Abstract/Summary

The summer of 1976 is an under-cited moment of significance in the history of race and immigration in post-war England. A series of major incidents appeared to highlight lasting racial fractures in English society, often exacerbated by the provocative editorial decisions of the press. This article, focused particularly on events in the Lancashire town of Blackburn, analyses some of the ways in which constructions of a ‘crisis of race relations’ were developed in local and national newspapers during this tumultuous summer.