Historic Anti racist pledge signing by city and regional leaders

Wednesday 30 October marked a historic day as the first step to creating an Anti-Racist Birmingham and West Midlands.

For the first time, leaders from across every sector – city, regional, civic, public, education, private, faith, cultural, community and voluntary – came together in a powerful show of unity.

This landmark event took place at the BRIG bi-annual summit “What’s Changed?”, where the landmark pledge was signed, marking a bold step forward for the city's and region’s future.

A cross sector Leaders Debate Panel at the summit:

- Birmingham City Council

- West Midlands Combined Authority – Richard Parker – Metro Mayor

- Police and Crime Commissioner West Midlands

- Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board

- Birmingham City University

- Birmingham BMet College

- Women Acting In Today’s Society

- WM Independent Race Equality Taskforce

- Birmingham Race Impact Group

+ many other agencies are also signing up to the pledge. Click here to see the list of those agencies.

Will acknowledge that:

“In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”

― Angela Y. Davis

And will pledge:

We commit to work collectively to create an Anti-Racist

Birmingham and West Midlands

The importance of the city and regional leaders working together to take anti-racist action can’t be emphasised enough. Our growing Black, Asian and racialised communities that drive the city / region are being racially discriminated and not being afford the same opportunities as white people decade after decade. The increasing size and contribution of our global majority communities necessitates a collective step change in order that our city and region flourish in realising its potential.

To do this the first step must be seriously tackling the barriers created by a racist society preventing our global majority communities to flourish.

Ranjit Sondhi – BRIG Chair said:

“Bringing City and regional leaders together to tackle racism pro-actively must be a game changer. It can’t be left to stagnatingpolicies and procedure, which essentially manages the inequality that exists without trying to change anything.  We have worked tirelessly for decades to get the city, region, and its institutions on the same page in tackling racial inequalities seriously.

In action is not a choice. Due to the multiple barriers faced by racialised communities we are aware this has opened up a life expectancy gap of circa 10 years between ethnic minorities and their white counterparts. The response from the system for decades has been “it takes time”, frankly we haven’t got it.

We have learnt from anti-racist campaigners who came before us just how difficult the struggle is to eradicate the deep, persistent, and periodically violent, racism in Britain. But we are now at a moment in history when all major public institutions and community groups have pledged to make, Birmingham an anti-racist city. We are pleased that BRIG has played a significant part in this development.

We live in hope that the signing of the pledge for creating an Anti-Racist Birmingham and West Midlands will be an impactful fore runner for making ‘Birmingham a leading Global Anti Racist City by 2025 (draft summary City Vison) and the Anti-Racist Commissions that will kick start it in 2025.

To do this justice we will need to do more than just signing a pledge, though it is a start for collective action. To be truly anti-racist you need to understand how racism operates and keeps reinventing itself. Covid exposed how racism operates structurally and culturally in a racist society in killing many more people of colour both on service and community frontlines. Its our job to stay well ahead of it.”

Patrick Vernon OBE, Chair at NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board said:

“I’m proud to be able to commit NHS Birmingham and Solihull and our integrated care system to working collectively to create an Anti-Racist Birmingham and West Midlands. I, like many others, have been fighting for the value of a diverse, inclusive, tolerant and equal society for years and it has never been more important. Inequalities in access, experience and outcomes including shocking maternal and infant mortality rates have long been known about and Black, Asian and minority ethnic NHS staff have long endured higher prevalence of bullying and harassment cases, higher prevalence of disciplinaries, lower pay and lack of promotion opportunities. We must tackle this and more and I hope we can all build on the commitment made today to do that.”

To join the many who have already signed the pledge please let us know by writing to us here explaining why you are supporting the pledge. 

See coverage of the historic Anti-Racist pledge signing:

Historic city summit live as Brummies unit against Racism

Pledge to make Birmingham an Anti-Racist City in ‘moment in history’