Celebrating Windrush Day  

Published: Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Tomorrow (June 22) is Windrush Day, marking 73 years since the Empire Windrush docked in London carrying the first Caribbean migrants to help rebuild Britain after the Second World War.  

Share this

Wandsworth Windrush elders were invited to a gala lunch and exhibition at Battersea Arts Centre during Black History Month

To celebrate the day and The Black Heroes Foundation will be presenting The Story of Claudia Jones on June 25 as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe (WAF).  

The play has been written specially for Windrush Day and examines the important contribution made by Claudia Jones – a community leader struggling to improve conditions for Black working-class people in the 1950s who founded the Notting Hill Carnival.  You can see it at Battersea Arts Centre at 7.30pm. Find out more.   

Also as part of WAF, Black Heroes Foundation will be running an interactive, multi-media exhibition about Peter Randolf ‘Flip’ Fraser – the first editor of the Voice newspaper and creator of the show Black Heroes in the Hall of Fame. See the interactive exhibition on June 25 from 2pm to 3.30pm at Battersea Library. Find out more  

The Caius House youth club in Battersea has received a Government Windrush Day Grant to enable Caribbean elders to teach young people how to cook traditional dishes to be served at its Windrush Day cultural event. Email info@caiushouse.org if you want to go.  

If you want to support Black-owned businesses this Windrush Day, there is a page on the council’s business directory My Virtual Wandsworth.  

And you can watch the stories and experiences of Black people who live, work or study in the borough to recognise the outstanding contribution that Black people have made in shaping our borough. Visit the council’s You Tube Black History Month playlist.   

Find out more about the Windrush generation at windrushfoundation.com