West Indians & Africans In British Civil Defence

Found this great link on a website detailing the West End of London's War-
"At the outbreak of war the British armed forces enforced a colour bar which denied the granting of commissions to anyone not of "pure European descent". While this prohibition was officially relaxed during the course of the war, in practice it remained largely in force. Only in the RAF was a significant West Indian and African contribution allowed to become a reality.
Notwithstanding some early resistance to their employment, West Indian and Africans were to be found in civil defence work in most of the London boroughs."
www.westendatwar.org.uk/page/itaekpenyon05?path=0p3p11p

 

The subject of race relations in Britain in WW2 is complicated. The black population was much smaller and had been around for some time, especially in the post cities. Black Poppies is a set of stories about black servicemen in the First World war - including Joe Clough, London's first black bus driver and Cleo Laine's father.

Joshua Levine in Secrets of the Blitz dedicated a chapter to the topic and the book Our War is about the non european British empire experience of WW2. There was a lot of prejudice. Levine quotes a black woman from Camden town (part of St Pancras parish) being denied entry to a shelter. But there were lot of Brits who treated black people and Asians as individuals. IRRC Levien quotes a Chinese woman evacuated as a child from the east end of London and a happy childhood in the country. There were black and asians in the British forces. A Japanese Londoner Trooper Suzuki of the CLY is buried in Normandy.

Officially there was no colour bar in Britain itself. Black and asian men could practice as lawyers, doctors and dentists. (Walter Tull's brother was Glasgow's first black dentist.) However there was a massive difference in how "natives" were treated in the Empire. The arrival of US Forces with a formal color bar did cause problems. Many British liked black Americans - all the virtues of Americans without the arrogance... There was a court case when a London hotel refused entry to a prominent black cricketer to avoid offending American guests.

The article ends with an allusion to the Windrush influx of West Indians to help to re build Britian.

 

And today a postbox in Glasgow was one of a number painted black to celebrate the start of Black History Month-
Royal Mail unveils special-edition black postboxes to mark Black History Month

Remember watching an interview with a West Indian gent who had served in the RAF in wartime, and been denied entry to a serviceman's club of some kind despite being in uniform at the time.
Then I recently read an article on the reaction of people in NI to segregation in the US forces stationed there. Contradictory to say the least.

 

Back in the 50s when my father was a civil engineer building a power station his head foreman was a large West Indian gentleman who had been aircrew with Bomber Command and had stayed on after the war. A very cheerful sort of bloke but one who stood no nonsense from the foremen subordinate to him. At that time West Indians were a rarity (it was pre Windrush).

 

Aye, they were still a rarity round here until the uni opened in 1969. Even now there still tends to be more Asian and Chinese folk in this area than black.