Roy Hackett, organiser of Bristol Bus Boycott and Civil Rights pioneer, has passed away aged 93

Image: Olumedia/The Guardian

Roy Hackett was a civil rights activist whose protests and boycotts helped pave the way for the first Race Relations Act in Britain in 1965.

He was without doubt, one of the most important and influential figures in the civil rights movement in the UK, who inspired by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, was leading the Bristol Bus boycott right here in 1963.

At the time, you couldn’t be prosecuted for employment discrimination on racial grounds, and Bristol Omnibus Company were making the most of this. Despite a worker shortage, Black prospect employees were refused employment. They claimed white people would not use their service if they had Black workers, and white conductresses had expressed concerns over their safety if they had to work alongside Black men.

Roy, alongside Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown, set up what would later be known as the West Indian Development Council, and joined forces with Paul Stephenson and Guy Bailey to expose what was happening.

They set up an interview for Guy Bailey with the bus company, but when told Guy was West Indian, they cancelled the interview. So on April 29th 1963, they announced that no West Indian person in Bristol would be using the bus service, and many white people came out in support - including Labour leader Harold Wilson.

4 months later, on the same day Martin Luther King Jr gave his I have a dream speech, the colour bar was removed from the bus company. 2 weeks after that, Bristol got its first non-white bus conductor. 2 days later, 4 more joined him.

Roy had moved to the UK from Jamaica at the age of 24, and as well as helping to change race relations in the UK with the boycott, he was also one of the founders of the Commonwealth Coordinated Committee, which set up Bristol's St Paul's Carnival in 1968, which is now one of the UK’s biggest celebrations of Caribbean culture.

He was awarded an OBE in 2009, and an MBE in 2020 in recognition of the impact he had.

Here’s a video from 2020 where Roy explains why he was still fighting for racial equality at the age of 90.

We say thank you to Roy for a lifetime dedicated to making this country a better place for the melanin blessed. May he rest in power.