Why did the renowned civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King come to St Paul’s cathedral in 1964?

Dr Hannah Elias looks at the context of the famous pastor's visit to the Cathedral, his relationship and with the Church of England and his impact on race equality campaigns in the UK.  

Dr Elias' research interrogates the place of religion in race equality campaigns, anti-racism activism, and Black liberation movements in 1960s Britain, and their relationship with the American civil rights movement, the South African anti-apartheid movement, and global anti-colonial struggles. She is developing a book project that examines the transnational connections between these movements, and the ways that religious organisations and the migration and movement of people, money and ideas played a significant role in anti-racism activism in Britain. Her research also explores the unique place London had in the Black Atlantic, as both metropole and the site of overlapping diasporas from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia, and the place of religion in processes of transnational political formation in Britain. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at Goldsmiths, University of London.