Windrush Day 2023

Windrush Day takes place on 22 June and commemorates Caribbean migrants arriving on the SS Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in London in 1948.  Today marks the 75th anniversary and a special 50p has been commissioned to commemorate the Windrush generation.  There are also six new poems celebrating Windrush as part of the 'Poems on the Underground' series by poets including John Agard, Grace Nichols and Benjamin Zephaniah.  Look out for these when you are travelling by tube or train in London during June and July.

Windrush Day is an opportunity to celebrate the Windrush generation and recognise the contributions and sacrifices the British Caribbean communities made to help rebuild Britain after World War II.  It is also a chance to reflect upon the difficulties that the Windrush generation experienced then and now.

We highly recommend that you read the award-winning Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah, available in the EPHS Lower Library.  Find out more from the people who were there by reading Voices of the Windrush Generation by David Matthews, available to borrow from the Library, or visiting 'Windrush Stories' on the British Library website here. 

The Guardian's Windrush at 75: books that shaped the black British Experience featuring books selected by leading Black British figures including Historian David Olusoga, is also worth a look.  To view, click here.