Roy Hackett
POSTED: August 12, 2022
Roy Hackett died on August 2 at the age of ninety three. A lifelong campaigner for civil rights, he led the Bristol bus boycott. As The Guardian explains in his obituary
The 1963 campaign, which lasted four months, mobilised people across the city to stop using Bristol Omnibus Company buses because of its refusal to hire black and Asian people. At the time, a “colour bar” in Britain meant that people from minority ethnic backgrounds could legally be banned from housing, employment and public places.
The Guardian also published two other articles that everyone should read. Firstly Olivette Otele wrote about him as someone everyone should know about. Secondly Kehinde Andrews wrote a long piece including an interview with him called Roy Hackett: the civil rights hero who stood in front of a bus – and changed Britain for ever.
Garfield McKenzie took the photograph above as part of his Pioneers collection. You can find out more about the Pioneer collection here.