61 years ago a black man was murdered in a racist attack still unsolved today
More than 1,000 people lined Ladbroke Grove for the funeral of Kelso Cochrane (picture inset) in 1959
On this day 61 years ago, a murder took place in London that forced Britain to address its devastating racism.
A 32-year-old black man from Antigua named Kelso Cochrane was brutally murdered in a racist attack in the early hours of May 17, 1959.
After receiving treatment at Paddington Hospital for a finger injury, Mr Cochrane was walking along Southam Street (now the Edenham estate, including the Trellick Tower) when a gang of white youths attacked and stabbed him with a stiletto knife outside of the Earl of Warwick pub on Golborne Road.
Arrests were made but both suspects were released hours later.
Mr Cochrane's murderers were never caught and the police played the motive down as a robbery and general hooliganism. This reverberated through North Kensington’s Caribbean community and Britain at large.
Isis Amlak, a local activist and former chair of the North Kensington Law Centre, said Mr Cochrane's murder was a pivotal moment that "changed the dynamic" between the Caribbean and white working class communities of North Kensington.
Mr Cochrane was part of a generation of Caribbean people who were encouraged to help fill Britain's struggling labour force after the Second World War - namely the Windrush Generation.
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