"Something needed to be done and we did it." Brick Lane 1978

On 4th of May 1978, Altab Ali, a 24-year-old Bengali garment worker, was shopping for meal and planning to stop by a voting station to submit his ballot. He never did. That day, in broad daylight, he was brutally stabbed by three racist teenagers for being a "Paki". His body was found dead near Brick Lane. The next day, results of the elections showed that the National Front had gained popularity and that extremism "was making a return to mainstream British politics".

It was not the first racist attack on the Asian population but it was one that sparked reactions. Ten days later, about 7.000 Bengali marched from Brick Lane to Downing Street behind Ali's coffin. Ali's murder "galvanised what is now known as the Bengali Resistance Movement", protests that lasted throughout the summer of 1978 with people campaigning every single day (via and via and via).

"Something needed to be done and we did it."
Sunahwar Ali

photographs (c) Paul Trevor (first one: Adler Street, London E1, 14 May 1978. The start of the march behind Altab Ali’s coffin from Whitechapel to Hyde Park, organised by the Action Committee Against Racial Attack) via and via and via (coffin departing for Downing Street) and via and via and via