[3] His work campaigning to end the racial segregation in drinking establishments in Smethwick, West Midlands drew the attention of Malcolm X who visited the town, on 12 February 1965,[4][5] and was taken to a segregated pub, the Blue Gates, with Jouhl and Indian activists to witness where non-white customers were forced to drink in separate rooms.

He was furious to learn he and other South Asian workers were paid less than half their white counterparts for the same dangerous, hot work.

[6][8] Avtar Jouhl Singh was born in November 1937 in Jandiala, a village named for a jand tree, within India's Jalandhar district.

Teachers hit Jouhl with a cane after he rebelled against the authorities who would force students to be taken out of school and exploit them by having them harvest locust eggs nearby for profit.

[6] Following the partition of India in 1947, life in Jandiala had changed and its Muslim residents began to leave among increasing fears of safety, despite the village elders trying to assure them.

Prior to his incarceration and while he was eluding capture, the police kept raiding the Jouhl family house in order to find his cousin.

Jouhl has stated that his early childhood remembrances involve his parents and other relatives being taken to the police station where they would be questioned and beaten.

[6] Jouhl identified as Punjabi, Indian, and black and claimed that more Asians need to view themselves in these terms and realise the global anti-racism struggle is their fight too.

[6] When pressed, the flimsy excuse offered by the pub's landlord was that it was on account of Indians speaking in Punjabi which the white clientele would complain about as they didn't like feeling like they were being talked about.

[6] Jouhl also claimed that non-white pub goers were given different glasses, ones with handles, to their white counterparts so that they could be clearly distinguished, and avoided.

[3] In 1961, Jouhl was dismissed by Shotton Bros.[10] White left-wing students worked with IWA workers to challenge the colour bar.

[6][11] Jouhl campaigned to make it so that the Labour party and trade unions would support legislation opposing the colour bar and racial discrimination.

[6] The continued protests against any licensee's clear use of the colour bar did however begin to have a big impact on the commerce and reputation of the Mitchells and Butlers Brewery who ran much of the pubs in the surrounding area.

[6] David Jesudason said that Jouhl and the IWA broke the workplace's colour bar by "getting some 'big lads' to push aside the guy in charge of the segregated toilets.

"[6] Fearing for his safety during this midday walkabout, Jouhl expressed his worry that one of the white residents would harm Malcolm X and offered the services of the IWA to accompany him on the walk down the street.

'[6]The visit gained press coverage at the time and was also captured in BBC film footage which had been hitherto unscreened until it was discovered in 2005, by Stephen C Page, a local artist.

[14] This and the wider work of Jouhl and the IWA in the first two decades of the mid-20th century in raising awareness of the anti-racism movement[13] helped bring the topic of racism to the national discourse during the 1964 general election [13]and helped deliver the Race Relations Act 1965, the first legislation to outlaw discrimination due to colour, race, ethnic origin, or national origins in public places in Great Britain.

[6] The visit of Malcolm X and his meeting with Jouhl and the IWA is now commemorated by a stained glass window display in the Red Lion pub which depicts the two anti-racism campaigners.

[14] Initially, the Desi pubs also provided their patrons with access to advice on legal, employment and marriage matters as well as offering a community fund for those who suffered hard times.