University of Leicester celebrates city's Caribbean community

The event will look at the ways Caribbean communities have made a distinctive contribution to the city

A university plans to hold an event to celebrate the contributions of its local Caribbean community.

The University of Leicester event will include a host of speakers.

The university said Leicester's African Caribbean population were among the city's earliest arrivals from the Commonwealth in the 1950s and 1960s.

Dr Margaret Byron, one of the speakers, said: "Leicester's Caribbean-born community grew from 59 in 1951 to more than 2,500 in the early 1980s."

'Pioneer'

The event will take place on Thursday between 17:30 and 19:30 BST at the Highfields Centre.

As well as Dr Byron, who is an associate professor in human geography at the university, speakers will include Dr Paul Campbell, director of the institute for inclusivity in higher education and Iris Lightfoote, CEO of the Leicester Race Equality Centre.

The speakers will reflect on the challenge of overcoming racism in Leicester and the ways Caribbean communities have made a distinctive contribution to the city.

Dr Byron said: "During the decades after World War Two, Leicester's buoyant and expanding industries - in particular the textile and engineering industrial sectors - experienced labour shortages.

"These labour needs in cities such as Leicester coincided with the return to Britain of demobbed Caribbean ex-servicemen, disillusioned with the lack of employment opportunities in their home islands.

"The British Nationality Act of 1948 conferred the right to enter, live and work in Britain on citizens of the British colonies and the Commonwealth.

"Early pioneer migrants from the Commonwealth Caribbean were soon followed by relatives and friends in a classic example of chain migration.

"Predominant in this population were migrants from Antigua, St Kitts/Nevis and Jamaica but Barbados, St Vincent and Montserrat are also represented in the present day Leicester Caribbean community."

This event is part of the university's Migration and the Making of Leicester series.