Born in 1951 to Kwaku and Eleanor Boateng, Paul attended Ghana International School, Accra Academy, Apsley Grammar School and earned an LLB in 1972 from Bristol University.

In 1980, he married Janet Olivia Alleyne and together, they have two sons and three daughters. A member of the House of Commons for Brent South since 1987, Mr Boateng is also a member of GMB, and was Vice- Chair of the Ethnic Minority Committee.

He has also served as the Minister to Young People, a Minister in the Home Office, along with positions in the Lord Chancellors Department and Department of Health.

Paul Boateng was appointed as a cabinet minister on 29 May 2002 and he is the first Black Cabinet minister - 110 years after the first Black MP was elected. Paul Boateng now serves as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in charge of Government spending levels.

He is now the UK's Ambassador to South Africa.

Born in 1967 to a Jewish mother and African-American civil rights activist, Preston King. Oona was educated in Chalk Farm and went on to join the Labour Party at the age of 14. She received a joint Politics degree from York University and University of California, Berkley.

Ms King's political background includes working on the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, as well as becoming political assistant to Glyn Ford MEP, the Labour Party Leader in the European Parliament.

In 1995, Oona was selected to stand for the Bethnal Green & Bow seat in Parliament, and since her election in 1997, she has succeeded in changing the law to benefit low-paid local authority workers, predominately women and ethnic minorities.

Bernie Grant

Born in Guyana, and resident in Britain since 1963, Bernie Grant worked as a British Railways clerk, National Union of Public Employees area officer, and as a partisan of the Black Trade Unionists Solidarity Movement. In the political sphere he joined the Labour Party in 1975 and was elected as Member of Parliament for Tottenham.

Grant had served for a decade of service as local councillor in the London Borough of Haringey, of which he was elected Leader in 1985. He was the first ever Black Leader of a local authority in Europe, and in this capacity had responsibility for an annual budget of some 163,500 million, and the well-being of a quarter of a million people, many of them Black and ethnic minorities.

Bernie Grant brought to parliament a long and distinguished record as a leading campaigner against injustice and racism. He was a founder member of the Standing Conference of Afro-Caribbean and Asian Councillors and a member of the Labour Party Black Sections.

Grant was a member of the National Executive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain,  with a longstanding concern about the situation in Southern Africa. He also had a keen interest in the affairs of the Caribbean region, and of Central America, Ireland and Cyprus.  He was also involved in efforts to tackle racism on a European wide level, in association with European Members of Parliament and European anti-racist groups.

Lord David Pitt

Lord David Pitt, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, now deceased was the longest serving Black Parliamentarian, having been granted a life peerage in 1975.

Born in Grenada, he came to Britain in 1933 to study medicine at Edinburgh University. His achievements in his two chosen careers of medicine and politics were considerable. In 1943, while practicing medicine in Trinidad and Tobago, he was founder member and leader of the West Indian National Party. Upon his return to live in Britain in 1947 he served as a Member of London County Council and a Chairperson of the Greater London Council and, from 1985-88, as President of the British Medical Association.

He was Deputy Chairman of the Community Relations Commission from 1968-1977, and Chairman in 1977. Notably, Pitt was a member of black peoples' and anti-discriminations organisations such as the Legue of Coloured Peoples and the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination which he chaired in 1965. As a prominent member of the House of Lords, inner city issues were among his major concerns.

He was Chairperson of the Shelter National Campaign for the Homeless; Chairperson of the Race Equality Unit of the Institute of Social Work; President of the Open Door Counseling Service for the Youth of North London; President of the African-Caribbean Medical Society and Co-Chairperson of the Urban Trust, which provided pump-priming finance for projects in inner city areas.

Dadabhai Noaroji

The fact that before the mass waves of immigration in the 1950s there had been three Indian MPs in the British Parliament,  all representing different political parties.  The first was Dadabhai Noaroji, who was the first Indian ever to run for Parliament.

He lost the election battle and was literally catapulted to fame by his loss because his running for Parliament caused the Prime Minister 'Lord Salisbury' to comment that the British Constituencies had not yet gotten to the point where they would elect a 'Black man'.  This made him a much-talked about figure, and when he stood again for Parliament in 1892, for Finsbury Park  he was elected and held the seat for three years.  He died in 1916 aged 91.

John Richard Archet

Jo was Britain's first black Mayor.  In 1913 he was elected the tenth Mayor of Battersea.  He came to prominence as an outstanding public speaker when he supported John Burns in the 1905 General Election.

Then in 1906 he won the local election and became Britain's first British born black Councillor. Until he was nominated there was no mention by the opposition of his colour later they used his race to supposedly highlight the radical policies of Battersea's working class tradition.

At the 1921Pan African Congress he introduced Saklatvala who was an Indian Communist.

Shapurji Saklatvala

Shapurji Saklatvala is said to have been the most radical Indian involved in British politics.  He fought hard for the rights of the British Working class and for the national liberation of India from British rule.

Born in Bombay, he came to England in 1905 and was an active member of the Communist party until he died in 1936.

He won a seat in Parliament for the Labour party in 1922, lost it in 1923 , and regained it again in 1924 as a communist candidate.  He was very popular with the working class men of the time.

Sir M. Bhownagree

Was the MP for Bethnal Green North East for ten years. Born in Bombay in 1885. He was called to the Bar in 1885.  

Bhownagree  made links with Indian students living in London  and made himself involved in their welfare and education. 

In addition to this he lobbied parliament for the rights of Indian subjects and also for the rights of Indians living in South Africa.

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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."