Rivers Of Blood Speech
Enoch Powell's April 20, 1968 address to the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre (commonly called "Rivers of Blood" speech) was a speech criticising Commonwealth immigration, as well as proposed anti-discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom made on 20 April 1968 by Enoch Powell (1912–1998), the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West. Though Powell referred to the speech as "the Birmingham speech", it is otherwise known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, a title derived from its allusion to a line from Virgil's Aeneid. Although the phrase "rivers of blood" does not appear in the speech, it does include the line, "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood.'"
The speech caused a political storm, making Powell one of the most talked about, though divisive, politicians in the country, and leading to his dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet by Conservative party leader Edward Heath. According to most accounts, the popularity of Powell's perspective on race may have played a decisive contributory factor in the Conservatives' surprise victory in the 1970 general election, and he became one of the most persistent rebels opposing the subsequent Heath government.
Read more about Rivers Of Blood Speech: Background, The Speech, Reaction, Identity of The Woman Mentioned in The Speech, Right-wing Support For The Speech, Acknowledgement From Party Leaders
Famous quotes containing the words rivers of, rivers, blood and/or speech:
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept: when we remembered Zion.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 137:1.
“Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!”
—Claude McKay (1889–1948)
“We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want ... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear ... anywhere in the world.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)