Context
The end of World War II had seen a marked increase in Caribbean migrants to Britain. By the 1950s, white working-class "Teddy Boys" were beginning to display hostility towards the black families in the area, a situation exploited and inflamed by groups such as Sir Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and other far-right groups such as the White Defence League, who urged disaffected white residents to "Keep Britain White".
There was an increase in violent attacks on black people through summer. For instance, 24 August, a group of ten white youths committed a series of serious assaults on six West Indian men in four separate incidents. At 5.40am, their car was spotted by two police officers who pursued them into the White City estate, where the gang abandoned the car. Using the car as a lead, investigating detectives arrested nine of the gang the next day after working non-stop for 20 hours.
Just prior to the Notting Hill riots, there was racial unrest in Nottingham, which began on Saturday, 23 August and went on intermittently for two weeks.
Read more about this topic: 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)