Dozens of veterans of the October 5th Civil Rights march in Derry, including several members of the Workers Party, gathered earlier at Duke Street in the Waterside area to mark the event’s fifty-fourth anniversary.

The importance of acknowledging and remembering the impact and political changes brought about by the civil rights campaign should not be written out of history or re-interpreted.  Within a few years  key demands had been secured, including the fair allocation of housing, reform of local government, universal franchise for all citizens over 18, the repeal of the Special Powers Act and the disarming of the RUC.

However, armed Irish and British nationalists, both of which had opposed the civil rights movement, were to hi-jack the political stage and usurp political progress with thirty odd years of terror, death and destruction.