The document discusses the socio-political context surrounding the 1959 British film Sapphire and how understanding this context is important for analyzing representations of black British collective identity in the film. It describes the post-WWII mass migration of West Indians and Asians to Britain to fill labor shortages. This led to racial tensions like the 1958 Notting Hill riots and fueled racist political discourse portraying immigrants as threats. Legislation like the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act restricted immigration and institutionalized notions of immigration equating to black/Asian people, establishing a basis for increasingly racist British immigration laws.

1. COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
Historical - candidates must
summarise the development of the
media forms in question (film & music)
in theoretical contexts.

2. COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
AIM – To place Sapphire in it’s socio-political
context in order to better understand the
representations offered by the text and in
turn how this has contributed to black British
collective identity

3. SAPPHIRE and PRESSURE
• Sapphire (Dearden, 1959) and Pressure (Ove, 1976) are
the films that you will use to understand the historical
aspects of Black British Collective identity.
• If you’re asked to refer to how REPRESENTATIONS have
changed over time these two films would be your starting

5. Contextualising Sapphire
• In order to fully understand the
representations and the construction of
representations presented in Sapphire it’s
necessary to contextualise the film.
• Researching the socio-political context of
the production will allow for better
understanding when discussing issues of
collective identity among Black Britons

6. Some terms you may come across
• Racialisation
• To differentiate or categorize according to race
• To perceive or experience in racial terms
• Emigration
• To leave one country or region to settle in another
• Immigrant
• A person who leaves one country to settle permanently
in another

7. Research
(This was homework)
• Investigate what was happening in Britain
between 1948 – 1962
• How was the social landscape changing?
• How did the changing social landscape lead to a
‘racialisation’ of British politics?
• Representation works through construction –
how were black people represented in the film?
• Considering your research and film analysis -
How does the film put across a sense of
collective identity of Black British people?

8. 1958

10. Historical contexts, Legislative Measures, Political
Cultural and Media Discourses around race / racism
• In the beginning there was the Empire and, then (post-1945), there
was the Empire no more. In a nostalgic bid to keep the idea of
Empire alive, the British establishment first created the
Commonwealth and, in 1948, voted through Parliament the
Commonwealth Act whereby all citizens of the ex-Empire could
come to the mother country: the United Kingdom.

11. Historical contexts, Legislative Measures, Political
Cultural and Media Discourses around race / racism
• On June 22, 1948, the SS Empire
Windrush docked at Tilbury in Essex. Its
arrival marked an important moment in
the history of modern England.
The steamship had stopped in Jamaica
to pick up some of the thousands of
servicemen who had been recruited to
serve in the armed forces during the
second world war. They were joined on
their life-changing Atlantic voyage by
some 500 other Caribbean men and
women keen to visit England. Over the
years "the Windrush generation" and
their families have become integral to our
society.

12. Historical contexts, Legislative Measures, Political
Cultural and Media Discourses around race / racism
• British capitalists, and some sections of
the British state, initiated and actively
encouraged large scale emigration to
Britain from the Caribbean and Indian
subcontinent during the 1950s and
1960s.
• In the early 1960s government ministers,
as well as private employers, started to
recruit directly in the West Indies. These
included Enoch Powell, who actively
encouraged the migration of medical staff
from India and the West Indies during his
time as Minister for Health. The London
Transport executive made an agreement
with the Barbadian Immigration Liaison
Service.

13. Racialisation of Politics
• ‘black immigration into Britain is a
fundamentally bad thing, and that it
should be prevented at all costs, except,
of course, where the system would
literally cease to function without it.’
• Black immigration raised the prospect of
a permanent Black presence in British
society. Concern about the deleterious
effects of Black immigration on the 'racial
character of the English people' was
voiced as early as 1948. Two days after
the arrival of the 'Empire Windrush' a
letter was sent to Prime Minister Clement
Attlee by 11 Labour MP's calling for the
control of Black immigration.
• Is it rational or racial?

14. Historical contexts, Legislative Measures, Political
Cultural and Media Discourses around race / racism
• Concern as to the number of "coloured"
immigrants (as they were then known) was
being voiced in the mid- to late1950s by the
Conservative party (which had been in power
since 1951), but race as an issue did not fully
become one until the watershed year of 1958.
• Two occurrences: the so-called Nottingham
"riots" and Notting Hill "riots" (the former in the
north-eastern part of England, the latter in a
London borough) put race on the social and
political agenda. Thanks to these events, race
would henceforth be perceived as a problem.
• Groups of young white men known as Teddy
Boys would randomly attack black people
because of their colour. In August 1958 the
black community fought back under the
leadership of Baron Baker and others
•

15. Racialisation of Politics
• Black immigration was now perceived to
be a problem in society at large, even
though blacks, when they were needed,
could still be brought to work in Britain.
• When the need for their labour was not so
great, a thoroughly racist system of
immigration controls would, moreover,
help to ensure that black workers already
in Britain could be blamed more easily for
the rapidly growing difficulties which the
economy faced in the years which
immediately followed the introduction of
the 1962 Act.

16. Racialisation of Politics
• It was the first legislation to introduce state
regulation of Commonwealth immigration and
introduced the first ever entry restrictions on
British Commonwealth citizens, by making
primary immigration dependent upon the
possession of a work voucher. Given that the
intended targets of the Act were all black or
Asian (and few ever even attempted to deny
this), the 1962 Act also marks the first of a
series of racially discriminatory pieces of
legislation which have combined to lay the
basis for the notoriously racist immigration
laws for which Britain is so famous today.
• The 1962 Act enshrined in law for the first time
the completely false, yet no less insidious,
notion that immigration equals black
immigration, a notion upon which all
successive immigration legislation has been
built.

17. Racialisation of Politics
• Blacks are the "alien disease" for whom
there is only one "common sense"
solution: Repatriation. As a signifier of the
increase in this common-sense racism,
one only has to look at the seven different
Acts on immigration (and to the shift in
the signifying chain of key words) which
have been voted by Parliament since that
watershed moment in 1958:
• 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act
• 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act
• 1971 Immigration Act
• 1981 Immigration Act
• 1981 Nationality Act
• 1985 New Visa System

18. Research
(This was homework)
• Investigate what was happening in Britain
between 1948 – 1962
• How was the social landscape changing?
• How did the changing social landscape lead to a
‘racialisation’ of British politics?
• Representation works through construction –
how were black people represented in the film?
• Considering your research and film analysis -
How does the film put across a sense of
collective identity of Black British people?

19. Investigate what was happening in
Britain between 1948 – 1962
• In the 1950s, a large number of West Indians arrived in Britain.
• A number of Asian people also arrived in the country during the 1950s.
• Migration of a number of people from Pakistan migrating to Britain also took
place in the early 1940s into the 1950s and through into the 1960s.
• A number of Pakistani people migrated over to Britian due to partition in
their country which occurred in 1947.
• For the first time, the 1950s saw young people gaining a significant
disposable income.
• Youth culture also became more distinct during this decade; started with the
'teddy boys' in the 1950s and went on to the mods and rockers of the 1960s.
• Food rationing still existed for several years after WWII - tea rationing lasted
until 1952, sweet rationing until 1953 and meat and cheese rationing until
1954.

20. How was the social landscape changing?
• Large numbers of migrants from West Indian and Asian
countries began to migrate to Britain in order to fill jobs
that British people were not filling.
• Distinct youth culture began to evolve - 'teddy boys' were
a common occurrence on the streets of Britain.
• Racial attacks occurred in Notting Hill in London in
August 1958 - hostilities between white and black people
were prominent.
• Food rationing comes to an end in July 1954, the
pressure on food supplies had now disappeared.

21. How did the changing social landscape
lead to a ‘racialisation’ of British politics?
• Concerns from white British people that the influx of immigrants from the West Indies in
particular would mean that unemployment for white people would be more common, would
be harder for them to find jobs.
• A plee for controlled immigration was taken to the colonial office by the mayor of Lambeth,
one of the most popular places for West Indian immigrants to settle once in Britain.
• Stated there was a housing crisis in this area; 10,000 were on the waiting list for housing in
Lambeth and due to the already lareg influx of immigrants the area no longer had enough
housing for these people.
• Hostilities between white and black people became apparent in the riot that took place in
Notting Hill in August 1958.
• In the 1960s, more than 12,000 Kenyan and Asian refugees arrived in Britain due to
ongoing violence in their home country of Africa; despite being commonwealth citizens and
therefore were freely allowed to enter Britian. However, politician Jim Callahan drafted a
Commonwealth Immigration Bill, and the bill became law almost immediately. This meant
that the free entry commonwealth immigrants had been promised was no longer available.
• Outsider Conservative MP Enoch Powell claimed the country to be 'mad' to allow such a
high number of immigrants into the country in what is now known as 'The River's of Blood'
speech.