Malcolm X was here: corner of Marshall Street and West Park Road, Smethwick

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 15 Apr 2023

Since 2012 the house on the corner of Park Road and Marshall Street, Smethwick, has carried a blue plaque, which reads: Nubian Jak Community Trust Malcolm X 1925-1965 International civil rights campaigner. Advocated desegregated housing in Smethwick with his visit to Marshall Street in 1965. Recognize Sandwell MBC African Caribbean Self Help Organisation Indian Workers Association (GB) Sandwell MBC (Metropolitan Borough Council) is the successor to the County Borough of Smethwick, which at the time of Malcolm X's visit, was proposing to compulsorily purchase every house on Marshall Street to let to white people only. The previous year, the Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths had won the parliamentary seat on an openly racist election slogan and a policy platform of racial segregation. Malcolm X, who was on a tour of Europe and speaking at Birmingham University, was invited by the Indian Workers' Association to visit Smethwick, where he spoke to local people and experienced local conditions, including being excluded from a pub which operated a whites-only 'colour bar' policy: see Image Malcolm X was assassinated nine days after the visit, shortly after his return to the USA. The council subsequently abandoned its segregationist policy; Marshall Street is now an integrated, multicultural street. See the blog of Verso Books https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/5046-malcolm-x-and-the-midlands for an account of the visit, also the site of the Nubian Jak Trust https://nubianjak.com/malcolm-x-plaque-february-2012/ .

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