He was Enoch Powell, perhaps the most controversial politician in Britain during the last century. A Cambridge-educated professor of classics and a brigadier in the British army, Powell served as a member of parliament (MP) from 1950 to 1987.

He made a name for himself as an MP in 1959, when he called for the British government to accept responsibility for the abusive treatment meted out by British troops at a detainee camp in Hola, Kenya. MPs of all political persuasions were moved by Powell's speech, which was widely regarded as one of the most memorable delivered in parliament.

But ask people British people today what they remember of Enoch Powell, and they will tell you not about his 1959 speech but about the one he gave nine years later decrying immigration to Great Britain.

At the start of what is now often referred to as the "rivers of blood" speech, Powell described a man who wanted his children to move overseas for fear that in Britain "the black man" would soon have "the whip hand over the white man."

Later in the speech, Powell told the story of an old white woman who refused to rent rooms to black families and so found herself pursued by "grinning piccaninnies" chanting the word "racialist" at her.

Finally, Powell predicted that British immigration policies would bring to mind the vision, first articulated by the Roman poet Virgil, of "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."


Enoch Powell at a book signing
© Getty Images, Inc.

Today, many British people regard Powell as a racist and use the phrase "rivers of blood" as a shorthand for racial hate speech. But others wear pins saying "Enoch was right" and, like Mr. Hastilow, see the 1968 speech as a blunt but by no means racist discourse on the whole question of immigration.

Strong opponents of British immigration policies apparently take Powell at his word when he said he was simply reporting a problem, and they reject as meaningless political correctness any voice that seeks to prevent honest discussion of that problem. As Powell said immediately after recounting the story of the father who feared the black man's "whip hand,"

I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so.

Powell was a careful orator, and he made sure to put the most offensive racial language into the mouths of the people he represented. Moreover, he argued some of his main points in fairly dry statistical terms, thereby making himself a more elusive target than the anti-immigration editorialists of the early 1900s.

Read through Powell's "rivers of blood" speech.

Then write a 500-word essay, arguing that it is a) simple racism or b) a realistic assessment of the consequences of immigration.