Wild Scenes at Cardiff
The ‘Cardiff race riots’: one of those moments in a city’s history that lingers – in family stories, in popular myths – but for which there is no complete official record.
National Theatre Wales and The Heritage & Cultural Exchange
12-13 June 2019, 7-9pm
Butetown Community Centre
Created and performed by Mike Pearson and Ali Goolyad
‘Wild Scenes at Cardiff’ declared the South Wales Echo.
‘Blacks Hunted By a Furious Mob’ proclaimed the South Wales News.
National Theatre Wales and The Heritage & Cultural Exchange present an evening to mark the centenary of the Cardiff Riots of June 1919.
In mid-June 1919, our city was plunged into four days and nights of violent mayhem that left three dead, many in hospital, and buildings wrecked and burnt.
Its causes were a complex knot of post-war frustrations following demobilization – lack of housing, lack of jobs, lack of opportunity. But most shocking was the racial aspect, as local troublemakers, ex-servicemen and Colonial soldiers clashed with Yemeni, Somali and Caribbean seamen, in front of vast crowds of on-lookers.
The ‘Cardiff race riots’: one of those moments in a city’s history that lingers – in family stories, in popular myths – but for which there is no complete official record.