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Bristol has long been a city of activists prepared to work for change, from followers of John Wesley in the 18th century to the 21st-century citizens who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

On Wednesday, a new campaign was launched – on the anniversary of the start of the groundbreaking 1963 Bristol bus boycott – aimed at making the city the UK’s capital of civil rights.

Across the spring and summer, echoing the span of the boycott, a “think-and-do tank” called CuriosityUnLtd will lead or be part of a series of events that focus attention on Bristol’s activist past and make the case for Bristol to claim the title.

Julz Davis, one of the lead organisers, said: “Bristol has never waited for permission to lead. This city has shown the country what change looks like. Activism has always been the lifeblood of systemic change here.”

Bristol academics, business leaders and politicians including Marvin Rees, who was the first person of black African heritage to become a directly elected mayor in a major Europe city, joined a summit on the concept of the city becoming capital of civil rights at the end of last year.

This week’s launch is the next stage of the process, which will include talks and public conversations, film screenings, exhibitions, public art and performances.

The bus boycott was a civil rights movement that overturned Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews and was pivotal in the creation of the UK’s first Race Relations Act in 1965.

It was announced on 29 April 1963 and students took part in a march on 1 May. Davis and other activists will join a union march in the city on 1 May this Friday to remember the boycott and draw attention to the capital of civil rights movement.

Next month, the people of Bristol will be invited to contribute to a mural with civil rights as a theme that will be created by the artist Ella-Mia Grant as part of the street art festival Upfest.

There are also plans to stage events around a performance of the award-winning musical Jamaica Love at the Bristol Beacon concert hall in June.

By the end of the summer, a civil rights manifesto is expected to take shape that will help Bristol stake a claim to the title of civil rights capital – and be useful to other cities that may like to follow suit.

Davis said: “You can go back to the suffragettes, to the abolitionists, to the bus boycott, the St Pauls uprising, the toppling of Colston, the art of Banksy. There are lots of ways in which Bristol has led the way and gone on to influence and shape discourse and narratives, policy and law across decades, centuries.”