Bristol Bus Boycott / K-19 commissioned - April 30

On this day in 1963, West Indians in Bristol, England, boycotted the Bristol Omnibus Company for its refusal to hire people of color as bus crew. / On this day in 1961, the Soviet Union commissioned the K-19, a ballistic missile equipped nuclear submarine.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today on with the show. Hi again, Welcome
to this day in History class where history waits for
no One. The day was April nineteen sixty three. The

(00:25):
Bristol Omnibus Company, based in Bristol, England, had been denying
Black and Asian people jobs as bus crew, so on
this day, West Indians in the city began boycotting the
company and refusing to ride buses. After the British Nationality
Act was passed in nineteen forty eight, the number of
people who immigrated from the Caribbean to the UK increased significantly.

(00:50):
Some of those people had served in the British military
during World War Two, and some helped with post war
rebuilding efforts. By nineteen sixty there were around three thousand
West Indian people in Bristol, a small percentage of the
city's population, but unemployment rates were high within the West
Indian community. People who immigrated from the West Indies and

(01:14):
from Asia faced housing and employment discrimination. Gangs of white
men known as teddy boys physically attacked people of color.
Some boarding houses posted signs that read no Irish, no Blacks,
no dogs. By nineteen sixty three, there were around seven
thousand West Indian people in Bristol. Increasing along with the

(01:36):
West Indian population was racial tension, but at this point
there were no laws protecting people from racial discrimination in
the workplace. In other English cities like London and Manchester,
black people worked on buses as jibers and conductors, but
in Bristol, the British government owned Bristol Omnibus Company only

(01:57):
hired black folks as maintenance workers, even though there was
a shortage of drivers. Black people were turned away when
they sought jobs as bus crew. The Passenger group of
the Transport in General Workers Union had even passed a
resolution in nineteen fifty five that said black workers should
not be employed on the buses as drivers or conductors.

(02:19):
Asian and Black people were applying for bus crew jobs,
but they were never getting the job, so the Bristol
Evening Posts and the Western Daily Press ran stories on
the discrimination, saying that the Bristol Omnibus Company was purposefully
refusing to give non white workers driving and conducting jobs.
Wages were low and hours were long in bus crew positions,

(02:42):
and the people who did work them relied on overtime
to make up for their poor pay, but there were
still a lot of turnover for bus crew. The company's
general manager, Ian Patty, said that the color bar was
only in place for economic reasons, and the union said
that it was the company's the decision as to whether
it wanted to enforce the color bar. By the late

(03:04):
nineteen fifties, the West Indian Association was already looking into
the issue of workplace race discrimination. In nineteen sixty two,
Jamaican's Henry Owens, Roy Hackett, Oddley Evans and Prince Brown
split from the Association and formed the West Indian Development Council.
Paul Stevenson became the council's spokesperson. Stevenson was a university

(03:29):
educated Royal Air Force veteran who moved to Bristol in
nineteen sixty two and was the city's first black social worker.
As a test case, Stevenson arranged a bus company interview
for warehouseman and Boy's Brigade officer Guy Bailey, who was black.
When the company found out he was black, Bailey's interview

(03:49):
was canceled. Drawing inspiration from the American Civil rights movement,
the council decided to stage a bus boycott. They announced
the boycott at a press confer rents on April twenty nine,
nineteen sixty three. The next day, many West Indians and
Bristol refused to ride busses. The protests were non violent.

(04:10):
Protesters began piketing bus depots and places along bus routes,
and they set up blockades that kept buses from going
into the city center. Many West Indians and Bristol supported
the boycott, but did not participate because they feared losing
their jobs or being attacked, or because they needed to
use public transportation. Pati, responding to the boycott, claimed that

(04:35):
if more people of color worked as bus crew, fewer
white people would be employed in those positions. If he
said that in London, where people of color are employed,
white men would not want to work under a format
of color and quote colored men have become arrogant and
rude after they have been employed for some months. The

(04:55):
protests garnered support from the press, students at Bristol University,
and many notable people, including Bristol Southeast Member of Parliament
Tony Benn, Labor Opposition leader Harry Wilson, local Labor Party
alderman Henry Hennessy, as well as former cricketer and High
Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago Leary Constantine. The local branch

(05:17):
of the Transport and General Workers Union refused to meet
with the delegation from the West Indian Development Council, leading
to weeks of back and forth between boycott supporters and opposers.
On May six, Stevenson organized in March to St Mary
Radcliffe Church, but the demonstration did not attract a lot
of people, and over the next several months, the Transport

(05:41):
Holding Company, which was Omnibus's parent company, held negotiations with
the union. Finally, on August, a meeting of five hundred
bus workers decided to end the color bar, four months
after the boycott began. On August Pete said there will
now be complete integration without regard to race, color or creed.

(06:04):
The only criterion will be the person's suitability for the job.
In mid September, rock Beer Singh, an Indian born sick,
became the first non white bus conductor employed in Bristol.
To Jamaican and two Pakistani men were employed as bus
crew soon after that. In nine and nineteen sixty eight,

(06:26):
Parliament passed the Race Relations Acts, which made racial discrimination
in public places, housing and employment illegal. Some people believe
that the Bristol bus boycott influenced the acts. I'm Eves,
Jeff Coo, and hopefully you know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. And here's another note.

(06:48):
Anti immigrant sentiments were popular in the nineteen sixties in
the UK, and if you want to hear a little
bit more about that and the Nationality Act, you can
listen to our April twentieth episode on Conservative mp enoch
Pals nineteen sixty eight Rivers of Blood Speech. If you're
so inclined, you can follow us at t d i

(07:10):
HC podcast on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Thanks again for
listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Hi everyone, I'm Eves
and welcome to This Day and History Class, a podcast

(07:32):
that is in a long term relationship with history. I
am very grateful that I have this podcast to help
me remember what day it is, because in the times
of quarantine, what data is can get very confusing. So
that is one fortunate side effect of hosting this show.
Having said that, I hope that this is helping you

(07:54):
in this way as well or in any other way.
So on with the show. The day was April thirtieth.
Nineteen sixty one, the Soviet Union commissioned the K nineteen,
a ballistic missile equipped nuclear submarine. The Cold War and

(08:18):
the arms race between the US and Soviet Union were
at a height. The United States launched the first nuclear
powered submarine in the world, the USS Nautilus, in nineteen
fifty four. It first ran under nuclear power in nineteen
fifty five. Unlike diesel electric submarines, Nautilus could stay submerged
for long periods because its atomic engine needed no air.

(08:43):
In nineteen fifty eight, Nautilus became the first submarine to
cross the North Pole under the Arctic polar ice pack.
By the beginning of nineteen sixty one, there were several
nuclear powered submarines in service. The Soviet Union was competing
to keep up with the US in new clear submarine development.
K nineteen was the first of two Project six fifty

(09:05):
eight class submarines built by the Soviet Union in nineteen
fifty nine. NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, classified
it as the Hotel class. The class was built in
response to the United States Skate class nuclear submarines. The
Hotel class nuclear submarines were equipped with our thirteen ballistic missiles.

(09:28):
Construction began on the K nineteen in ninety eight. Its
production and testing were rushed. In fact, the production of
Project sixty eight was plagued by accidents. Two workers died
in a fire, and six workers died from fumes from
gluing rubber lining to a water cistern, and another worker
died when he fell between two compartments inside the submarine.

(09:51):
K nineteen was launched in April of nineteen fifty nine.
When the ceremonial bottle of champagne was chosen to break
against the submarine during launch, the bottle did not break,
but instead bounced off the whole and in early nineteen
sixty the submarines nuclear reactor was improperly operated and one
of the control rods was bent. K nineteen was completed

(10:14):
in November of nineteen sixty after going through sea trials,
but it was evident that the submarine's construction was shoddy.
It lost the rubber coating on its hole and had
to be repaired. Flooding of the reactor compartment was also recorded.
Despite these and other malfunctions, the submarine was commissioned on
April thirtieth nineteen sixty one. A couple of months later,

(10:36):
K nineteen went on its first mission, but on July
four it malfunctioned again. When the submarine was in the
North Atlantic near the south tip of Greenland, a leak
in the reactor caused the coolant pumps to fail. This
led to a dangerous rise in temperature in the reactor core.
Because the long range radio system was damaged, the submarine

(10:57):
could not contact Moscow for assistance, so Captain Nikolai vladimirovitch
Zatyev ordered engineers to create a makeshift coolant system using
an air vent valve in water piping. A nuclear crisis
was averted, but the crew was exposed to radiation. Eight
crew members who fixed the league died within a month,

(11:18):
and since the subs ventilation system was contaminated, fourteen other
crew members died over the next two years. K nineteen
faced more accidents the rest of its time and operation.
It collided with an American submarine in nineteen sixty nine,
and in nineteen seventy two a fire broke out on board,
killing around thirty people. K nineteen was finally decommissioned in

(11:42):
nineteen nine because of his reputation for being involved in
deadly incidents. K nineteen was nicknamed Hiroshima. I'm Eve Chef
Code and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. And if you have any
nice comments you want to leave us, or if you
have any suggestions for episodes, you can send them to

(12:04):
us on social media. We're at t d I h
C Podcast. You can also email us at this day
at I heeart media dot com. Thanks again for listening
to the show and we'll see you tomorrow. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.