Windrush Celebration speech  2025 – Hamil Clarke

It is a pleasure for me to be here and to speak about why it is important to recognise and celebrate what was started by those pioneers who came from the Caribbean.

Before I go any further, I must congratulate the Suffolk Windrush Celebration Committee for organising today’s launch of the Windrush Quilt Exhibition.

The pioneers who set sail from the Caribbean on the MS Empire Windrush to come here will be proud of the work you are doing to remember and celebrate them.

The post-World War 2 call came from Britain to Her then Colonies for workers to migrate here to address the critical labour shortages.   West Indians heeded the call from the Mother Country and between 1948 and 1973 approximately 550 000 people migrated.

Imagine packing your whole life in a suitcase, leaving your home, family and friends behind, spending what little money you had on a ticket to a country you’d heard about but never seen: all because you wanted a better future for you and your family.

That is the journey that hundreds of men and women – many of whom had served with the Allied Forces in the Second World War – from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands made all those years ago.

But this journey was not without its perils and these migrants faced outright racism when they arrived.  Some of you may remember the infamous Teddy Boys, The Notting Hill Race Riots and signs that read ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’.  Nonetheless they persevered and with toil sweat and tears played a pivotal role in helping to build a modern global Britain.

It is against this backdrop that many of these Migrants despaired when confronted recently by a new wave of hostility.  This time it was predicated on their irregular status in a hostile immigration environment which resulted in denial of their rights to work, denial of their rights to Benefits, denial of their rights to health care, and also some detentions and deportation.  That’s what we are faced with today.

This exhibition is a creative way to share the stories of all those people whose lives inspired us.  I hope this celebration today will be an annual event, so that we would never forget, especially our young people.

My advice to young people today is to be ambitious and keep working hard to create a fairer society for all people.

Hamil Clarke is a former mayor of Ipswich and a recipient of the MBE for services to the community. He has a long history of involvement with education in Ipswich, particularly with the former civic college and later Suffolk University. He is also chair of ISCRE – Ipswich & Suffolk Council for Racial Equality

The exhibition of quilts and other items associated with the Windrush Project are on display at The Hold on the Waterfront in Ipswich for the rest of the Summer.