Gordon Joseph Dugdale (30 May 1936 - 16 January 2001) was a Georgeland civil rights leader and immigration reform advocate, best known for his role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and his activism for Black Georgelanders. While not the first Black Georgelander to assume a prominent political role, Dugdale has become one of the most well-known figures in the Georgeland civil rights movement.
A contemporary of US Civil Rights figures Stokely Carmichael, John Lewis and and Martin Luther King Jr, Dugdale was influenced by their impact on the US Civil Rights movement. In 1969, Dugdale founded the Georgeland Black Panthers along with Ricky Gates and Susan Miles, but in 1972 left the organisation and adopted a policy of nonviolent activism. His campaigning against discriminatory racial policies, mostly in the immigration area, led him to be called the 'father of Georgeland multiculturalism'.
Dugdale died of a stroke in 2001 aged 64, and was the first Black Georgelander to be afforded a state funeral.
Early life and career[]
Dugdale was born on 30 May 1936 to a Scottish father, Angus Dugdale, and his wife Anne Robinson, who was born in India to a Haitian mother and Kenyan father. At the time, Angus Dugdale was a military officer in the Indian Army under the British Raj, and Anne a domestic servant. Their mixed-race marriage was not particularly unusual, but due to Anne's background as African rather than Indian, it did cause comment and the young Gordon faced considerable discrimination and racism as a child from British officials. In 1940, Angus Dugdale was transferred back to England, and in 1941 fought in North Africa. He was killed in action on 6 October 1942. Anne Dugdale took up a position as a factory worker, but in 1943 was sacked by her white employers allegedly for stealing, which Anne adamantly denied. An investigation was conducted which revealed Anne was innocent, but she was not reinstated. From 1944, Anne found steady work as a typist and secretary, but still continued to face racial prejudice and her young son was beaten regularly by white boys. Dugdale, like many children in the UK, was evacuated to the Midlands, and spent much of the war in rural Oxfordshire.
At the conclusion of the war, Anne and her son were reunited and soon afterwards Anne married Colin Johnson, a white clerk with whom she had worked at the Home Office. In 1949, the family took advantage of the Georgeland government's postwar migration scheme, and relocated from London to Doubledance. They originally intended to emigrate to Australia, where Colin Johnson had family, but Australian immigration law excluded anyone of black ancestry. Georgeland law did not, although discrimination was often practiced. Due to the family's employment history and the fact Anne had been born a British subject, the Immigration Office of the period granted them residency on 21 March 1950.
Dugdale attended Riverside High School from 1950 to 1953, and for most of that time was the only black student. When he turned eighteen, Gordon Johnson officially changed his surname back to 'Dugdale' in honour of his father after a white student declared that the young black man was 'too black to be here'. Dugdale took the remark as a badge of honour and declared pride in his black ancestry. He, along with his mother and stepfather, became Georgeland citizens in 1952.
Dugdale was rejected from the University of Santa Christina and the University of Mainland, in 1954, ostensibly due to his grades. His grade average was more than sufficient to qualify, but both USC and UM cited a clause in their charters which permitted them to impose higher standards on students 'of undesirable backgrounds'. The clear racial discrimination of this clause was not lost on Dugdale. His parents, always supportive of black rights, attempted to sue both of the universities but, as there was no specific racial discrimination law in place at the time, were unsuccessful. After graduating high school, Dugdale worked a variety of labour and service jobs and experienced significant discrimination during his employment. In one incident in 1956, Dugdale was called a "thieving n*gger" by his boss at a local restaurant, and another incident the same year saw Dugdale beaten by two white co-workers at a factory; no charges were ever laid.
In 1957, three years after his original application, a policy change at the University of Mainland took place in which the 'undesirable background' clause was removed. The change was prompted partly by a high-profile case, that of Stephen Mallory , another black student of British birth whose application had been similarly rejected. Unlike Dugdale, Mallory's white father was well-connected within the academic establishment, and was able to turn the case into a national cause celebre. Mallory and Dugdale were both accepted into the University of Mainland for the 1958 academic year. They were not the first black students at UM (George Stempel-Holland and Peter Bagshaw were admitted in 1930) but they were the only black students there at the time. By 1962, however, the number of black students had grown to almost 100.
Early activism[]
University[]
Older than most of his fellow students, Dugdale was popular and charismatic, and excelled academically as well as on the university's cricket team, of which he was captain in his final year. Contrary to his expectations, Dugdale found university largely free of the racism that had plagued his earlier education. In 1985, Dugdale wrote: I was shocked, frankly, by how little difference there really was between me and the white students. At every other school I'd ever attended I'd been called N*gger, Sambo, Blackie and Coon. But at UM, aside from the odd unpleasantness, everyone was welcoming and treated me as an equal. I'm glad that happened, not only because it was a load off my black skin, but because I did not want to grow into maturity hating whites and thinking only negative things of the white population who controlled my destiny. University taught me, more than anything, that black people could be welcomed into the white world, and we could prosper, if we had the chances we'd never had before.
Assault and legal changes[]
Doubledance in the early 1960s was a changing place, with immigration and economic causes pushing working-class families out of the city centre and into the suburbs. Dugdale initially lived on campus, but in 1960 moved to rented housing in Durham. He was the only black resident of his street. On one afternoon in May 1960, Dugdale returned home to discover someone had hung up an effigy on his front doorstep, in the manner of a lynching. Dugdale wrote later that the incident reminded him just how different he was from local people, and how action was needed to protect people like him. Later that year, Dugdale was assaulted by masked attackers, wearing white hoods, as he left the university campus. He was hospitalised and blinded in his right eye, wearing an eyepatch from that point on. The attackers were never caught, although a police investigation into the incident in 1996 revealed the local police probably knew who the assailants were and chose not to act. The student population reacted with shock to Dugdale's assault. More than $2000 was raised to cover his medical costs and continued student fees, and several of Dugdale's friends organised a vigil. The small but growing number of black students began to speak out and threaten legal action. Representing several black students pro bono, barrister Frank Janson, himself of black ancestry and one of the first black law school graduates in Georgeland, provided cause for legal proceedings, arguing the university was negligent in not providing its full duty of care to its black students. In Janson's letter, he argued black students on campus had considerably less safe accomodation, with less light and less security, and that the university's failure to assist the police in Dugdale's case was tantamount to obstruction. While no legal case was filed, the incident prompted the university to waive Dugdale's student fees for the remainder of the academic year. It also granted permission for a Black Students Club, which it had previously denied. The incident prompted the state government to act, and in 1963 it introduced the Racial Relations and Discrimination Act, the first racial discrimination law in Georgeland. Under the act, it became a civil offence to refuse service, enrolment or employment to a person based on their race. While far from perfect, it was endorsed by the universitys new Black Students Club, of which Dugdale was the president. His first vice president was Stephen Mallory, who was murdered by a white student in 1963. Mallory's murder prompted Dugdale and the UMBSC to call for police reforms and restitution for his family, and brought the club to national attention.
Graduation[]
Dugdale graduated from UM on 18 October 1963. Aged 27, he was the oldest member of his graduating class. His six years at UM had been part-time while he worked to pay his student fees, and had been spent as an advocate and student leader as much as in the classroom. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts with honours, specialising in history and political science.
Dugdale was assigned a bodyguard for his graduation by university authorities. The March on Washington in the United States had taken place only weeks before, and racial tensions in Doubledance were considered high as black residents marched and occasionally rioted in solidarity.