The 37th annual Altab Ali commemoration began on Monday with a minute’s silence in Whitechapel to remember the East End garment worker murdered in 1978.
Wreaths were laid at his memorial in Altab Ali Park by the chair of Altab Ali Foundation, Akikur Rahman, and Secretary Rajonuddin Jalal.
Speakers emphasized the importance of the yearly gathering in the anti-racist calendar.
They included Bengali activists of the 1970s as well as Tower Hamlets Council’s Speaker Abdul Chunnu, London Assembly member Murad Qureshi, UK Awami League’s president Sultan Shariff and ex-local councillor Phil Maxwell.
Altab’s death led to the Bengali community “mobilisation” which went on to defeat the National Front in Brick Lane in 1978, after he was attacked by thugs on his way home on May 4, 1978.
The foundation was later set up which holds the annual commemoration to all victims of racism, staged in the former St Mary’s Churchyard that was renamed in the 1970s in his memory.
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