Historian Everol Wilson and some of the exhibits from newspapers at the Whitewashing Windrush pop-up exhibition

WE must be careful not to “whitewash” the history of the Windrush generation, an exhibition in Islington has warned.

“Whitewashing Windrush”, an exhibition by historian and author Everol Wilson, debuted at a pop-up in the Black Cultural Centre in Hornsey Road this week.

The exhibition features a series of news articles, headlines and documents conveying a different narrative of the events that led to the “mass migration” of people from the Caribbean to the United Kingdom.

The Empire Windrush first docked in the UK in 1948 but, as the exhibition shows, this is not where the story began.

Reporting on the events in the British press has formed the public’s understanding of the events, and the racism in Britain that followed.

Using clippings from Jamaican newspaper the Daily Gleaner and the Trinidad Guardian, the exhibition shows this history through a different lens: one that challenges the narratives presented by mainstream British media.

Mr Wilson said: “Often, we hear people say that the Windrush Generation were ‘invited’ to the United Kingdom. But 77 years later, the invite still can’t be found.

“There is this whole myth about the Windrush Generation coming over on boats was organised by the British state, but that is what it is – a myth. What drove it was economics, and the fact that because of colonisation these people were British nationals.

“Everything in this exhibition is either from the Daily Gleaner or the Trinidad Guardian. The assumption is that everything that was going on in Britain was only being made aware to people in Britain.

“But this information was being syndicated all over the world, and people in the ex-colonies were getting all access to this where they were, but with their own angle.”

The exhibition touches on the backlash towards the Windrush generation as they arrived in Britain, but instead angled from the reporting of the events in the Caribbean.

“Every issue during this period that Britain said was a problem, is really of its own creation. There is a statement referring to colonisation: ‘If you weren’t over there, we wouldn’t be over here’,” Mr Wilson said. “If you’ve grown up as part of the Empire and been told that Britain is your homeland and your protector, when you are in trouble where do you go? You seek your parents.

“So this mass migration after the Second World War was of Britain’s own creation.”

Not learning from the mistakes of our history, Mr Wilson said, breeds cycles of racism and othering.

“Unfortunately, we are still going through the same cycle again. What Nigel Farage and others are doing is fanning the flames, riling people up, and telling us there’s no way forward,” he said.

The pop-up exhibition was accompanied by a film screening, and Mr Wilson said he is hoping to raise more funds to showcase the exhibition in full elsewhere.

“The method of my madness is putting all of these different newspaper cuttings together to tell an alternative story on the history of Windrush.

“It’s still growing, there’s more imagery, pictures and videos and all of that, but we need the funds to put it out in its entirety.”

• The Whitewashing Windrush pop-up exhibition can be seen at Hornsey Library, Haringey Park, N8 9JA, on June 26, noon-5pm.