Winston Pinder is a black civil rights activist, communist, and youth worker, most notable for his work alongside Billy Strachan, Claudia Jones, and his campaigns against racism in Britain.
[2] In December 1955, Pinder made history as being a part of a small contingent of communist activists that welcomed Claudia Jones to Britain at Victoria station.
During the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, Pinder was chased by racist Teddy Boys armed with chains on Kentish Town Road, but managed to outrun them.
[4] Later in life, Pinder was not so lucky, and had to have his spleen removed after being stabbed in the stomach during a fight in the Tally Ho pub on Fortess Road.
[1] Noticing how the only two youth groups in his local area did not welcome black children, Pinder began a career as a youth worker, reaching out to young people in London and sharing his family home on Kentish Town Road, where he lived with his wife and four young children,[4] as an informal drop-in center.
[1][4] Inspired by his experiences during his youth work, Pinder completed a social science degree at Ruskin College before joining the Camden Community Race Relations Council.
[1][4] Pinder's campaign had been run with the support of Alderman Ruth Howe, the chair of the Camden Committee for Community Relations (CCCR).
[3] One man, a pensioner called Bill Fairman, cashed out his life insurance policy to help fund Claudia Jones new grave headstone.
[3] The campaign was a success and the erection of the new headstone next to Karl Marx's grave took place in January 1984, at a ceremony attended by envoys from China and Cuba, the Morning Star journalist Mikki Doyle, and the author Buzz Johnson.
We said we would not move out until we were given another empty place that we could turn into a hostel.”[4]Camden's housing chief, Ken Livingstone, noticed this protest and intervened, offering a Victorian era double-fronted house in King's Cross which had been boarded up for several years, to be temporarily leased to the Camden Afro Caribbean Organisation, which Pinder turned into a drop-in project.
[6] A committed communist activist for most of his life, Pinder was also heavily influenced by Cheddi Jagan,[4] the first person of Indian descent to become the leader of a country outside of Asia.