Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Forty years on from the Swann Report
Shocking institutional racism in the schools system was exposed in a 1985 report highlighting the over-representation of black children branded ‘educationally subnormal.’ Four decades on the fight for justice continues, writes JAYDEE SEAFORTH
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THIS month marks 40 years since the Swann Report confirmed the suspicions of black children, teachers and parents in Britain — the British education system is systemically racist. Biologist Lord Michael Swann’s powerful report wasn’t the first or last to address racial discrimination in schools, but it was groundbreaking in its thoughtfulness and acknowledgement of the scandal of “educationally subnormal” (ESN) schools.
This often forgotten miscarriage of justice took place in the 1960s and ’70s, and saw hundreds of black children wrongly sent to schools meant for pupils with severe physical and mental disabilities.
Before World War II, these schools primarily served disabled children from wealthy backgrounds — but by the late ’60s almost 30 per cent of ESN pupils in London were black immigrant children, mainly from the Caribbean, compared to 15 per cent in mainstream schools.
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