³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

What happened in 1964

• On June 16th, the then lawyer and ANC activist, Nelson Mandela, was imprisoned for life on a charge of treason.
• It's another big year for Martin Luther King. After being jailed briefly in June for Civil Rights activities in Florida he wins the highest international honour, the Nobel Peace Prize in December. On the way to collecting it he preaches a sermon in St Paul's Cathedral in London.
• President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act in a bid to continue the reforms initiated by John F. Kennedy. It was a landmark law protecting the black population from job and other forms of discrimination. But states such as California blocked certain elements such as fair housing rules. This a year of more race riots, this time in Harlem and New Jersey. In June Malcolm X founds Organisation for Afro-American Unity.
• The Beatles (whose world domination is in full swing) agree to play a concert in Jacksonville, Florida, on the condition that the audience is guaranteed to be unsegregated.
• The West Indian Gazette ceases publication, after the death of its editor, Claudia Jones.Claudia Jones (1915-1964) was a Trinidadian who spent most of her life in New York. She was an active Communist and edited the Negro Affairs section of the paper, the Daily Worker. In 1955 during the McCarthy 'witch-hunts' for Communists she was given asylum in London.It was in London she founded the West Indian Gazette ('58) which formed part of her campaign for equal rights. Within two years, it had a circulation of 15,000. Claudia was also one of the team that launched the Notting Hill carnival in 1959.
• The Trinidadian Derek Walcott gains widespread recognition as a poet when In a Green Night is published. He creates his own style of literature that's true to West Indian life.He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992.
• Sidney Poitier wins the best actor Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field. In the film he plays a construction worker whom a group of nuns believe was sent to them by God to build their church. Previous to this Hattie McDaniel had won best supporting actress in 1939 for her role in Gone with the Wind and James Baskett had received an Honorary Award in 1948 for voicing Uncle Remus in Disney's Song of the South.
• Cassius Clay takes world heavyweight boxing title from Sonny Liston.
• Abebe Bikila became the first person to win the Olympic marathon twice.
• On ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1: The Colony, filmed on location in Birmingham was the first TV documentary to give a voice to working class Caribbean settlers. Participants included a railway man from St Kitts, a bus conductor from Jamaica, a family of singers from Trinidad and a nurse from Barbados.
• Z Cars, a very popular drama series had an episode called A Place of Safety in which an African (Johnny Sekka) confronts racism from the police. Also the TV soap, Compact, becomes the first soap to include a regular role for a black actor - Horace James played magazine photographer Jeff Armandez.On radio; a 17-part series called the Negro in America, a drama by African-American Alice Childress launches.