News — Boycott

On April 30, 1963, Bristol’s black population protested the Bristol Omnibus Company and the Transportation and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) racist employment practices. By 1963, an estimated 6,000 black people in Bristol. Unlike the hiring and visibility of black bus crews in cities such as Bath and London, Bristol was slow to hire them. The TGWU’s failure to address its discriminatory hiring policy also influenced a 1955 vote that prohibited black bus crews. Although blacks were part of the TGWU, they were primarily relegated to work in maintenance and the canteens. Moreover, by 1958 the black unemployment rate was twice the reported figure of white unemployment in Bristol.

Paul Stephenson, who was born in Essex, England to West African and British parents and an ex-Royal Air Foreman, explored exposing the Omnibus Company’s discriminatory practices. Teaching night classes at the time and knowledgeable of the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott in the United States, Stephenson recruited one of best pupils, 18-year-old Guy Baily, and together decided to respond to a vacant bus conductor employment advertisement in the Bristol’s Evening Post. At his interview, the bus manager told Baily, “We do not hire black people.” To confirm this, Stephenson went to the Company’s General Manager, Ian Patey, who affirmed the Omnibus Company’s practices. Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown formed the West Indian Development Council, a coalition to challenge and publicize the Omnibus Company’s racist policy. On April 29, 1963, the coalition announced that no blacks would ride the bus the subsequent day. The April 30 bus boycott garnered national support and disapproval.

Bristol University students who supported the boycott were harassed and attacked in public. They marched earnestly, however, with placards stating, “EVERY MAN HAS THE RIGHT TO WORK.” Local Labour MP Tony Benn remarked, “I shall stay off the buses, even if I have to find a bike!” Famous Trinidadian cricketer Sir Learie Constantine wrote letters to the Omnibus Company in support of the boycott. Oppositional newspaper headlines such as, “Bristol Bus Crew Back the Boss” and “We Won’t Work with West Indians,” further underscored how divisive the bus boycott was on race.

The bus boycott also revealed white working-class wage earners’ economic fragility and the public’s perception of black masculinity. After months of boycotting, the TGWU in a meeting with 500 bus workers agreed on August 27, 1963 to end the color bar, and Patey publicly announced it “dead” the next day. On September 17, Raghibir Singh, a British-Asian Sikh, became Bristol’s first non-white bus conductor. Soon afterwards Black bus crews were then hired.

Not everyone is a fan of the new National Geographic historical docuseries Genius: Aretha and this crowd surprisingly includes some from the demographic you would think were jumping at the chance to see the Queen of Soul brought back to life.

A myriad of reasons has been attributed to what effectively counts as a boycott of the series by many African-Americans. Many of them have registered their displeasure with the fact that Franklin was played by a non-American Black woman, Cynthia Erivo. The 37-year-old actress is a Nigerian-British actress who has won acclaim and accolades including an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony, and two Oscar nominations.

This is not the first time Erivo, cast in the role of a cherished African-American figure has been greeted with contempt by Black Americans. In 2019, Erivo appeared in only her third movie (she has spent most of her acting career on stage) as Harriet Tubman in Harriet. She won nominations for Golden Globe and Academy Awards’ Best Actress slots for her portrayal of the heroine of the Underground Railroad. But the question that was asked was if producers could not secure a Black American descendant of a slave.

When Harriet came out, it was also revealed that Erivo in 2013 had tweeted a mockery of how many African-Americans talk, calling it the “ghetto accent”. The tweet, which she apologized for, was interpreted as not only a dislike for African-Americans but hatred for her Black identity.

At the premiere of Harriet at the Toronto International Fim Festival, Erivo was forced to respond to the backlash generated by the tweet: “As for the tweets, taken out of context without giving me the room to tell you what it meant–and it wasn’t mocking anyone, really. It wasn’t for that purpose at all. It was to celebrate a song I had wrote when I was 16.”

Calls by Black people in America to have historical Black figures, as well as American Black characters played by African-Americans, have been ongoing for the last few years. When the Oscar-nominated Judas And The Black Messiah was released in late 2020, it was met with the same sort of outrage because the role of Fred Hampton was portrayed by Uganda-British actor Daniel Kaluuya.

But with Genius: Aretha, the problems are not simply because Erivo is on screen. Kecalf Cunningham, a son of the singer posted on his Instagram page in February that producers of Genius “pushed through without [the family’s] consent”. He also said the family held no ill-feelings towards the actors who were just “doing their jobs” but “if you are a true fan [of Franklin’s] please do not support [Genius: Aretha]“.

Cunningham’s call was reiterated on Twitter before the first episode of the series was broadcast on Sunday. It continues to gather moss as more and more on the social media platform are tweeting their support for the family.