Search Results

The ‘peaceful invasion’ of refugees and allies during the Second World War included significant numbers of ‘coloured’ colonials responding to the needs of the merchant marine, munitions factories and armed services. It became apparent that war-time accommodation, hospitality and recreation for the new ‘coloured’ arrivals, primarily from the West Indies, could not be provided in discrete self-contained manner. Account had also to be taken of the long-term disadvantage and discrimination endured by the resident ‘coloured’ population, mainly West African. The League of Coloured Peoples and the recently formed Colonial Office Welfare Department both established a presence in Liverpool (where tensions were heightened by the arrival of black US troops) and extended their respective remits to consider the needs of long-term residents. The priority for both agencies remained colonial development, a project not to be hindered by adverse experience of the ‘colour bar’ for those in Liverpool, whether temporarily or permanently.

This chapter examines how the League of Coloured Peoples, founded in London in 1931 by Jamaican physician Harold Moody, used a colonial version of Britishness — one that respected traditional Western ideas of class and gender structure, yet abhorred racial distinctions — to successfully seek equal rights for Britons of color. By invoking a colonial version of British identity that drew on elements of Britishness also widely accepted by native Britons, namely respectability and imperial pride, the organization was able to gain support from both black colonials and white native Britons for its goals. The chapter focuses on the workings of the organization's ideology in the context of the organization's prominent campaign to restore British citizenship to ‘coloured’ seamen in Cardiff in 1936.

This chapter explores the influences that shaped Harold Moody's thinking and behaviour. It also describes how those beliefs were applied throughout his active life in countering racial prejudice and promoting the interests of black peoples. Moody's path to recognising his black and African-descended identity was a slow one, but it was firmly forged by his struggle in confronting British racism. The most decisive influence in Moody's life was his conversion to Christianity. Christian doctrine underwrote Moody's ideas of humanity and race. Although the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) was a multi-racial body, Moody's intention was that it should be led solely by black people. He regarded the LCP as a Christian organisation. The LCP, along with other organisations, kept the question of race relations prominently before British politicians. After Moody died in 1947, the LCP had lost its way.

This chapter explores the efforts of the League of Coloured Peoples, an organisation founded by African and Caribbean activists, to establish hospitable spaces in which colonial subjects could escape the racism of British society. It discusses three initiatives launched by the LCP in their efforts to challenge the colour bar in London during the 1930s and 1940s: a joint project with the Colonial Office to open a hostel in London for students of African descent, known as Aggrey House; the League’s own efforts to establish headquarters for itself; and the proposal for a cultural centre for colonial people in London. Practical answers to a problem of everyday life inherent in the imperial and transnational character of the city and its black inhabitants, these projects both drew on multiple and contending connections among black and white actors and tested the possibilities for solidarity in the field of tension created by the presence of empire in the metropolis.

As this chapter shows, the uneasy transition to peace after the First World War had a disastrous impact on labour and race relations amidst an economic reverse felt more acutely in Liverpool than elsewhere, a precursor of inter-war depression and decline. Race riots occurred in a number of ports in 1919 but those in Liverpool were particularly intense, reflecting tensions extending far beyond the local waterfront. Racism prevailed in philanthropic endeavour, a potent blend of paternalism, missionary zeal and faddist eugenics, exemplified at its worst in the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-caste Children. Within the black community, self-help agencies promoted by Pastor Daniels Ekarte sought ‘British justice free of prejudice’ for colonials born or domiciled in Liverpool, but favoured their return to Africa once suitably trained and skilled, a project endorsed by the League of Coloured Peoples, the authentic voice of the small black middle-class elite in Britain.