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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 discusses racial discriminations that plagued Negro baseball. Their dreams of joining major leagues were fast dimming and segregation laws were enforced more strongly. The Northerners recognize that something needed to be done regarding the issue of Negroes playing in the major leagues but the issue never got to fruition. The reason the color bar could not be broken was because the Northerners would not recognize that there is one. Newspaper publications had a big hand in letting the issue simmer to the surface. However, by 1944, the New York State Legislature began considering the Ives-Quinn Bill to forbid discrimination in hiring on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin.

Race was an issue intimately related to dancing and caused considerable debate, considered in Chapter 9. Although the bulk of non-white migration to Britain came after 1960, race was already an issue in the history of dance halls. Much dance music was black in origin, creating both positive and negative responses. This chapter explores developing race relations in the period before mass immigration and multiculturalism. The associations of dancing with jazz music in the 1920s and the racist reaction to it are examined. Labelled as primitive, the origins of many racist stereotypes can be found in British responses to new social dances. Wartime tensions between white and black GIs present in Britain and the public’s reaction to this conflict are discussed. In the post-war period, West Indian immigration in the 1950s and colour bars in dance halls are explored. Anti-semitism and anti-Americanism (partially a response to alleged Americanization) also feature.

Howard Thurman, who played a significant role in racial reconciliation in the United States during the period between the 1940s and the 1970s, was included in the group of African American religious leaders who journeyed to India for a pilgrimage in 1935. One of the most important highlights of this trip involved a conversation with Mohandas Gandhi regarding race relations in the United States and how even in the church, the color bar still had influence and power. Thurman then realized that the color bar was honored in the Christian religion. This chapter explores some of the efforts and experimentations made to integrate gradually racial reconciliation and multiracial congregations, with Howard Thurman's insights being used as a starting point.

This chapter looks at the many people who arrived in Britain from the British Empire—some to serve in the armed forces, others as war workers and wartime propagandists working at the BBC and in British cinema. Mixing between imperial allies produced many close friendships and camaraderie. The British media promoted a vision of an imperial community of allies. But wartime propaganda was potentially undermined by evidence of the practice of colour bars—in the empire and in Britain—and of tensions and antagonisms between imperial allies. Disruption of a publicly disseminated vision of a united empire was kept to a minimum. Colour bars in the empire and at home and antagonism between imperial allies—especially when this involved violence—were under-reported.

This chapter assesses the key role of the non-combatant or follower ranks in the history of sub-imperial drives exerted across the land and sea frontiers of India. The reliance of the War Office upon combatant and non-combatant detachments from the Indian Army, used in combination with units of the British Army, left an imprint upon the first consolidated Indian Army Act of 1911. From 1914 the inter-regional contests of the Government of India for territory and influence, such as those running along the Arabian frontiers of the Ottoman empire, folded into global war. Nevertheless the despatch of an Indian Expeditionary Force to Europe in August 1914 disrupted raced imaginaries of the world order. The second less publicized exercise was the sending of Indian Labor Corps and of humble horse and mule drivers to France in 1917-18. The colour bar imposed by the Dominions on Indian settlers had begun to complicate the utilisation of Indian labor and Indian troops on behalf of empire. Over 1919-21, as global conflict segued back into imperial militarism, a strong critique emerged in India against the unilateral deployment of Indian troops and military labor, on fiscal grounds, in protest against their use to suppress political life in India and to condemn the international order which their use sustained.