The most significant European civil rights activist to me in some respects is Paul Stephenson who is known for his willingness to protest in Bristol in the 1960's over what may have appeared to some as less than critical issues - employment within public transport companies. Significant he may be but he at present doesn't have a page on wikipedia. In some respects protesting over public transport could be viewed in a multitude of ways including eco-protest. It may be necessary to revisit the activism of the late 60s and review the impact of the protests in terms of environmentalism one day.
There could be a number of reasons that there are separations between ethnic activism and the interests that need to challenged. There could have been reason for ensuring the activism of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther-King and Paul Stephenson was clearly geared towards the rights of ethnic groups in relation to public transport however there may be strong reason to re-examine the impacts of this area of protest politics. Maybe there is scope in the future for a black/ethnic civil rights and eco-protest as part of the same movement - it may be a way of reviving necessary debates for cultural stability in the UK.
Have black protest politics been made to appear self interested and solely concerned with the issue of injustice connected to the financial and moral deal that slavery invoked? Were levels of black protest politics written out of the history of black activism to portray black activists as overly concerned with very few self interested issues? Maybe it's meant to be, implicitly at least, that plans seem to be in place that India is a birthplace of spirituality with several major religions having an Indian origin, that Europe was going to be the home of 'invention' with the development of a great many modern products having a European origin, that Africa is somehow deemed to be the birthplace of life itself with Eve theories regarding the evolution of human life being possibly African in origin. Has the African continent been offered a meagre deal in terms of the cutural status that is offered to it's people?
There could be reason to examine the feasibility of eco-politics and the potential to be part of the process of broader improvement in quality of life that takes place in the west with awareness of the range of negative impacts that could also be taking place - is there a means to review ethnic activism and draw out elements of history that may otherwise be ignored?
There may also be need to examine the role that has been played in the West of non-American civil rights activists and for a European civil rights activist agenda to be considered - has this been reviewed adequately and is there a movement that may not be receiving adequate publicity in mainstream or marginalised literature?
Of all the issues that were linked to the business of slave trading, there is perhaps valid concern in the reparation movement, and reason to assess if those whose lives have been almost irreparably fractured and divided from African culture and then used within Western economies to the benefit of their owners. There have been perhaps three major injustices against the black population who have emigrated from the West Indies to the UK – the first being the enslavement of their forefathers, the second being the racism and the general rejection and hostility that they endured upon arrival in the UK and the third being the bad acting of the de Freitas family on Eastenders in the early 1990’s. There are reparations that are owed for the profits of slavery that maybe will be paid back to the black population. There are also possibly going to be some forms of adjustment to the treatment of the black population that could also be offered to black population in relation to the maltreatment upon arrival in the UK. Finally, there could also be some form of reparation for the portrayal of the black population as the worst actors of all time on Eastenders in the de Freitas family. This is really the most severe of manipulations of black culture and possibly worse than the Black and White Minstrel show. Perhaps one day the BBC will recognise the role they have played in denigrating black culture. What does the BBC owe the black population – are they a collective of the descendents of former slave masters as has been speculated before?
