Di Parkin, Secretary of Bristol Radical History Group shares her memories of 1968 from the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and the women’s equal pay strike at Ford's Dagenham to the 'Prague spring', the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and Enoch Powell’s 'rivers of blood' speech. Watch this talk
Professor Bush offers a critical reassessment of the events of 1968 and their aftermath. He will look at May '68 in Paris in a broader context of global protest and changing narratives of political analysis and authentic action. He will give a brief account of his own experiences of the summer of 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X. Thirdly, Professor Bush will examine a late echo of the sixties in the […]
Not A BRHG Event
Members of Plan C, who have just returned from volunteering on civil projects in Rojava (the Democratic Confederation of Northern Syria) will be reporting back on Rojava and the wider Kurdish movement. The revolution is based on direct democracy, gender equality and ecology, and seeks to create a solidarity economy. How can we in the West learn from what is happening and offer our solidarity? Followed by question and answer session. We will also be screening some short films in tribute to Mehmet […]
When a new Naomi Klein book comes along it is certain to be a part of the zeitgeist. So the recent publication of No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics is no exception. Classics such as No Logo (1999) and The Shock Doctrine (2007) added important critiques to the public debate about neo-liberalism. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014) documented the environmental impossibility of the current fossil-fuelled trajectory of business as usual. No Is Not Enough […]
"Battling for Bristol" is an evening of films, put on by the Bristol Radical History Group as part of the Journey to Justice month. The series of short films cover Bristol struggles for equal rights. It will include the risings of 1831,1980 and 1986, the demands for decent housing and for equality for women workers, as well as a documentary of the boycott that ended job discrimination on Bristol buses.
The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire - royal larder or people's larder? The Charter of the Forests, a lesser-known but wider-ranging companion to the Magna Carta, confirmed any "freemen" or commoners could help themselves to many of the resources of forests across England. Within 500 years, those subsisting in the woods were declared illegal squatters as aristocrats and the Crown tried to fence them out and grab all the iron ore, coal, timber and land. Successive waves of tenacious, described […]
The History Workshop movement was a grassroots coalition of radical-academic, feminist, amateur and labour historians, which was founded at Ruskin College in the late 1960s under the guidance of the Marxist historian Raphael Samuel. This talk will explore the origins, development and eventual decline of the movement, with particular interest paid to the social composition of the movement, the different forms of “doing history” it pioneered, and the connections it established with similar […]
Not A BRHG Event
Dorset’s first Radical Bookfair will take place on Saturday 3rd June 2017 at Portfield Community Hall, Portfield Rd, Christchurch BH23 2AQ (approximately 5 minutes walk from Christchurch railway station). Ground floor is accessible for the disabled. Free entry to the public from 10:30 to 17:30 with after party from 19:30 to 23:00 £5 suggested donation. BRHG will be giving the following talk at the event: 'Ye have not done as ye ought': The Captain Swing Uprising The ‘Swing riots’ were a massive […]
New WEA Course: History of the Women’s Movement (1968–1988)
Dr Debi Withers is running a new WEA course in Bristol entitled History of the Women’s Movement (1968 – 1988): An introduction. Details below:
Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was one of the most progressive thinkers, writers and activists of the late19th and early 20th century. He was an early supporter of the Bristol Socialist Society and paid regular visits to the city. Now remembered and celebrated mostly for his support for libertarian socialism and gay politics, he also took up ‘green’ causes. Carpenter’s campaigns for smoke abatement have rarely been revisited. His serialised essay on the subject, The Smoke-Dragon and How to Destroy […]
