Eclectic Avenues — How London’s First Black Pub Landlords Changed the City’s Drinking Culture
The majority of South London’s Jamaican-owned pubs were located on Coldharbour Lane, a major thoroughfare which runs between the neighborhoods of Brixton and Camberwell. It was a poor area even before members of the Windrush Generation settled in London, and with their arrival came depictions of the area as a ghetto by the white media, even though the newcomers were able to forge a strong sense of community. From the 1960s onwards, Coldharbour Lane witnessed a flowering of Black-owned businesses, especially in and around Brixton Market, including grocers, barbers and record shops.Many Black residents lived on stretches of Mayall Road and Railton Road, an area that would later be dubbed “the Frontline,” a shorthand for a community living with day-to-day police harassment.