By Pawlet Brookes MBE

How the Annual Windrush Day Lecture Seeks to Reframe Collective Memory

The Windrush generation occupies a pivotal place in Britain’s national story symbolising resilience, aspiration, and the transformative power of migration.  In 1948, passengers disembarking the MV Empire Windrush (and the many others who came before and since) were not just labourers responding to a call for reconstruction; they were citizens of the Commonwealth, bearing dreams and dignity in equal measure.  Their contributions laid the foundation for a modern, multicultural Britain, yet their presence has often been met with suspicion, discrimination and tragically, betrayal.  To remember Windrush is to hold both pride and pain in equal regard.  It is to acknowledge the creative, social and economic contributions of Caribbean communities, while not turning away from the injustices they endured.  Their story, emblematic of many post-colonial migrations, is one of tenacity in the face of structural racism, and a fight for inclusion that continues to this day (Phillips, 2018).

Windrush: Always a Scandal

The Windrush scandal, exposed in 2018, did not appear out of anywhere.  It was the inevitable outcome of decades of systemic negligence and exclusionary immigration policies.  While Caribbean migrants were encouraged to help rebuild post-war Britain, they were simultaneously denied basic rights in employment, housing and healthcare.  When the scandal surfaced detailing the wrongful detention, deportation, and denial of services to lawful residents it laid bare the persistent failures of the British state to uphold justice and human dignity (Younge, 2018).

This scandal is a lens through which we must interrogate the UK’s broader colonial legacy, revealing how Black British citizens have been treated as expendable in both policy and perception.

The Annual Windrush Day Lecture: Changing the Narrative

In response to these ongoing injustices, the Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage’s Annual Windrush Day Lecture serves as a space for remembrance, resistance and re-imagination. Coinciding with Windrush Day, marked on 22 June, the lecture offers a platform for critical reflection, designed to challenge the silences and distortions that too often characterise dominant historical narratives.  It interrogates the politics of memory, representation and justice, encouraging new understandings grounded in lived experience.

Past lectures have brought a range of voices to the fore:

• Professor Stephen Small’s Windrush Generation as Living History traced intergenerational memory and identity.
• Dr Beverley Bryan illuminated the Black British Civil Rights Movement.
• Professor Gus John’s The Road to Independence explored the intersections of education and self-determination.
• Gary Younge critiqued tokenistic inclusion in Equal Opportunities and Photo Opportunities.
• Professor Lisa-Dionne Morris’s The Impact of Serenity considered mental health and technology within Diasporic communities.

Each lecture has added complexity, insight, and emotional weight to the evolving conversation about Windrush and what it represents.

This Year’s Lecture: A New Vision

In 2025, Serendipity is honoured to welcome Professor Verene A Shepherd for a keynote that continues this tradition of bold and necessary inquiry.  Her lecture, titled They Called Me N**r: The Historical Roots of Literary Protest by Caribbean Immigrants in Britain, will explore how Caribbean voices have resisted racism through literature.  Inspired by the words of Una Marson,  Professor Shepherd demonstrates how early migrants used the written word to reclaim their humanity and narrate their own realities (Gentles-Peart and Romer, 2021).

In a context where public narratives were often distorted or denied, writing became an act of protest and survival.  Her lecture will remind us that storytelling grounded in lived experience is a vital tool in the ongoing fight for justice and recognition.

Final Reflections

To honour Windrush is not simply to look back in solemnity. It is a call to action. It is a responsibility to transform remembrance into resistance and justice.  Serendipity’s Annual Windrush Day Lecture is more than a moment of reflection it is part of an ongoing movement to rewrite the cultural script, to ensure that the legacy of Windrush is understood not only in terms of what was endured, but also what was built.

As we gather again to listen, learn, and amplify these narratives, we are reminded that history is not static. It is ours to question, shape, and pass on with care, courage, and clarity.

Book Now for the Annual Windrush Day Lecture 2025

References

Gentles-Peart, K. and Romer, T. (2021) *Caribbean Migrations: The Legacies of Colonialism*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Phillips, M. (2018) *Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain*. London: William Collins.

Marson, U. (1933) They Called Me N****r.

Younge, G. (2018) ‘Windrush: The Scandal That Exposed Britain’, *The Guardian*, 22 April. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/22/windrush-the-scandal-that-exposed-britain (Accessed: 12 June 2025).

Image Credits:

Waterloo Station, 15 October 1961.. Photograph by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images.

Men, women and children from the Caribbean arrive at Southampton, 1962.
Photograph Tim Ring / Alamy Stock Photo.

Empire Windrush Postcard. The Living Archive. Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.