The brooding face of black power in America, Malcolm X stopped on the corner of a Smethwick street and announced: “I have come because I am disturbed by reports coloured people are being treated badly. I have heard they are being treated as Jews were under Hitler.” MIKE LOCKLEY reports.

‘‘IF you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.’’

That was the hateful mantra that rang out within a handful of miles from Birmingham in 1965.

‘‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.’’

That was the hateful slogan slapped on walls, hung from lamp-posts and smeared on walls.

‘‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.’’

Those hateful words, and the bile behind them, brought Malcolm X, a man who had called on Black America to combat oppression with violence, to Marshall Street, Smethwick, on February 12 in 1965.

But the slogan, soaked in prejudice, was not the anthem of tattooed, far-right tearaways intent on using racism as an outlet for the lager-laced violence that brewed within.

It was uttered by formidable, blue-rinsed, middle class women.

The kind who railed against ‘nonsense’ plans to ditch golliwogs from jam-jars.

The kind who would be mortally offended if dubbed racist. The kind who penned letters to their newspaper, the delightfully-named Smethwick Telephone, about Asian men ‘clearing their throats’ on pavements.

They were ‘Disgusted, of Marshall Steet’.

They were the kind who had nothing against ‘darkies’ – they just didn’t want them in their street. Marshall Street.

And to that end, they petitioned their local council to compulsory purchase properties that came on the market and let them to white families.

That grand plan gained support at grass roots level, but was eventually scuppered by the Ministry of Housing.

And their paranoia grew with the arrival of every new Afro-Caribbean and Asian family, drawn by the foundaries, until Marshall Street – for one fleeting moment in time – became the gaping wound from which the poison of middle-class British racism oozed forth.

Malcolm X, a man once committed to total segregation of blacks and whites, did not come to Marshall Street on February 12 as a diplomat.

He came unheralded.

He came with an army of black minders who outnumbered the thin ribbon of curious onlookers. He came with his own brand of venom.

During his whistle-stop visit, Malcolm X also addressed Birmingham University students’ union and the London School of Economics.

They were to be among his last public appearances. Just nine days after Marshall Street, Malcolm X died in a hail of bullets in a New York ballroom.

“I have come,” he announced, “because I am disturbed by reports that coloured people in Smethwick are being treated badly.

‘‘I have heard they are being treated as the Jews were under Hitler.”

When asked what steps should be taken, Malcolm X spat out: “I would not wait for the fascist elements in Smethwick to erect gas ovens.”

Smethwick’s stream of discontent, which, thankfully, never swelled into a river of blood, first spluttered into life during the 1964 general election, when Tory Peter Griffiths ousted Labour MP Patrick Gordon Walker by a massive 7.2 per cent swing.

It is accepted some voters took the baton of racial resentment... and ran with it. There were accusations in The Telephone of children chanting the loathsome slogan, as if lisping a rhyme while skipping rope.