Dr Paul Stephenson: Hundreds remember civil rights campaigner

BBC News

31-01-2025

Hundreds of people have gathered at Bristol Cathedral to remember one of the UK's leading civil rights campaigners. The achievements of Dr Paul Stephenson OBE, who died in November, were marked during a special service attended by about 400 people.The actions of Dr Stephenson, who led the Bristol Bus Boycott in 1963 and undertook a one-man sit in at a Bristol pub that refused to serve him, helped pave the way for the first Race Relations Act in 1965. Actor David Harewood, who attended the service, said: "It feels like it's my duty to come down and pay respect to someone who was probably one of the first people to stand up with such incredible consequences."
At the memorial, The Berkeley Singers, directed by Marie Lee, sang O Radiant Dawn, to get the event under way.Bristol's Lord Lieutenant Peaches Golding OBE was among those who attended. Paul Boateng, a member of the House of Lords, told those gathered: "a mighty tree has fallen"."None of us would be here if Paul hadn't refused to give up his seat when they told him to, if he hadn't faced the humiliation of arrest, the finger printing, the day in court, none of us would be here," he said.
Harewood added: "He really stood up to bigotry, racism and his fight still today has a lasting legacy."Also paying tribute at the service, Lord Simon Woolley said: "We know about Rosa Parks, we need to know about Paul Stephenson."He added Marvin Rees' election as the first black mayor in Bristol was "due to the work" Dr Stephenson achieved. He also called for a statue of Dr Stephenson to be built.Sir Trevor Phillips, writer and former politician, also spoke at the memorial."This man was a warrior, but he never entered the arena with rage or fear in his eyes," he said.
Earlier this week, Radio Bristol met three people who knew Dr Stephenson personally at The Bay Horse pub in central Bristol. It was here the campaigner attracted national attention when he was arrested after refusing to leave without being served - an event that is now marked by a plaque on its wall. Lilleith Morrison, who co-wrote Dr Stephenson's autobiography Memoirs of a Black Englishman, described him as "our Martin Luther King". Ms Morrison said: "Everyone's got equal rights now, theoretically at least, and it all came about because of what happened in the bus boycott and in this pub. "This pub now represents a way of keeping that story alive, and people can come in and read about it and acknowledge what Paul did. "It's a sort of line of communication from the past to now." She added Dr Stephenson "loved telling" a joke about being the only person to be granted Freedom of the City of Bristol who had spent a night in jail.
Dr Stephenson, the son of an African father and mixed race British mother, moved to Bristol in 1962.The boycott of the Bristol Omnibus Company he organised overturned a ban on people from ethnic minorities working on buses in the city, while his pub sit-in also gained nationwide attention. He left the city in the early 1970s for London, but on his return in 1992 helped set up the Bristol Black Archives Partnership, which protects and promotes the history of African-Caribbean people in the city.
He was made an OBE in 2009 for his services to equal opportunities and to community relations - a moment filmmaker Rob Mitchell described as "no doubt one of the proudest moments of his life". "He would have been finally accepted by England itself, his country of birth, the country he loved very dearly, and that was his ultimate form of acceptance I think," Mr Mitchell added.