Sam King: Caribbean legend dies

Sam King MBE should have easily been Sir Sam King. The service he gave to this nation deserved nothing less. As an 18 year old King joined the RAF. He recalls his mother telling him that the ‘mother country needs you, but make sure you come back’.

After putting his life on the line for the UK, he would later return on as part of the historical Windrush Generation which sailed into Tilbury docks in 1948, some three years after the 2nd World War.

Instead of a welcoming that would befit a war veteran King and his generation were confronted with deep racial hostility. His response was to fight racial injustice and co-found what would eventually be the world famous Notting Hill Carnival, along with Claudia Jones and others.

As a councillor in Southwark, he would become the first Black Mayor arguing the importance of political and civic engagement.

In his later life he would spend so much of his time talking, inspiring young men women about the virtues he had learned in the RAF, in activism and in life.

Today the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has paid tribute King who he described as “legend”, adding that Britain is a better place thanks to Sam King MBE.

Corbyn is right: As a young man Sam King put his life on the line to confront evil and whilst in Civvy Street he sought to make Londoners smile and dance to a Caribbean beat.

We salute you Sam King. RIP

Simon Woolley