Fighting racism on the dancefloor
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New laws were used to stop nightclubs and discos from banning black and ethnic minority customers in 1978. The first club to be taken to court was a disco called Pollyanna's in the city of Birmingham. The Commission for Racial Equality ruled their entry policy racist. David Hinds, vocalist for the reggae band, Steel Pulse, spoke to Farhana Haider for Witness History in 2015 about the racism in Birmingham's club scene in the 1970s.
This programme is a rebroadcast
(Photo: Reggae Band, Steel Pulse performing on Top of the Pops 1978. Credit:BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:30.9 | This This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:38.0 | And all this week we are looking back through our archives at events from British black history. Today we're going |
| 0:44.3 | back to 1978 and the British city of Birmingham and to a nightclub in the |
| 0:49.0 | center of the city which became a test case for racial equality laws. |
| 0:52.8 | For Hana Hider reports. |
| 0:54.8 | Just arrived good evening, |
| 0:57.8 | Carpenter Bobby and he was very welcoming to all Cleontel. |
| 1:12.8 | It's after midnight here at Polyannas. |
| 1:14.8 | The place has been pretty packed all evening, |
| 1:17.2 | but we've seen only a handful of colored youngsters inside. |
| 1:20.4 | Of course, race relations in Birmingham are complex and the managers of |
| 1:24.8 | discos like this one tend to feel they're in the front line of a volatile situation. |
| 1:29.4 | I do remember going to Parlianas in the mid-70s. I went there but it was an all white |
| 1:38.2 | nightclub at the time probably had one of those limited amount of black people attending the club policy happening. |
... |
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