About the Author

In 2008 Paul Stephenson was given the Freedom of the City of Bristol in recognition of the work he has done there to bring the black and white communities together. It was an honour that he richly deserved because his campaign for a boycott of the buses in Bristol in 1963 against racial discrimination opened up the question of Bristol's role in the slave trade which the city had never really been ready to accept. The refusal of the Bristol Bus Company to employ black drivers was an issue that had been ignored and it was Paul who brought it into the public domain by discovering there was a vacancy for a bus driver and putting in the name of a black man, who was then told there was no vacancy. Instead of accepting it, Paul decided to make an issue of the matter and he organised a boycott of Bristol buses based on his knowledge of similar boycotts that had occurred in the United States as an early example of their campaign for racial equality. Born in 1937 Paul was English and black, joined the RAF and when he was demobilized, his first job was as a youth worker in Bristol which led him into his campaign against discrimination on the buses. Later he went to America and on to Jamaica and when he returned to Britain he married Joyce who was a Jamaican living in Bristol. Later he was appointed as a community relations officer and served in that capacity in Coventry and from there to become a national youth officer for the National Community Relations Council in London where he won the support of Muhammad Ali for his plan to promote sports development among the ethnic minority. His life, as readers of this book will see, offers living proof that history is made by the people who make the effort.