The British Pub That Refused Malcolm X

How a trip to Smethwick exposed the colour bar in a pub that would later become desi.

On 12 February 1965, Malcolm X travelled to Smethwick, a town just outside Birmingham that had become synonymous with Britain’s rising racial tensions.

Malcolm X visits Marshall Street Smethwick in February 1965. A blue plaque to mark the occasion still exists today

Only months earlier, the Conservative MP Peter Griffiths had won the Smethwick seat after…