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Responses to the challenges of life in the UK took many forms over this period. They included:

• Community organisation and self-help. For example, in the 1920s and 1930s, the League of Coloured People organised community events and supported members facing discrimination. Most migrant communities have their own support groups. Many people are supported through places of worship - churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and gurdwaras.
• Industrial action. 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.
• Activism. One example of successful action for change was the Bristol bus boycott in 1963 which stopped the Bristol Omnibus Company employing only white drivers. Another was the campaign by the family and friends of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man murdered in 1993. This resulted in a major inquiry into policing that concluded that there was ‘institutional racism’ in the Metropolitan Police.
• Defence organisation. Examples include the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ in 1936, when Jews and non-Jews stopped a fascist march in East London and the Asian youth movements that responded to racist murders in Southall in 1976 and Tower Hamlets in 1978.

• ‘Uprising’ or ‘riot’. In 1980, 1981, 1985 and 2011 confrontation 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’.
• Mass movement. 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 which brought different strands of current music, such as punk and reggae, onto the same platform, had the effect of reaching and bringing together black and white young people in opposition to racism.
• Heritage. Many British migrant communities have - supported by museums and archives - been collecting documents, photographs, artefacts and oral histories to provide a record of their own histories. In some cases, such as the Jewish Museum and the Black Cultural Archives, this has resulted in dedicated heritage centres.
• Political representation. While having black people in prominent political positions is nothing new (Battersea in London had a black Mayor, John Archer, in 1913 and an Asian MP, Shapurji Sklatvala, in 1922) after the 2015 General Election there were 42 black and minority ethnic MPs in the House of Commons.