In Pursuit of Equality in Britain

Annals of the Early Twentieth Century

The Black Sage W.E.B. Du Bois was right. He predicted to his London audience in 1900 that "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour-line - the relationship of the darker to the lighter races of men".

The occasion was the first Pan African conference. Du Bois, then a young scholar, was profoundly incensed. The raising of 'white' and the debasement of 'black' in western countries and their colonies was immoral. Democracy must work for all people. To this end, said Du Bois "Black subjects of all nations (must) take courage, strive ceaselessly, and fight bravely.....for the right to be counted among the great brotherhood of mankind".

Challenges in Britain
In Britain, the full ramifications of Du Bois' prophetic words were just becoming apparent. Dismantling the "colour bar" was the focus of mass action. Waves of protests swept major dockland cities as activists took to the streets shouting: "Racial violence against black sailors and dockworkers in Cardiff, Liverpool and London must be answered".

Black mutual aid and self-defence groups were formed, and coalesced into political movements. British-born and colonial peoples among Britain's then 20,000 black population joined together. Students, intellectuals and workers in the health and transport industries were in the vanguard. Artisans and domestics joined protest groups. The hitherto unthinkable demand for civil and political rights was raised as the century unfolded.

One early leader was John Richard Archer, "a man of colour" from Liverpool and a dedicated Pan-Africanist. He became the first British-born black mayor in Britain in 1913. The message in his acceptance speech was unequivocal: "My election tonight marks a new era. You have made history. For the first time in the history of the English nation a man of colour has been elected mayor of an English borough."

The major voice for black people between the two world wars was Dr Harold Moody, of Jamaican origins and a family doctor and Congregationalist deacon in south London. He founded the League of Coloured Peoples and spoke out against state-condoned discrimination in housing and jobs.

During the Second World War, Learie Constantine, the famed cricketer born in Trinidad, exposed the "colour bar" in Britain and the Empire. He lobbied for the rights of thousands of black service men and women and urged black workers to integrate war-time industries. Fearlessly, he filed suit and won damages against the Imperial Hotel in London for refusing him and his family accommodation on racial grounds.

Liberation with Pan-African vision
Delivering colonial freedom and self-government was another strand of black political activity in Britain early in the 20th century.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, of West African origins and resident in Croydon near London, was an outstanding leader and Pan-Africanist. A conductor of the Handel Society and professor at the Royal College of London, he was an outstanding musician and composer of his generation.

Despite his talent, prominent musical contemporaries of the 1900s ignored his work, saying "people of negro blood do not develop beyond a certain point". Yet, he went on to write music of lasting value: "Hiawatha", symphonic poems, sonatas, orchestral works, and light romantic songs.

Called a "damned nigger" by whites, the outspoken musician was to many blacks an 'apostle of colour' defending the rights of blacks in Britain and the colonies. He regularly contributed to the Pan-Africanist paper, The African Times and Orient Review, and on one occasion wrote to his local newspaper saying with pride: "I consider myself the equal of any white man who ever lived, and no one could ever change me in that respect."

Strands of Pan-Africanism appeared again in the 1940s when black writers and partisans defended the interests of colonial peoples in Africa and the Caribbean. Powerful minds were in action. C.L.R. James' book The Black Jacobins drew lessons from liberator Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian revolution. George Padmore's study of colonial administration critically analysed How Britain Rules Africa. Jomo Kenyatta revealed the dignity of the Kikuyu people in Facing Mount Kenya, his anthropological study for the London School of Economics.

A lone woman uniquely bridged three continents with her challenge in the 1950s. Claudia Jones, launched the London-based first mass circulation black newspaper in Britain, the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News in 1958, and founded the African, Asian, Caribbean Organisation and the Notting Hill carnival.

Blazing trails
Direct action for colonial liberation in Africa and the West Indies was the goal of many students, transient intellectuals and activists who passed through Britain's black communities and left their mark.

Du Bois' 1900 lecture was attended by Trinidadian delegates from the Afro-West Indian Literary Society of Edinburgh University. Black graduates protested the colour barriers at the London University Club on the eve of the First World War. Ladipo Solanke and the West African Students Union sparked awareness of nationalist awakening on the continent. Years later, political intellectuals like Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Jomo Kenyatta, and Eric Williams, among others, unfurled their dreams of black redemption, and the rise of new nations and political movements.

The Jamaican Marcus Garvey's message: "Rise up, Ye Mighty Race" still resonates in Britain: "We are not asking charity of you, because we believe in self-help; we believe that as a race of people struggling onward and upward we must of ourselves lift ourselves up: and all we ask you is that you treat us kindly and decently."

In retrospect, we can now see that Du Bois and the pioneers of Black British politics tackled racism on two fronts. Peoples of African descent in Britain and the Americas were united with emergent nationalists in the colonies. Together they nursed the hope that victory in one arena of struggle would lead to liberation in the other.

Indeed, in pursuit of freedom and equality over the first sixty years of the 20th century, black will power did prevail. Peoples of Africa and African descent redefined their status - from slavery, colonialism and apartheid to freedom - and brought new nations into being. In all this, Black Britain was both a crucial incubator and inheritor of these momentous 20th century emancipatory struggles.

Some useful sources:

A Political Dictionary of Black Quotations, Reflecting the Black Man's Dreams, Hopes and Visions. Collected and edited by Osei Amoah (1989), London: Oyokoanyinaase House

Du Bois, W.E.B (1903), The Souls of Black Folk. New York. .

File, Nigel and Chris Power (1981), Black Settlers in Britain 1555-1958. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd .

Fryer, Peter (1984), Staying Power: The history of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press.

Okokon, Susan (1998), Black Londoners 1880-1990. Stroud, Glos.: Sutton Publishing Limited.

Ramdin, Ron (1999), Reimaging Britain: 500 Years of Black and Asian History. London: Pluto Press.

Scobie, Edward (1972), Black Britannia: A history of Blacks in Britain. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company.