This week is National Hate Crime Awareness Week. I have passed by a small park near Aldgate East Station on the Whitechapel Road on numerous occasions by car, byNumber 25 bus and even on a bike (the later many years ago during a rail strike when I worked in the City off London!). But it was not until last Sunday evening's Service at St. Paul's Cathedral that I learned that it is now called to Altab Ali Park, to mark the racist murder of a young man 40 years ago.
So I went there yesterday afternoon. It was wet with that rain that seems excessively wet - if you know what I mean. A few young men were in the park - chatting and laughing. Two police officers ambled through. A man ate his lunch standing up for the seats were wet.
A few yards away in 1936 Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists - Blackshirts - were halted by more than 300,000 protesters. I recall my father telling me about it - I was nearly four, but the recollection is crystal clear and it is probably my earliest memory.
In 1978 Mr Ali's murder sparked protests again. The park - the site of a church that was bombed in the blitz in World War Two - was named after him. Today memorial and information boards remind us that ten days after Mr Ali's death 7,000 marched to 10 Downing Street chanting: "Black and white, unite and fight".
Last week a 23-year-old young black man was stabbed to death a mile or so from where I live, and on the doorstep of my daughter and son-in-law's home.
As the song 'Where have all the flowers gone', so rightly speaks: "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"
