Second World War

By: Richard Smith

Source:

 Oxford Companion to Black British History

Second World War

( 1939 – 1945 ).

After the ‘race’ riots, 1919 , the black presence in Britain was increasingly regarded as a social problem. Black men continued to be portrayed as feckless and immoral, with a tendency to prey on white women, who in turn were depicted as either vulnerable or dissolute. Popular press coverage of the criminal trials of Jamaican‐born Eddie Manning , the so‐called ‘Dope King of London’, provide the most notable examples. Making their appearance periodically for much of the 1920s, these reports exemplified a widespread sense of unease around race and gender identities that were destabilized during the war and Depression era.

In a less sensationalist fashion, the press kept alive fears of miscegenation a primary influence upon white racial violence during and after the First World War. In the eyes of the media, children born of white women and black men served as tangible proof that the race and gender boundaries of Empire had been violated. By the 1930s the fate of these children became a central feature of discussions around race relations in Britain. ‘Mixed‐race’ children were presented as victims, who, having inherited the black man's purported disinclination for industrious activity and tendency to irrational behaviour, would be condemned to life on the margins of society. The League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) tried to counter this negative coverage with two reports that linked the poverty and lack of opportunity experienced by the black population to official and popular discrimination. But anxieties around miscegenation became even more pronounced during the Second World War when black service personnel began arriving in Britain from the British West Indies and, from 1942 , the United States.

By the late 1930s, in the Empire at large, dissatisfaction with British rule was becoming increasingly apparent. This was most evident in the wave of industrial and political unrest throughout the British West Indies and Pan‐African protests directed at the failure of the League of Nations to challenge the Italian invasion of Ethiopia . In the United Kingdom anti‐colonial sentiment was most evident in the pages of the Negro Worker (distributed by the Red International of Labour Unions), the Negro Welfare Association , and the West African Students' Union .

However, the declaration of war in September 1939 once more encouraged black people throughout the Empire to demonstrate their loyalty to Britain. Not only did many harbour renewed hope of post‐war reform, but, for those committed to national liberation, a war considered as a struggle between the ‘free world’ and Fascism instilled a profound sense of duty. But many of the obstacles to equal black participation in the forces were still in place, including the denial of commissioned rank to black men and women. The LCP immediately began to lobby the Colonial Office to demand the removal of this obstacle, forcing the reversal of the policy, albeit for the duration of the war only. The four children of the LCP's founder, Harold Moody , were among the small number of black British subjects from across the Empire who successfully enlisted as officers, in both the armed and medical wings of the forces.

Many black Britons also served in a civil defence capacity. The LCP's News Letter, which had replaced The Keys at the start of the war, proudly listed the names of black people in Britain who had enlisted in the war effort as air raid wardens and first‐aiders, including the Jamaican boxer ‘Buzz’ Barton.

From 1941 the British government began to recruit service personnel and skilled workers in the West Indies for service in the United Kingdom. Over 12,000 saw active service in the Royal Air Force. A further 2,500 were employed in war factories in the North‐West or as foresters in Scotland. About 600 West Indian women were recruited for service in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, arriving in Britain in the autumn of 1943 . The enlistment of these volunteers was accomplished despite official misgivings and obstruction. But the arrival of the US Army in 1942 , along with its segregationist regulations, contributed to the hardening of official British policy towards black Britons, contrasting with the usually less overt conventions of paternalistic Imperial racism.

The British War Cabinet tried to tread a fine line between acquiescing to US segregationist attitudes and maintaining the loyalty of black volunteers from the Empire. At first, the British urged the Americans to restrict the numbers of black troops they sent to Britain, the excuse being that any enthusiasm shown towards them by British Whites would offend US racial sensibilities.

When this failed, the British government prevaricated, until Major‐General Arthur Dowler , the military administrator in charge of southern Britain, circulated proposals on the conduct of relations between white British and black American troops. Although Dowler had broken War Cabinet instructions by committing his guidelines to paper, in the absence of further official advice his notes became the main authority on the issue. The memo characterized black Americans as simple‐minded and spendthrift, and insisted that white service personnel, particularly women, should avoid any contact with black servicemen to avoid potential racial unrest.

Increasingly, despite the loyal commitment of black troops and the wartime rhetoric of a united Empire, black Britons continued to be regarded as third‐class citizens, denied access to both opportunities and services. This was illustrated most profoundly in 1943 when the cricketer Learie Constantine , who was serving in the Ministry of Labour as a welfare officer for West Indian war workers, was refused accommodation in London's Imperial Hotel. In a landmark case, Constantine successfully sued the hotel for breach of contract, although he only received token damages.

But the Second World War is perhaps most significant in the context of the black British experience because it helped to shape the pattern of post‐war migration and post‐war race relations. During the war many of the ethnic and cultural groups from both the Caribbean and Asia, who would characterize mass migration to Britain, began to arrive in small numbers, either as workers or as military volunteers. Equally significant was the emerging vision of Britain as a beleaguered island race, rather than a great Imperial power, particularly after the humiliating surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 . This image would be dramatically recast after the end of the war and the onset of mass migration. Despite the eventual Allied victory, many sectors of society increasingly saw Britain as a nation engaged in a rearguard action against the growing black presence.

See also Empire Windrush; First World War; West Indian women at war

processed xml | source xml