall on 30th January 1959. Jones’ Carnival was envisioned as a way of showing solidarity and strength within the growing Caribbean communities and to soothe the ongoing tensions.
The same year Amy Ashwood Garvey established the Afro-Asia Centre at her house on Bassett Road. It was used as a social centre, advice agency, and hostel for Black migrants. It was here also that Garvey established the Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (AACP). A Trinidadian restaurant, ‘Totbag's Restaurant’ on Blenheim Crescent, that was popular with West Indians became a headquarters for the fight-back against white rioters. Those leading included Michael de Freitas, Alfred Harvey and Baron Baker.
Restaurants became a safe space for North Kensington’s migrant communities with Oscar Ford and Clem Byfield opening the West Indian restaurant ‘Fiesta One’ on Westbourne Park Road in 1960, and Frank Critchlow opening Rio café at 127 Westbourne Park Road.
In 1966, community activists Rhaune Laslett and Andre Shervington organised a street festival with the aim of entertaining local children as well as attempting to ease ongoing tensions. To encourage the local Caribbean community to participate, the well-known Trinidadian musician Russell Henderson agreed to participate and transformed the festival into a carnival through the introduction of a procession and the use of the steel pan. This event marked the beginning of Notting Hill Carnival. By 1974, 100,000 people and a dozen bands participated and in 1975 static sound systems were introduced adding Jamaican reggae, dub and ska music to the traditional calypso and soca.
In response to ongoing police brutality in the area, particularly in the wake of the Notting Hill Carnival confrontation in the summer of 1976 and the mass arrests that followed it, the Black Defence Committee housed at 5 Acklam Road formed in September. It brought together activists from across London.
In the 1970s, All Saints Road was the location of the ‘Mangrove’, a local restaurant that was raided by police several times. When a group from the Black community held a protest against the excessive raids, they found themselves arrested and facing inflated charges. The case, which was widely reported on in the British media, was dismissed, but the group — who became “the Mangrove Nine” — was arrested and charged again. When the judge threw the case out a second time, it was clear the Black communities of Notting Hill had won a battle against institutional racism.
North Kensington has been home to many revolutionary groups and institutions. Roy Sawh, the Guyanese Indian Black Power leader, established the Free University of Black Studies in 1968 and were initially housed in Pembridge Gardens, Notting Hill. The Unity Association was a self-help organisation which housed homeless black youths at two residences in Latimer Road and Ladbroke Grove (90-92 Lancaster Road), using properties donated by the Notting Hill Housing Trust. Shepherd's Bush Market was another important location. Starting at the Goldhawk Road end, there were many shops and stalls for or run by West Indians, including Dein's, Bush Stores, and Music Land.
Today, despite political pressures and the gentrification of the area, Notting Hill Carnival has grown and thrived and represents a space for community cohesion.