
It was a moment that united the US civil rights movement with the anti-racist movement in Britain, helping to change the country – and to mark its 60th anniversary it will be commemorated with a mural.
On 12 February 1965, the black American activist Malcolm X visited Smethwick, in the West Midlands after what is remembered as the most racist election campaign the UK has ever seen.
The Ivy Bush, in Smethwick, would not serve black customers back then. But now a mural will be painted on one of its outer walls depicting Malcolm X along with Claudia Jones – the campaigning journalist who helped launch the Notting Hill carnival and Britain’s first black newspaper – and Avtar Singh Jouhl, the anti-racism activist who invited him to Smethwick.