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EVENTS marking the 75th anniversary of the symbolic birth of multicultural Britain were held across the country on Windrush Day today.
Performances, workshops and exhibitions took place nationwide, including at Tilbury docks in Essex, where 492 people from the Caribbean disembarked from a ship, the Empire Windrush, on June 22 1948.
The passengers, and other arrivals up to 1971, were brought over to fill post-World War II labour shortages and became known as the Windrush generation.
Despite the essential role they played in helping cash-strapped Britain build the welfare state, many faced racism and continue to do so, with the Tory government’s hostile environment wrongly threatening many with deportation.
Britain’s first black female MP Diane Abbott tweeted: “Members of the Windrush generation like my mother came to rebuild Britain after the second world war.
“We must never forget their enormous contribution or the injustices they faced — we will continue to push for full justice.”
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy echoed the comments, warning the day represented a “bittersweet commemoration.”
She urged her Twitter followers to “reflect on all that the Windrush generation have given to this country and all that has been taken from them.”
Left-wing Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford hosted representatives of the post-war mass migration movement in Cardiff ahead of a “national service of thanksgiving” at London’s Southwark Cathedral.
NHS England, which is one of the biggest employers of overseas workers in the world, tweeted its appreciation, writing: “Within weeks of the Empire Windrush’s arrival, many of those on board had joined the NHS.
“We want to recognise all our colleagues connected to the Windrush’s arrival — thank you for your invaluable contributions.”
Campaign group Stand Up to Racism called for a “celebration of the massive contribution” made by the workers across the decades, while transport union RMT “acknowledged the contribution of the Windrush generation to our transport industry.”
The ship was originally a German vessel, the MV Monte Rosa, which was seized in May 1945 just before Nazi forces capitulated.
Now a symbol of the birth of British multiculturalism, the ship was first used by the Hitler regime to promote fascist notions of racial purity and later to deport Jews from occupied Norway and Denmark to their deaths in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
It sank in the Mediterranean Sea following an engine fire on March 30 1954.
