Description
Ivor Gabriel Landsman was sent to prison for fighting to defend Butetown in Cardiff against the white mob. He was unusual, he was a Black man born in Butetown in 1899, a forerunner of the many who were to follow. He fought in World War 1. being invalided out in December 1917 at the age of 19.
He came home to Wales and after losing his mother in 1918, in 1919 at the age of 20 he stood his ground and defended his Butetown against the white mob who attacked it, shooting at three white members of the mob. For that he received three years in prison.
He represents much that is unusual and to be respected in the new Welsh: the Black people that came from all over the British Empire to settle in the Docks towns, to marry, and start families with white women.
His father was from the tiny Dutch West Indies of Saint Eustatius, and it is unlikely he knew his Caribbean family. He was unusual, born into Wales and like those that followed he fought to be a citizen, to make a life, to be Welsh.
He represents much that is distinct about Black Welsh people, seeing themselves so clearly as Welsh first.
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