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One example of successful action for change was the Bristol bus boycott in 1963 which stopped the Bristol Omnibus Company employing only white drivers. Other groups of immigrant workers, often led by women, on occasion took strike action against exploitation at work. Examples of this include the strikes at Grunwick photo processing works in 1976 and Imperial Typewriters in Leicester in 1974.

In the late 1970s, various organisations such as the Anti-Nazi League and the Anti Racist Alliance built alliances of individuals and organisations against the rise of the National Front. Most notably, Rock Against Racism’s events brought different strands of current music, such as punk and reggae, onto the same platform and had the effect of reaching and bringing together black and white young people in opposition to racism.

From the 1960s onwards, relations between the police and many black people, especially youth, deteriorated. It was felt by some black British people that they were unfairly picked out and harassed, that racist murders were not properly investigated, and that police were directly responsible for some deaths in police custody but were not called to account.

Asian youth movements responded to racist murders in Southall in 1976 and Tower Hamlets in 1978 by confronting both the National Front and the police. In 1980, 1981, 1985 and 2011 problems between young people (black and white) and police erupted into violence in Bristol, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and other cities. An enquiry by Lord Scarman into the events in Brixton in 1981 blamed housing and social conditions as well as police stop and search tactics, then known as ‘sus’.

The campaign by the family and friends of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man murdered in 1993, resulted in a major inquiry into policing that concluded that there was ‘institutional racism’ in the force.