Negotiating race and religion in the West Midlands: narratives of inclusion and exclusion during the 1967–69 Wolverhampton bus workers’ turban dispute

Kassimeris, George and Jackson, Leonie (2017) Negotiating race and religion in the West Midlands: narratives of inclusion and exclusion during the 1967–69 Wolverhampton bus workers’ turban dispute. Contemporary British History, 31 (3). pp. 343-365. ISSN 1361-9462

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Abstract

This article considers the 1967–1969 Wolverhampton Transport turban dispute in the context of increased anxiety over immigration to the area and Wolverhampton South West MP Enoch Powell’s April 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. We trace the narratives of the dispute through letters to the Editor in local newspaper The Express & Star, and argue that the letters column was a site of community construction for writers and readers, which elevated the issue from a trivial industrial dispute to a symbol around which the deep anxieties of race and nation coalesced.

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