This article is part of a series by Athian Akec: Beyond Black History Month.
“We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because while he was up there we were organising a union”, said the president of the Amazon Labour Union, Chris Smalls, after the giant’s first trade union was established. Overnight, Chris Smalls has become an iconic figure of Black labour organising, showing the power that workers can achieve across racial lines to advance their interests. But whilst this may seem like a new phenomenon, there’s a long history of radical Black labour organisation.
In the UK, we are in the grips of a cost of living crisis as a result of the skyrocketing price of bills, food and transport, while wages flatline and fail to rise to the price of inflation and upcoming income tax hikes. The government’s response has been lacklustre — with 1.3 million people reportedly pushed into absolute poverty because of the lack of government support following the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement, according to the think tank The Resolution Foundation. Peaceful protest, and the opportunity to vote in our democratic elections are being shut down and suppressed in the backdrop of this.
The government is still trying to push the police, crime, courts, and sentencing bill through the House of Lords, which will give the police the power to legally shut down protests deemed too disruptive, and is still on course to introduce voter IDs ahead of the next general election – which campaigners report weakens the voting rights of marginalised communities across the UK with two million people not having access to the ID needed to vote. Stories of Black history, erased from the collective consciousness, have a lot to teach us about navigating the challenges we face.
Working class radicals are rarely remembered in history. Despite their dramatic impact, they are seldom highlighted in our school curriculums, given statues, or praised with public monuments: their achievements are often elevated, but their radical politics are erased. Even if they are, such as is the case of Nelson Mandela, whose early political life saw him develop revolutionary leftist politics and strategy, their radical legacy is white-washed.
The story of William Cuffay and his remarkable life, for example, can offer us a blueprint for the importance of building multi-racial coalitions for justice and constructing trade unions that can face up to the economic crisis we are living through. Let’s start with his roots and origins. William Cuffay was a Black man born in 1788 on a merchant ship in the West Indies to a father who spent his early life in slavery and a white mother. He grew up in Kent, growing to become one of the most important organisers of the era, working to advance the rights of working-class people across Victorian Britain.
Cuffay, by trade, was a tailor. He was pushed into political activism in response to being sacked and blacklisted due to his involvement in trade union organising. Then, he became an active member of the Chartist movement, whose goals were centred around the expansion of democratic rights for working-class people. Their radical demands included: universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by secret ballot, payment of MPs, abolition of property qualifications for MPs, and equal electoral districts. These proposals were radical for the time and would have involved a massive redistribution of power, and the fundamental expansion of economic rights. Cuffay emerged as a key figure as this movement was coming to prominence and attempting to implement its transformational policies.
The year 1948 was one of revolution and radical protest across Europe and Britain, and Chartistism emerged as the next epicentre of class struggle in Europe. That year, Cuffay made one of the most radical speeches that pushed for drastic action to fulfil the movement’s aims. A stark, powerful quote emerged: “This clapping of hands is all very fine, but will you fight for it?” Afterwards, disputes arose within the movement between radical and moderate voices, as Cuffay represented the more radical viewpoints – pushing for the strategy of direct action and protest. On Kennington Common, members of the movement would deliver the petition with their key demands to parliament.
At the time, the crowds which formed on Kennington Common sent shockwaves of fear through the British establishment, as seen by the immense pressure put onto the organisers. The state used all its power to intimidate and halt the crowd’s march to parliament, declaring the procession illegal, and with all government buildings prepared for attack, ridges next to the common were closed off, and police and soldiers assembled close by. The pressure was so immense that the protest was called off by the leader of the movement, Feargus O’Connor. After questionable evidence, Cuffay was put on trial for the conspiracy to organise an armed uprising and was later deported and sent to Australia. His race powerfully shaped his trial, and, facing an all-middle-class jury, he was branded by the British press as “the Black man and his party”, as a means of pushing anti-Black sentiment onto him.
The forces that shaped William Cuffay’s story have remarkable parallels with the challenges that we collectively face today. Economic inequality, the suppression of protest, and the denial of democratic rights to working class communities. Politically, in the moment we are living in, recognising the importance of building coalitions between communities who face different kinds of injustice that are driven by the same underlying systems that create inequality is deeply important. Building a better picture of how radicals like William Cuffay have shaped history will help us embody the spirit of resistance he lived with, and the tactics he employed — from direct action protest to trade union organisation — should guide us through the interconnected web of injustice ahead of us. It’s clear that experiences of the cost of living crisis will not be felt equally — recent research has shown the shocking levels of child poverty in Black communities. Joining trade unions is a way we can build on our rights. From William Cuffay to Christian Smalls, the precedent is there — as the need for us to build collective power against injustice through labour organisation has never been more urgent.