In 1978, the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism held a huge Carnival at Victoria Park in Mile End where The Clash and other bands played
In 1978, the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism held a huge Carnival at Victoria Park in Mile End where The Clash and other bands played
When Shoreditch was fascist territory
Londoners of a certain age remember the two massive Anti Nazi League carnivals in 1978 with glowing nostalgia. But Manchester was in on the act too. Let’s not forget that. Here was the Mancunian ANL carnival with acts like Steel Pulse, the Buzzcocks and China Street.
I loved Steel Pulse’s Jah Pickney with that song’s delightful lyrics about hunting the National Front. Check it out on YouTube. Buzzcocks – we all know them! But I’d quite forgotten China Street, a favourite of John Peel and on the EMI label for a while.
The march was sponsored by the north west region TUC. The trade unions were very much a backbone of the whole anti-racist push against the National Front at that time.
School kids against the Nazis, or SKAN for short, was a schools-based campaign against racism and fascism in the late 1970s