Originally Posted by
danensis
Reading the Toxteth thread, and seeing the picture of Eddie Murphy, reminded me of the 1970 riots in Grafton Street area. As I remember the council had some sort of quota system going to ensure that new housing schemes had a racial mix, but this was considered discriminatory, so it was abolished, and of course all the families at the top of the housing list were black, so the folks who were already in the new houses got a bit upset.
At that point, the housing was based on need. Those in the worst housing were top of the list. The blacks, especially the newer immigrants, were in the worst. Many of them had only just come into the country and were given new houses with gardens and full heating/ventilation systems. The local indigenous whites saw this a favouritism as they were still living in poor housing. Many long established black families didn't like new immigrants been given brand new homes either. Taunting occurred one night and it flipped over.
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The policy was obviously wrong and clearly insensitive. Local white families in poor housing, whose linage was all British and the father and grandfathers probably fought in the war, were seeing people of a different, race, culture and colour who had contributed little to the society, coming in and been given brand new homes. Many of these people had been waiting well over 20 years to be rehoused and would naturally be not be too pleased at what they saw.
St Nathanial St has now been demolished.
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