DARRELL M. NEWTON. Paving the Empire Road: BBC Television and Black Britons.

Abstract

In 1978, the BBC began broadcasting a new soap opera entitled Empire Road. Written by Guyanese Briton Michael Abbensetts, the acclaimed show followed the intertwined lives of Birmingham residents of Caribbean and Asian descent. Lasting two seasons before falling prey to budget cuts, the show remains a high point in the uneven history of blacks on British television and demonstrated the value of black engagement in all phases of television production. In this monograph, Darrell M. Newton examines the significance of black Britons—both in front of and behind the camera—in the BBC's approach to people of color and its policies on race from the 1930s to the present. The attention the BBC has paid to black people in Britain has undoubtedly had a profound impact. As Newton explains, even before and during World War II, the BBC considered multiethnic perspectives in radio and television in its attempt to foster good race relations in Britain. And it was thanks to a BBC film crew that we have the indelible newsreel image of Caribbean migrants arriving in 1948 on the Empire Windrush, an event that has become so symbolic of the black presence in Britain that it was depicted in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics.