Avtar Singh Jouhl

Life & Legacy

Avtar Singh Jouhl (2 November 1937 – 8 October 2022) was a British anti-racism campaigner, national president of the Indian Workers' Association (IWA), foundry worker and trade union lecturer.
His work campaigning to end the racial segregation in drinking establishments in Smethwick, West Midlands drew the attention of Malcolm X who visited the town, on 12 February 1965, and was taken to a segregated pub, the Blue Gates, with Jouhl and Indian activists to witness where non-white customers were forced to drink in separate rooms.
Jouhl worked at the Smethwick foundries as a moulder's mate before becoming a shop steward. He was furious to learn he and other South Asian workers were paid less than half their white counterparts for the same dangerous, hot work. He acted as a welfare worker and saw the need for collective action to end the colour bar and to end the use of separate toilets for white and non-white workers in these factories. Jouhl played a role in the 1984–1985 miners' strike by sending six coaches of IWA members to the picket line. He also fought for Indian-born workers to be granted British passports so they would not be deported. A lifelong agitator and communist, Jouhl spent almost thirty years working with the IWA in foundries, campaigning against racism and campaigning for the working class.