Frank Bailey - Black British Firefighter (British Black History Animated)

Meet Frank Bailey, he was known as being one of the first black firefighters in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. Frank Arthur Bailey was born in British Guiana, now known just a Guiana, on 26 November 1925. After completing education, Frank become an engineering apprentice and worked on a German trade ship as a coal trimmer, a position which involves all coal handling tasks. This led to him relocating to New York, United States, and took up a position at a hospital initially working as a porter before going onto become a medical assistant within the physiotherapy department. During these times there were many types of segregation in effect, from restaurants, schools, public places and within companies, if you were a person of colour you were placed separately to everyone else. At the hospital where Frank worked was no different, but Frank had no intention of standing for this, he successfully led a walkout in opposition to the segregated dining facilities. According to Google’s biography on Bailey, the subsequent integration of the dining facilities proved just one of Bailey’s many successful challenges to an unequal status quo. Find out more in today’s live….

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