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Exploring the Past: Protest

Learning: Secondary

19/11/2014

BBC Two - Exploring the Past: Protest

Young people investigate how the protests of ordinary people have shaped British history.

Young people investigate how protests by ordinary people in their local areas of Manchester, Jarrow and Guildford have helped shape British history.

Three teenagers investigate significant examples of protest by ordinary people near where they live that have helped shape the recent history of Britain. Each film pieces together contemporary interviews with archive material from the time to build a picture of why protesters took action and what they achieved.

Mathew from Lancashire looks into the Peterloo Massacre, which took place in Manchester almost 200 years ago. What began as a peaceful demonstration to improve parliamentary representation turned into a bloodbath as scores of men, women and children were killed or fatally injured. Matthew visits the national archives in Kew and discovers that the violence has a sinister explanation. 

Sophie is from Jarrow on Tyneside, where in 1936, 207 unemployed men marched almost 300 miles to the Houses of Parliament to protest about poverty and unemployment. The Jarrow March became a key moment in British history, and as Sophie sets off on her own journey to discover its origins, she is shocked by the conditions faced at the time by the people of Jarrow. Despite the men receiving a cool welcome in London, the march paved the way for the introduction of the welfare state in 1945, with a promise never to return to the conditions of the 1930s.

Finally, Claudia from Guildford meets former students who took over the Guildford School of Art in 1968 in what became Britain's longest ever student sit-in. She discovers how at the time students were at the forefront of major protest movements around the world, campaigning against the Vietnam War, racial discrimination and academic freedoms.

All three youngsters discover that despite the hardship and frustrations of the protesters, their sacrifices were not in vain.

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