Celebrating Impact: Paul Stephenson

November 2018 was a red letter month for me. To my surprise, I was being given a lifetime achievement award for my work by Diversity UK, but it seemed that I had to work for that honour by presenting a lecture to celebrate a remarkable activist for race relations, and I could hardly believe whom I was celebrating: it was Paul Stephenson, the man who had fearlessly challenged, and ultimately changed, a segregated employment policy in Bristol. I couldn't have felt more humbled and honoured to contribute to such an occasion, never mind my own achievement. It all seemed so surreal.

A British civil rights activist, community worker, and author, Stephenson is best known for his role in the Bristol Bus Boycott which led to the desegregation of the city's bus service. He also led a one-man sit-in at a pub a year later, protesting against racial discrimination in public places. He had refused to leave a pub until he was served. He was arrested and charged with "failing to leave a licensed premises", but the case was eventually dismissed. His one-man sit-in helped to raise awareness of the degree of open racial discrimination in public places.

Stephenson was born in Rochford, Essex, in 1937, to a West African father and a mixed-heritage mother. During World War II, he was evacuated to a care home in the Essex countryside where he stayed for seven years. After the war, he moved to Bristol, where he worked as a social, and youth, worker.

The boycott began in 1963 as a protest against the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian drivers or conductors. It was based on the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956, and marked the start of a lifetime of campaigning by Stephenson. In fact, the company's general manager at the time, Ian Patey, had strongly defended the policy, declaring that his staff "was unwilling to work alongside people of other races". Supported by thousands of Bristolians, the boycott lasted 60 days and eventually led to the company lifting its colour bar on 28th August 1963 – surprisingly, the same day Martin Luther King delivered his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech in America! Patey declared a change in the bus company’s policy 'with immediate effect', noting that complete integration of Bristol’s bus crews would be allowed. The pioneering campaigners had triumphed.

About a month later, on 17th September, Sikh graduate Raghbir Singh became the city’s first visible minority bus conductor, initiating the gradual integration that followed. The Bristol Bus Boycott paved the way for the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968, which banned discrimination in employment, housing, and public places. In fact, the 1965 legislation was the first to address racial discrimination in the UK and probably wouldn't have been created if it weren't for the bus boycott.

Stephenson has continued to campaign for civil rights and community relations throughout his life. He was regarded as a trouble maker because he challenged racist practices in all aspects of life and strove to bring together Black and White communities across the world, yet he succeeded beyond expectations. A founder member of the Bristol Black Archives Project, he has served on the boards of many other organisations. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009 for his services to equal opportunities and community relations, and was also given the Freedom of the City of Bristol.

In 2020, Stephenson's, Memoirs of a Black Englishman was published, giving a powerful and moving account of his life and work as a civil rights activist. In the foreword to the book, Labour icon, Tony Benn (the MP for Bristol at the time), wrote: "Paul Stephenson's life....offers living proof that history is made by the people who make the effort. It also shows that the initial hostility that they provoke is replaced by respect and goodwill if the effort continues for long enough."

Paul Stephenson is a true pioneer of the British civil rights movement. His courage and determination certainly helped to change the country for the better. I hope I did justice to him on the day, but I was just thrilled to be asked to help celebrate such a caring, courageous, unselfish, and amazing person.

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