The port that welcomed Caribbean passengers a year before Windrush.
A Year Before Windrush
Southampton's place in the story starts before the Empire Windrush. In 1947, a year before Windrush reached the Thames, about a thousand people docked at Southampton on a ship called the Almanzora, and around two hundred of them came from the Caribbean.
In the years that followed, the Windrush generation, who came to the UK as British citizens between 1948 and 1971, made homes in the city, and Southampton kept its strong connection with that period of migration.
In Their Own Voices
Southampton City Archives holds nearly 50 oral histories from the Windrush generation, about half of them on the British Library's website. In 2021 and 2022 the oral historian Padmini Broomfield recorded more local stories, and the photographer Nosa Malcolm made portraits of nine of the people interviewed, showing what matters to them and their place in the community.
The work is part of Windrush Legacy, a Black Archives South project with the John Hansard Gallery and Southampton City Council, which preserves and celebrates the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK.
One Love In St Mary's
In 2018, seventy years after Windrush, a mural went up on the front of St Mary's Fire Station showing African-Caribbean men and women against the words One Love. It celebrates the arrival of the Windrush generation in the city and the strength of the community in St Mary's, one of the most multicultural parts of the county.
Black Southampton Today
From St Mary's to the rest of the city, Southampton's African and Caribbean communities are part of a port city with links across the world. Black-owned food spots, barbers, salons and brands are part of everyday Southampton.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Southampton on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
Southampton Docks. Photo: Stuart Logan, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons Shops on St Mary Street, Southampton. Photo: Hugh Venables, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons