New Windows Revealed

We hosted one of the most important events in the city this year: the sixtieth anniversary of the ending of the Bristol Bus Boycott, paving the way for the Race Relations Acts and then the Equalities Act of 2010 which provides rights for people with Protected Characteristics.

Since then I have been asking if people have heard of either Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech or the Bristol Bus Boycott. Pretty much everyone has heard of the first and very few the second. There is a real need to reset this to show that both of these events are equally significant in the unfolding development of race relations in UK and abroad.

We welcomed Pioneers and Elders of the black community, some of whom organized and ran the original protest. It was a thrill to see the delight in their eyes when they saw the new window panels for the first time.

Jesus was asked "And who is my neighbour?" by the lawyer and Jesus tells the story of The Good Samaritan. The lawyer could not conceive of the possibility that any Samaritan might be 'good'. We are now faced with that same story and three others - the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans, the Bristol Bus Boycott and Small Boats migration - with that same question ringing in our ears: And who is my neighbour?

And, as someone said "Of course, the power of that question is what happens when you flip it round and ask 'And who do we exclude?'"

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