‘The attacks live on’ – why bands are once again rocking against racism

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation about racism and racist attacks almost 50 years on.”

Lynval Golding, founding member of The Specials, is angry that this summer’s riots have given him “flashbacks” of his experiences in Coventry in the 1970s and 80s.

But after violence flared across the UK, fuelled by online misinformation and and anti-immigration sentiment, Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) is being relaunched, more than 40 years after its predecessor Rock Against Racism (RAR) first combined pop music with politics.

A Coventry event on Saturday, involving a gig with local bands, will add poignancy, organisers say, given the city’s history of brutal racist killings and violent assaults.

“How can people get into the state where they would want to go and burn down a hotel with other human beings in it?,” guitarist and vocalist Golding asks.

The Specials were one of many bands, including Birmingham reggae legends Steel Pulse, Aswad and The Clash, to play RAR gigs.

The movement emerged in 1976 in reaction to a rise in racist attacks before LMHR launched in 2002, picking up the mantel of its predecessor.

It is now necessary to revise the movement to fight “a frightening expansion of the far-right across Europe,” said Clive Dixon, from Coventry LMHR.

“We mustn’t be afraid to confront it again.”

During the late 1970s and early 80s, areas of Britain experienced increasing racial intolerance and violence, and in a period of just five months Coventry witnessed two racist killings, one attempted murder, several petrol bombings and numerous attacks.

The violence formed the backdrop to the foundation of the 2 Tone movement, by Jerry Dammers.

In April 1981, 20-year-old student Satnam Singh Gill was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the the city centre, reportedly for walking with his white girlfriend.

This followed the death of Dr Amal Dharry, who was also stabbed outside a chip shop in the Earlsdon area of the city.

At the time, it was reported in court that a 17-year-old had killed the professional for a bet.

Both deaths shocked the city.

In response to the violence local groups including the Indian Workers’ Association and Anti Nazi League banded together to form Coventry Committee Against Racism (CCAR).

It also prompted The Specials to organise a benefit concert in the city.

Previously a prosperous city, Coventry had been hit “particularly hard” by the recession, said Dr Nirmal Puwar, of Goldsmiths University in London.

Growing up there, she said, you always had to be on your guard.

“[Racism] affected the activities you did, the time of day you went out, who you went out with,” she said.

“The hostility became part of your membrane.”

Asians were specifically targeted because they personified difference, she explained.

Co-author of a book Racist Tones, documenting stories of racism from parts of the 1970s and 80s, she said football crowds were particularly fearsome.

“Match day was almost a day when curfew would encircle the family and you had to make sure everyone was home, because there was such a lot of anger and violence,” Dr Puwar remembers.

Co-author Jitey Samra, whose family had a business in the Foleshill area of the city, said she had “almost normalised” racist incidents she witnessed.

One particular “terrifying” experience involved a driving instructor who had made racist comments during a lesson.

“I actually ran from the car, but it was the racism and the hate in the guy’s face that really frightened me,” she said.

The atmosphere in the city following the racist killings was “like a cloud” had descended, she added.

“You know when you have this horrible gut feeling and a feeling of fear for children as well,” she explains.

Despite using music to spread anti-racism messages with The Specials, Golding described how he himself was also subjected to horrific racial violence.

He was beaten up in a park for intervening in a racist incident and had to run for his “dear life” through the city centre, chased by thugs.

In early 1982, he was also stabbed in the neck whilst at a city centre nightclub, leaving him traumatised.

Looking back at the attack was “very painful, emotionally,” he said.

“It took years to get over being in a club without having my back against the wall,” he explained.

“The stabbing and racial attacks – it lives on with those who’ve had to go through the trauma for years.”

Those experiences would lead to Golding writing The Specials’ Why?, which is on the B-side of 1981’s iconic Ghost Town.

In response to the attacks the CCAR organised a march for racial harmony in the city, joined by thousands of people.

The demonstration was a mile long, and was attended by groups from across the country, said Mr Dixon, who took part.

Setting off from Edgwick Park in Foleshill, by the time marchers entered the city centre “it all got a bit tense”, he remembers.

“The National Front were waiting for us, and the police were attempting to keep us apart,” he said.

“And there were justifiably angry young Asians, determined to show that they were not going to be too intimidated.”

Reports from the time document large numbers of skinheads had lined the route giving Nazi-style salutes and chanted “Sieg Heil.”

When the rally reached Cathedral Square, mounted police were sent into the crowd who retaliated with rocks, sticks and bottles.

Eleven police officers received minor injuries and 74 demonstrators were arrested.

More peaceful was the concert at the city’s Butts Park Stadium, which Golding said he was proud to have taken part in.

It was one of many in the area attended by Mr Dixon.

“I remember seeing Tom Robinson, John Cooper Clarke, Stiff Little Fingers, all at Warwick University at a Rock Against Racism gig,” he said.

He also attended the RAR march and concert at Victoria Park in London in the same year, joined by an estimated 100,000 demonstrators.

“And now we’ve got to do it all again,” he said.

Groups like RAR had, in the 80s, “pushed racism into the background, so that it became unfashionable, it wasn’t cool.”

“And this is as much about allowing artists to take a position on it, and allow them to sing on behalf of something,” he added.

Coventry musician Ace Ambrose said she was excited to be taking part in the re-launch concert, and it was important musicians took a stand against racism.

“It’s now become engrained that music is a universal language, it’s one of those things that binds us together regardless of what type of human being you are,” she said.

“This event is to remind people of that,” she added.

Another who is set to play, Duke Keats, said the movement also served as a reminder of how “diverse and rich the city is”.

“It’s absolutely incredible to think I have been born in a city with such a culture of cultures banding together,” he says.

“Everybody loves music and everybody deep down should hate racism.”

The movement reinforces our culture that’s already there, including the 2 Tone era, and allows people to look back and feel represented.

“I’m proud of what we did with The Specials, Fun Boy Three, Steel Pulse, Aswad – all of those bands who got out to support Rock Against Racism,” asserts Golding.

“Is there something wrong with us because we want to deal in love and unity? I don’t think so”.