David Rosenberg, who occasionally comments here, runs walking tours around the East End.I’ve arranged for David to take as many of us as would like to go on the following tour, provisionally booked for Sunday 12 October at 4 p.m.
ANTIFASCIST FOOTPRINTS: STEPPING INTO THE 1930s EAST END
The dramatic story of how the people of the East End blocked the path of Oswald Mosley’s fascists in the 1930s is being told once again but this time the events are also being physically retraced through a walking tour. David Rosenberg will be leading a series of walks called “ANTIFASCIST FOOTPRINTS” between July and September.
The walks will start at Aldgate East – or Gardiners Corner as it was known then – where many tens of thousands stood to block Mosley’s path. They will wind their way to Cable Street, where the Jewish and Irish communities united to build barricades that prevented the fascists from invading the East End and terrorising its inhabitants.
There will be several stops along the way where David will tell the stories of ordinary people who became significant through this struggle and he will describe the role of organisations such as the Jewish People’s Council, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party in mobilising people to defend their communities. He will talk about the incidents they were caught up in and the actions they took and will locate the places where they organised their fight against fascism.
David says: “The fight against Mosley’s Blackshirts took place in so many arenas – on the streets, on housing estates, in the workplace, in youth clubs, in the press and through community institutions. Mosley was defeated then but fascism remains a live threat in Britain today. I believe that the experience of the 1930s provides lessons for the present.”
David’s grandparents came to the East End as immigrant children in the early 1900s. He worked there in the mid 1970s and the late 1980s, and published a study of how Eastenders responded to Mosley’s fascist movement, which was researched principally at Tower Hamlets Local History Library.
The event will cost £9 per person, although if a lot of us agree to turn up, the cost will fall. Sign up below if you’d like to come along and email me on davidt.harryblog@gmail.com
