Find out more: Bristol Bus Boycott

Over the next ten weeks I will share resources to find out more about each of the movements I discuss in The Shoulders We Stand On: How Black and Brown people fought for change in the UK.

The resources will mostly be free, and will cover a range of mediums including articles, videos, podcasts and radio programmes. Follow me on Twitter to be the first to know when a new list has been posted.

Commemorative plaque for the Bristol Bus Boycott at the Bristol bus station.

We’re on week two. Last week I provided resources for the Indian Workers’ Association. For this week I am sharing resources to find out more about the seminal Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 and those involved in it.

THE resource for all the details on the Bristol Bus Boycott is Dr Madge Dresser’s Black and white on the buses: the 1963 colour bar dispute in Bristol, available to read via libcom.org. Dr Dresser also appears on an episode of the Bristol History Podcast.

This thesis Racial Discrimination in employment? The Bristol bus boycott of 1963 is another phenomenally detailed look at the Boycott, also available via libcom.org

Kehinde Andrews had the honour of interviewing three of the leaders of the Boycott: Paul Stephenson, Roy Hackett, and Guy Reid-Bailey for the Guardian. Beautiful reads.

Here’s a wonderful short documentary on one of the Boycott organisers Roy Hackett, with footage from the time and an interview.

For more of Roy Hackett’s life in his own words, check out this video of Hackett talking at 90 years old and read this in-depth interview.

Hackett died in 2022 at 93 years old, you can read a wonderful obituary by Kehinde Andrews.

If radio is more your medium, listen to this Witness History programme, or this fabulous Guardian Today in Focus podcast episode featuring the current mayor of Bristol and the first Black mayor of a British city, Marvin Rees.

This video created for Newsnight features Stephenson, Hackett and Reid-Bailey and really gives you a feel for what life was like.

And if you want to know more about the important neighbourhood of St Pauls in Bristol, The Bristol Cable have a wonderful people’s history.

There is an important book that I have to include on this list though it is not available to read online: Paul Stephenson’s Memoirs of a Black Englishman. Stephenson weaves photos and stories from his life to tell his story from childhood to the bus boycott and beyond.

And there is another paid addition to this list but it had to be done; it’s a play called Princess and the Hustler which features the Boycott and is being taught at GCSE from this academic year! Through that link you can order a copy and listen to a podcast with the playwright Chinonyerem Odimba.

And if you are seeing this but haven’t read the book I’m referring to, then what are you waiting for?! Get your copy of The Shoulders We Stand On now.