Paul Stephenson: the hero who refused to leave a pub – and helped desegregate Britain

When he sat down in a pub that banned black people, Stephenson helped change Britain’s discrimination laws. He talks about organising the Bristol bus boycott, attacks from the National Front – and why Muhammad Ali composed a poem about him

In 1964, Paul Stephenson walked into the Bay Horse pub in Bristol and ordered half a pint. A bartender served him, but when the pub’s manager noticed, he told Stephenson to get out, saying: “We don’t want you black people in here – you are a nuisance.” Stephenson refused, and the police were called. Eight officers arrived to arrest him for refusing to quit a licensed premises and held him in the police cells until midnight.

The Bay Horse pub may have been notorious for banning black people, but it was not alone. In 1964 it was legal in the UK to refuse service on the basis of someone’s skin colour – and black and Asian people found themselves turned away not just from pubs but from working men’s clubs – and even from housing and jobs.

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