Black Adjustment to British Culture and Society: the History of Afro-Caribbean People in the UK from the Post World War II Onwards
Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
University of Oran
Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts
Department of Anglo-Saxon Languages
Section of English
Black Adjustment to British Culture and Society: The History of Afro-Caribbean People in the UK from the Post World War II Onwards.
Dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magister in British Civilisation SOUTENUE LE 16/09/2013
Members of the Jury: Submitted by:
President Dr. Abdelkader Lotfi Benhattab Sihem Boudjahfa
Examiner Dr. Leila Moulfi
Superviser Pr. Rachida Yacine
Academic Year:
2012-2013
Dedication
I dedicate this work to my parents, my brothers for their constant support and encouragements. I am extremely grateful to the loving support of my sister, my husband and above all my children. Their unreserved love, respect, and support for me have meant more to me than they could imagine. I wish them every success as they follow their own path.
In memory to my late teacher, Dr. Benali Rachid
I
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank all those who have in one way or another been helpful in the course of bringing this dissertation to successful completion. I thank members of my dissertation jury, Dr. Benhattab and Dr. Moulfi for their contributions. I am grateful to my supervisor Pr. Rachida Yacine for her great intellectual and moral support without which this dissertation would not have come to light. In addition, due thanks should go to my teachers at English department, specifically to Dr Bouhadiba Malika for her great moral support and contribution, as well as all members of staff at Translation Department, the faculty of Letters, Art and Languages who have constantly been encouraging and motivating me. I also thank my friends who are too numerous to mention.
II Table of Contents
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………..I Acknowledgements………………………………………………...……………...II Abstract……………………..……………………………………………...…….III List of Figures and Tables……………………………………………………....IV Table of Contents...……………………..………………………………………..V General Introduction…….…….………………………………………………….1
Chapter One: Early Presence of Black People in Britain up to 1945
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………5 2. Early Black Presence up to the 16th Century………………………...……...5 3. Black People during the 16th Century………………………………..…. …6 4. Queen Elizabeth’s Reaction to Black Presence……………...…………..…8 5. Black Presence from the 17th Century to Emancipation…………………..10 5.1 Blacks’ Status in Britain before the End of Slavery…………….…13 5.2 Slavery and the British Empire Ascent…………………………….18 5.3 British Black people Involvement in the Abolition of Slavery…….24 6. Black Community after the End of Slavery…………………………...…..32 7. Black British Efforts during the World Wars……………..………………34 8. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………37
Chapter Two: Blacks Immigration after WWII and the Rise of British Racism
1. Introduction …………………………………………………………...40 2. Black Britons and the Policy of Immigration since WW II…………...41
III 2.1 British Nationality Act 1948…………………………………...43 2.2 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962…………………………46 2.3 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968…………………………50 2.4 The Immigration Act 1971……………………………………..52 2.5 British Nationality Act 1981…………………………………...53 3. Race Riots, Disorder and Urban Unrest in Britain……………...……..55 3.1 Nottingham Riots and Notting Hill Race Riots in the 1950s…....55 3.2 Brixton Race Riots in the 1980s…………….………………...…58 4. The Roots of Racism and Urban Unrest in Britain…………………….63 4.1 Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood………….……………………...66 5. Race Relations Policy in Britain………………………………………69 5.1 Race Relations Act 1965……………………………………….…69 5.2 Race Relations Act 1968……….…………………………………70 5.3 Race Relation Act 1976…………….…………………………..….72 6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..74
Chapter Three: Black British Challenges and Achievements during the 21st Century
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………76 2. Black Immigration and Multiculturalism in Britain……………..…....77 3. Socio-Economic Situation of the Black British Community………….80 3.1 The Spatial Distribution of Black Minorities……..……………….82 3.2 Educational Attainment of Black Ethnic Groups…………………84 3.2.1 The Evolution of the Conceptual Approach to Education in England………………………………………………………………...84 3.2.2 Educational Attainment of Black Pupils: Current Facts………..87 3.3 Labour Market Activity of Black British People……………….…90 4. Black Immigration during the 21st Century………………………..93 4.1 Immigration under the New Labour Government………………..98 5. The Political Participation of Black Ethnic Groups……………….102
IV 6. Black British Impact on British Culture and Society…………….104 7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………108
General Conclusion………………………………..…….…..……………...111 Tables and Figures……………………………………………………….....114 Appendixes………………………………………………………………..…138 Bibliography……………………………………………………..………….148
V Abstract
The fact that Britain is nowadays a multi cultural and a multi racial society is an undisputable reality. This is mainly the outcome of successive waves of immigrants from the New Commonwealth countries. History has witnessed the extraordinary changes and development from slaves and mere ‘accessories’ and ‘chattel’ to full British citizens. Their extraordinary journey in Britain has been full of sufferings and hardship. Contrary to their alleged inferiority, their ever lasting struggle against persisting white racism has been the proof of their courage and greatness.
In addition to old settled communities of black people who came as a result of the slave trade, other Caribbean and African people came to Britain during the wars to help for the war effort and to fight for their mother country. They were joined by greater waves of immigrants after the war to help Britain reconstruct its economy and to fill the acute labour shortage that it was facing. All of them came hoping for better lives and recognition, yet all they found was huge racism and hatred. Their disillusionment had been great indeed. They were given jobs with menial functions, low paid and night shifts that white people did not want. They faced daily discrimination in housing, education and work. They were frequently confronted to colour bars in public places and were harassed in the streets. At different occasions, they had been the target of the racist attack performed by white youths in violent riots. Today, black people are an integrant part of the British society. They have completely changed the face of Britain changing it from an exclusively white society to a multiracial one. Over time their communities have largely expanded. The successive waves of afro Caribbean people have brought about irreversible changes to the British culture, geography and society. Their presence has irreversibly altered the meaning of ‘Britishness’. Every aspect of British life, whether political, cultural or social, has been influenced by the black culture.
In spite of the challenges that they are still facing, a great improvement has been made since the post war period. A number of them have managed to achieve great fame and success, and most of all recognition and are celebrated worldwide.
VI List of Tables and Figures
Tables to Chapter One Table 1.1 Slave Imports into British America, 1619-1808…………………………...…114 Table 1.2 Slave Voyages from Liverpool, London and Bristol in War Time 1739-1807. (Number and percentage share of three ports)…………………………………………..115
Tables to Chapter Two Table 2.1 Home office’s estimates of net inward movement of persons from West Indies and East and West Africa, 1955-1962…………………………………………………..116 Table 2.2 National Insurance’s estimates concerning immigrants from West Indies, East Africa, West Africa and South Africa, 1956-1960……………………………………...116 Table 2.3 Immigration vouchers issued under the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962-1964……………………………………………………………………………….117
Tables to Chapter Three Table 3.1 Ethnic Composition of the UK, 2001………………………………………...118 Table 3.2 Ethnic Groups by Age (DC210EW) England and Wales…………………….119 Table 3.3 Distribution of Educational Qualifications by Status of Generation and Ethnicity…………………………………………………………………………………120 Table 3.4 Social Class Profile of the White and Ethnic Minority Populations, 1971, Females and Males (%)………………………………………………………………….121 Table 3.5 Labour Market Status of Ethnicity……………………………………………122 Table 3.6 Sources of Total Weekly Household Income: by Ethnic Group of Household Reference Person, 2006/07–2008/09……………………………………………………123 Table 3.7 Decline in UK-Resident Caribbean- Born population, 1981-2001…………..123 Table 3.8 Black African Population: by Region of Birth, April 2001…………………..124
Figures to Chapter One Figure 3.1 Growth of Minority Ethnic Population in Britain 1951-2001…………….…125
VII Figure 3.2 ONS estimates of ethnic population in England and Wales in 2001, 2007 and 2011, consecutively……………………………………………………………………...126 Figure 3.3 Ethnic Groups in England and Wales, 2001-2011…………………………..128 Figure 3.4 The Geographical Distribution of Black Caribbean, Black African and Black Other Groups, 1991……………………………………………………………………..129 Figure 3.5 Ethnic groups by English regions and Wales, 2011………………………..132 Figure 3.6 Number of Pupils Permanently Excluded from School in 2000-2001…….133 Figure 3.7 Rates of Permanent Exclusions by Ethnic Group………………………….133 Figure 3.8 Ethnic Pay Gap, London Residents, 2006 to 2009…………………………134 Figure 3.9 Year of entry to the UK of Black African- Born People, 1960-2007………134 Figure 3.10 Geographical Distribution of Black-African people, 2001………………...135 Figure 3.11 African Asylum Migration to UK, 1998-2007……………………………..136 Figure 3.12 Asylum applications by country of origin, 1998-2007...... 137
VIII General Introduction
General Introduction
The United Kingdom is a multicultural and a multiracial society. Throughout history, people from different races and different religions have immigrated and settled in Britain the fact that has resulted in the establishment of many ethnic minorities that have shaped the current British society and culture. The Black British community is one of these minority groups. It is mainly constituted of people from the West Indies and West Africa. According to the 2001 census made by the National Office Statistics the Black British population constitutes nowadays 2% of the total population, and 23% of all British ethnic groups. The history of this community is a long a struggle against racism. Its members have been subjected to all the unimaginable horrors because of the colour of their skins. They have long suffered from British exploitation, ill-treatment, and racism.
Contrary to the general belief, the black British have a very long history in Britain. Their presence goes back to Roman times. Their number grew significant during Britain’s involvement in the slave trade. Dehumanized and considered as mere merchandise, they were transported by force from their native lands to other continents where they were used as slaves, servants or decorative accessories. In the name of pseudo-scientific theories; they were subjected to unspeakable atrocities. The number of black people in Britain was constantly increasing during the following centuries. Up to the end of the slave trade, many black people ended up in Britain carried by traders and ex-officers and used as servants, entertainers, prostitutes or simply as status symbols. They were joined by black loyalists after the American Revolution, in addition to sailors, traders and children of wealthy African rulers to further their education. Most oft hem settled in slave port cities such as Liverpool, London, and Bristol.
Nevertheless Black presence in the British soil is due at the first place to the massive immigration from former British colonies, mostly from the Caribbean countries and Africa. This large influx of Black people took place immediately after the end of the
1
General Introduction
Second World War. The first and largest number of black immigrants to Britain arrived on board the SS Empire Windrush in 1948 transporting 492 immigrants near London.
Because of the massive destruction caused by the war, Britain needed cheap labour force to rebuild its economy. In order to encourage workers to come to fulfil this labour shortage, the British government issued in 1948 the British Nationality Act that gave British citizenship to all people living in commonwealth countries, and full rights of entry and settlement in Britain. Attracted by this offer, and hoping for better living standards, immigrants came in large numbers, especially from the Caribbean.
Black immigrants were offered jobs, especially for the least desirable occupations. They worked in manufacturing industries as well as some public services like transport and the National Health Service. Soon after their arrival racial tensions emerged among local British citizens who felt that the new arrivals were competing with them in the job market. Although, they were encouraged to come in Britain by the government, they had to suffer from intolerance and extreme racism from the local British citizens. In addition to that, they had to endure other problems such as low- paid jobs, educational disadvantage, decaying housing, isolation, discrimination, and ‘colour bars’ which prevented them from entering some pubs, clubs and other public places.
As early as 1958, many anti-immigrant riots broke out in London districts with a great concentration of West Indian settlers. The situation was o worsen during the next ten years. Many conservative politicians exploited these tensions to introduce restrictions on immigration starting by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, voted in 1962 that restricted the number of all immigrants entering the country. Other restrictive measures were introduced in 1968, 1971, and later on during the Thatcher’s years, effectively putting an end to mass migration. In 2002, the new labour government introduced further restrictions under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act reducing the number of asylum applications by more than a half.
2
General Introduction
Nowadays, though their situation has significantly improved, Black British are still suffering from bad economic, educational and social conditions. As far as their educational attainment, the GCSE results show that black pupils drag behind other minority groups, the Chinese and the Indians being the most successful, followed by the Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils. Economically speaking, they earn significantly less than the whites, and they are the least likely to own their homes as a result of their education.
Nevertheless, their situation is constantly improving during the 21st century. A number of Black Britons have achieved prominence in public life. It is not uncommon to see some Black British figures in the literary, artistic, economic, and political scene. In television, for example, the reporter and news reader Trevor MacDonald is on of the British most trusted television presenters who won more awards than any other British broadcaster. Michael Fuller has been appointed Chief Constable of Kent since 2004. Damon Buffini, considered as the most powerful Black male in the United Kingdom, was recently appointed to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s business advisory panel. Diane Abbott became the first Black woman member of parliament, elected to the House of Commons in 1987. These are only very few instances of Black Britons who have managed to integrate the public scene in spite of the hundreds of obstacles which they face at every moment. They probably became more and more conscious that if they want to improve their situation they have to do it by themselves for no one will do it for them.
The current study focuses and investigates the experience of Black people in the United Kingdom from the Second World War up to the present time. The aim of this research work is three folds: It provides a detailed historical background concerning early black presence in this country. It attempts to give an analysis of the history of race and racism in Britain and investigates the origins of British policy in relation to race and immigration, specifically during the post Second War period, showing the different attitudes that the white British citizens had towards white immigrants as compared to the Black one. Finally it looks at the current challenges that face that community and the efforts they made to adjust to the British culture displaying a number of great black figures who managed to achieve success in public life.
3
General Introduction
The choice of this specific group is probably due to the growing interest of historians and researches concerning ethnic minorities in Britain. It is also due to their extraordinary evolution through time, form simple objects and accessories to a group making an integral part of the British society and culture.
The present dissertation is made up of three major chapters. As the main scope of the present research work is to investigate the Black people experience from the end of the Second Wold War, then the first chapter will provide a historical survey about Black experience before the war. It will provide information about the first Blacks in Britain that goes back to Roman Times up to the Elizabethan era. Then, black experience during and after the slave trade, dealing with their participation in the abolitionist movement and later on during the anti-colonialist movement.
The second chapter will deal with the most prominent and significant wave of Black immigrants from the West Indies and West Africa in the Twentieth century that gave rise to British discrimination and racism as well as race riots and hate crimes and brought about the British race policy consisting of a number of governmental restrictions aiming at limiting and giving an end to mass migration.
The third and last chapter will look at the current situation of the Black British. It will deal with the current challenges that they have to face in order to be fully accepted by their white counterparts. It will look at the improvements they realised at various levels whether at the cultural, the political, the social or the economical one. A number of great Black British figures, among which politicians, writers, artists, businessmen and so on, will be displayed, those who have succeeded to achieve prominence in public life.
4
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
CHAPTER ONE EARLY BLACK PRESENCE IN BRITAIN UP TO 1945
1. Introduction The afro- Caribbean community has a very old history in Britain; it goes back to Roman times. Their number was negligible at the beginning, it increased somehow during the sixteenth century so as to cause the queen’s annoyance, and it became largely visible during Britain’s involvement in the slave trade during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. These people, who settled during that period whether voluntarily or not, formed the oldest black community in Britain. The following chapter provides details about their settlement, their political statuses, and the way they had been treated during the period of the slave trade. It also provides details concerning their long struggle to achieve emancipation. It attempts to understand how they achieved the first step towards their adjustment in the twenty-first century; and how they managed to be move from mere chattel to ‘undesirable’ black people.
2. Early Black Presence up to the 16TH Century
Contrary to the general belief black people have arrived in Britain centuries ago. Very little is known about their presence in Britain before the sixteenth century for they
5
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 have been marginalised and neglected by British historians who considered their history not worth studying, yet according to some archaeological and literal evidence, their presence probably dates back to Roman times, and may be earlier. (Fryer, 1984; Sandiford, 1988)1. Walvin (1994)2 states that:
Black people have lived in Britain for centuries. During the Roman Occupation, for instance, a unit of African troops was stationed near Carlisle. There is evidence of Africans in York in the same period. (p.83)
In fact, in the 3rd century AD black soldiers were sent by the Roman army to the province of Britannia to protect the Adrian Wall. Amongst them, there had been slaves, soldiers and even officers some of which married, had children, and remained in Britain. The proportions of limbs of some skeletons found in a Romano British Cemetery outside York suggested that they were Black Africans. Various remains and artifacts from the 4th century at the Yorkshire Museum show the presence of colored people during the 4th century. The most interesting of these was the skeleton of a woman in York in 1901, which archeologist experts revealed to be of a woman of high status and from African origin. Paul Edwards, who thanks to his knowledge of old languages is trying to find evidence of black presence during the Dark Ages, had pretty well underlined the ironical side of this reality when he stated that “it would be a nice irony against racist opinion if it could be demonstrated that African communities were settled in England before English invaders arrived from Europe”. 3
3. Black people during the 16th century
Although in small proportions, the 16th century saw the establishment of the first black community in London. Many references could be found in the literature of that period. Thanks to records we find a number of traces of black people at that time, most of which were used as entertainers and musician, especially at the royal court. References are
1 Peter Fryer, Staying Power: the history of Black People in Great Britain (London, 1984), Keith A. Sandiford Measuring The Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth- Century Afro-English Writing , (1988), p. 18. 2 James Walvin, Black People in Britain : Transatlantic Slavery : Against Human Dignity . (London, 1994). pp. 83-86. 3Quoted in : David Kilingray, Africans in Britain, (Great Britain, 1994), pp.2-3. 6
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 made in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber to John Blanke who was a regular musician at the courts of Henry VII and his successor Henry VIII. In 1501, Catherine of Aragon arrived in Deptford with five ‘Black Moors’4. Queen Elisabeth I used to have a black maidservant and a group of black musicians and three dancers who entertained her courtiers and herself.5 Black characters also figured in the 16th century literature, such as Shakespeare plays and London place names such as Black Boy Court or Blackmoors’ Alley.
The first official mention of black presence was in 1555 when John Lok, a son of a prominent London merchant, decided to bring five West African slaves to London from a town called Shama on the coast of what we know nowadays as Ghana. His purpose was to teach them English then to take them back to Africa as interpreters. Yet, it is not he but Sir. John Hawkyns, an English navigator, who is considered as the initiator of British slave trade.6 At that time, black people were rather stared at as strange beasts, freaking creatures, or for the best as curiosities. English people were very little informed about Africans and their cultures. However, when they started to explore the African continents, images and descriptions of African people, most of the time distorted or exaggerated, started to spread in England.
Explorers and travellers started to publish their findings and impressions in books which were read by English people. They were described and pictured to the reader as having no noses, no upper lips or tongues, or again without mouths. Some of them were said to be eight feet tall, others had a single eye in the forehead, and others without head at all with mouths and eyes on their breasts. They described as lustful people with weird sexual practices.7 It was not surprising, therefore, that the English society, once confronted to black people, had treated them as curiosities, or even as animals.
4 Moor: originally, this term was applied to Muslims who conquered parts of Spain in the Eighth century. However it appears, then, in the Shakespearean literature with the association of the word Black; ‘Blackmoor’, ‘Blackmoore’, Black moore’, no matter how it was written, was also used as a synonym of ‘negroe’ in the fifteenth, sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/path ways/blackhistory/ glossery.htm#moor. 5 In 1575, Queen Elizabeth I appears with her court that includes a group of black musicians and dancers on a painting by Marcus Gheeraerts. 6 In 1562-63, Admiral John Hawkins acquired 300 inhabitants of the Guinea Coast, most of which he bought from African merchants and the others were hijacked from Portuguese Slavers. 7 Peter Fryer, op.cit, p.6-7. 7
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
By the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the next one, possessing black servants among the household became a fashionable thing among titled and rich families as an evident symbol of their status. At first, they were rather considered as exotic objects, human curiosities, pets, or as simple ornaments. This practice became more general by the end of the century and more and more black slaves were brought to England where they were for the majority used as household servants, prostitutes, or as entertainers. Their numbers increased so as to annoy Queen Elizabeth I who ordered them to be taken out of her realm, producing three addicts calling for their expulsion.
4. Queen Elizabeth’s Reaction to Black Presence
By the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, the number of black people increased so as to reach several thousands. No exact record exists about how many coloured people were there, for since slave trade was not yet a regular and an organised one at that period, no taxes were levied. During that period, because of the dramatic increase in population and to other economic problems, ten per cent of the population was unable to support itself8, and thus reduced to vagrancy and begging. Several acts were introduced to help the needy.
Even if the number of black people at that time was not very large, it was such so as to cause the Queen to be alarmed. Seeing them more and more present in her kingdom, she send an open letter to the lord mayor of London and to the mayors and sheriffs of other town on July 1596. Expressing her great displease concerning the large number of blackmoors in her realm, and her desire to deport at least some of them from the land, the letter stated the following:
Her Majestie understanding that there are of late divers Blackmoores brought into the Realme, of which kinde of people there are all ready here to manie, consideringe howe God hath blessed this land with great increase of people of our owne Nation as anie Countrie in the world…Her Majesty's pleasure therefore ys, that those kinde of people should be sent forthe of the lande. And for that purpose there ys direction given to this bearer Edwarde Banes to take of those Blackmoores that in this last voyage under Sir
8Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Daily Life in Elisabethan England, ( ABC-CLIO, 2009), p.21. 8
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Thomas Baskervile, were brought into this Realme to the nomber of Tenn, to be transported by him out of the Realme. Wherein wee Require you to be aydinge & Assysting unto him as he shall have occasion, and thereof not to faile.9
A while after, a Lübeck merchant made her a proposal to arrange for the release of 89 English prisoners in Spain and Portugal but asked in return the permission to take as many blackmoors in her country. This proposal was highly welcomed by her majesty; first, because this clever arrangement would have allowed her to get rid of a number of black people whom she considered as already “to manie” and it would have saved her a lot of money at the same time.
A week after sending the first letter, an open warrant was sent to Lord Mayor of London and all-vice admirals, mayors and the other public officers where she informed them that a Lübeck merchant, called Casper van Senden, was licensed to take black people from the country and consequently required the local authorities to assist him to arrest them with consent of their masters who would, she was sure, they would rather prefer to be served by their Christian fellowmen. The warrant was in theses terms:
…doth thincke yt a very good exchange and those kinde of people may be well spaared in this realme…[public officicers]…are therefore…required to aide and assist him to take up such blackmores as he shall finde within this realme with the consent of their masters, who we doubt not, considering her Majesty’s good pleasure to have those kinde of people sent out of the lande…and that they should doe charitably and like rather to be served by their owne contrymen then with those kinde of people, will yielde those in their possession to him.10
However, this letter had as minimal effect as the first one, for no master was eager to part with his black servants, especially when no compensation was offered. If Queen Elisabeth’s motives were to get rid of the coloured population present in her realm, then it had completely failed for she issued in 1601 a Royal Proclamation, expressing her great displease about the great number of ‘negars and Blackmoores’ whom
9 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/transcripts/privy_council.htm 10 Peter Fryer, op.ct., p.11 9
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 she blamed for the social problems that existed at time, underlining the fact that the great majority of them were infidels. She confessed being
Highly discontented to understand the great numbers of negars and blackmoores which (as she informed) are crept into the realm…who are fostered and relieved [i.e. fed] here to the great annoyance of her own liege people, that want the relief [i.e. food], which those people consume, as also for that the most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel.11
5. Black Presence from the 17th Century to Emancipation
Up from the seventeenth century there was a steady increase of black people in the British soil. As the empire grew larger, the need for more slaves, as a cheap working hand, became more and more obvious. In 1660, the English company called The Royal Adventurers12 was chartered to take part in the African slave trade. It was conferred complete and absolute monopoly over British trade “from Cape Blanc (Southern Morocco) to Cape Bona Esperanza” in Western Coast of Africa “for buying and selling bartering and exchanging of for or with any negroes, slaves, goods, wares and merchandises13” According to p. Fryer (1984), it is the increasing demand for exotic goods such as sugar, tobacco and rum that was at the origins of Britain’s involvement in the lucrative tri-continental slave trade. Commodities such as muskets, ammunitions, cutlery and textiles were made in Britain and taken to African Coasts where they were bartered for young slaves who were shipped through the Atlantic to the Barbados, Jamaica, Surinam or the Americas. There were exchanged for sugar, spices, and other much –sought after goods which are carried back to Britain to be sold. As a result of this triangular trade, it is not much of surprise that a number of black people found their way to Britain, whether they wanted it or not.
11 Ibid, p. 12. 12 The Royal Adventurers was the first English company to take part in the slave trade. It gave a group of English Aristocracy the monopoly in the British slave trade. It collapsed soon later and was replaced by the Royal African Company in 1672. In: Junius P. Rodriguez , The Historical Encyclopaedia of World Slavery, Volume1; Volume7,(1997), p.557. 13 Qtd in: James A. Rawley Stephen D. Behrendt, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, Revisited Edition, (U on Nebraska Press, 2005), p.132. 10
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
By the mid-seventeenth century and the next one, the practice of having black servants became more general not only for wealthy and titled families but also for less privileged people; anyone who could afford it could have a slave. They worked as peddlers, laundry maids, butlers, coachmen, servants, or other domestic functions. Coloured people ended up in Britain by a multitude of ways. Most of them were brought against their will as servants by West Indians planters on their way back to England to spend the huge fortunes amassed there; by officers of slave ships; by government, army and navy officers returning from service, by captains of ordinary merchant ships, ship surgeons and even by common seamen. Nevertheless, a few of them came as free men, a number of which had been recruited as seamen in African coast, and others came to Britain seeking for education.
During the end of the seventeenth century, most of West Indian planters had become used to send their offspring, sons and even daughters, to England for their education, and these latter, obviously came with their black slaves. In the mean time, and up to the end of slavery, the number of coloured people became significant, from several hundreds to several thousands. The great majority of them were concentrated in slave port cities and cities such as London, Bristol and Liverpool. They were slaves, servants or freemen. These latter were free black sailors, musicians, or men who managed to gain their freedom in one way or another. The great majority of these latter’s lives were full of hardship, frequently reduced to beggary and crime. Traces of their presence could be found in judicial cases records, church records about baptisms, marriages or burials14, in official and personal correspondence, or in literature. In 1764, the number of black people in England in 1770 was estimated approximately to 15.000. The Gentleman’s Magazine had estimated to more than 20.000 black slaves in London only15. This number was to be enlarged by the arrival of other black people after the end the Seven Years War in 1763, and the American War 1783.
14 These records represent a valuable source information about black population domiciled in Britain. They were generally described as ‘negroe’, ‘negress’, ‘ black’, ‘slave’. 15 Gomer Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque: with the Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade, ( Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 477.
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Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
In spite of the fact that the British planters were against deploying Black troops for the war effort, because of economic reasons, or for fear that they would loose their ‘properties’ or simply because it undermined the idea of white superiority, black slaves and free blacks were recruited to fight for King George III during the seven years and again during the Revolutionary War. They served actively as soldiers, sailors, labourers and nurses. According to Edward Long thought that black should be rewarded by freedom as he stated:
Before slaves are entrusted with arms, they should either receive their freedom or a conditional promise of it, as the reward of their good behaviour.16
In 1775, The Earl of Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation17 in which he offered coloured people who would take arms in British army freedom. (see Appendix A.). His proclamation made many of the African American enslaved people join the British army. Its aim was two folds: to reinforce the British forces and to frighten the Secondly, he hoped that such an action would create a fear of a general slave uprising amongst the colonists and would force them to abandon the revolution. Attracted by this appalling prospect, many of them joined the British ranks.
After the end of the revolutionary war, the defeat of the British army and its withdrawal, 14.00018 black loyalists left with them, some of which chose to settle in England. Actually, they were free people, but after the British false promises of compensations, they found themselves completely destitute of any resource and hence condemned to live in a state of beggary, most of the time obliged to steal in London’s the streets, thus enlarging the number of Black Poor. Being born abroad, they could not legally benefit from Poor Law assistance. In 1788, there were 5000 black people in London most of which were destitute people. Many English people felt concerned with the Black poor, especially those who had served loyally along side the British during the American revolutionary war.
16 Qtd in: Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, An Empire divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 178. 17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunmore's_Proclamation. 18 Black Loyalists, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/loyalists.htm 12
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
In 1786, Johnas Hanway, with a group of English philanthropists, established the Committee for the Relief of Black Poor which aimed at helping the black people living in absolute misery in London’s streets. It was this body that first suggested taking as many of these people as possible to Africa to start a new life as free men. By the end of 1787, 350 black settlers, among whom were 41 black women and 59 white wives, embarked on board three ships with little provision. The passengers went through very hard and wretched conditions; they lacked beds, food and clothing. The Sierra Leone proved to be a complete disaster; most of the settlers died during the voyage, others after they arrived, and some others were sold to French slave traders.
5.1 Blacks’ Status in Britain before the End of Slavery
The status of black people in Britain was highly confusing and ambiguous. Obviously the general assumption was that they were slaves. Edward Scrobi stated that they were “slaves in Britain”19. In their works, many historians have pointed out the uncertainty of their status until the early seventeenth century (P. Fryer, 1984; J. Walvin, 1973; Shyllon, 1977). During that period their functions ranged invariably from mere decorations, entertainers and musicians, slaves, household servants, to freemen.
At the beginning, in early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were rather stared at as curiosities; their primary use being rather decorative. They were dressed in extravagant costumes, sometimes with engraved metal collars around their necks with the name of the owner or his coat of arms or his address just like dogs, a quite common practice as some advertisements may prove. In the 1756’s London Advertiser, a working goldsmith from Westminster called Mathew Dyer announced to the public that he made “silver padlocks for Blacks or Dogs; collars, &c.”20
Other black people were used as entertainers, musicians or dancers, at court, or in rich houses. Many portraits of that era show them in showy livery in retreat in a corner of
19 Quoted in Peter D. Raser Slaves or Free ? in :Randolph Vigne, Charles Littleton, From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and colonial America, 1550-1750,( Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2001) p.25. 20Op. ct, p . 474.
13
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 the painting looking up to their masters with blazing eyes. They were as well seen in streets campaigning high class prostitutes, carrying their suits or pets or simply to make them show to their best advantage.
At the turn of the century and the following one, when the acquisition of a black person became more generalised, they were used among the household servants as coaches, pages, and maids. If not as slaves, they were at least considered as properties and were left to their master’s mercy. Not all of them, however, were bad treated. In fact the wealthiest the owner was, the best the black servant was treated. Some were even paid wages, yet they remained exceptions. Most of them were in fact treated as simple goods bought and sold in auctions in the English slave ports, or offered to friends. Other had been objected to reward posters and sale advertisements as early as mid sixteenth century (Fryer 1984, Gomer Williams 2010). As an instance of that, a runaway advertisement was published in the Williamson’s Adviser on September, 8th, 1768 and was in the following terms:
“Run away from Dent, in Yorkshire, on Monday, the 28th August last, Thomas Anson, a negro man, about 5ft. 6 inc. high, aged 20 years and upwards, and board set. Whoever will bring the said man back to Dent, or give any information that he may be had gain, shall receive a handsome reward from Edmund Sill, of Dent; or Mr. David Kenyon? Merchant, in Liverpool”21
They had even been prevented the dignity of bearing their native names. Once acquired by someone, they were given new names as their masters pleased, following their whims. What was most fashionable was to give them Latin, or literary names such as “'George Othello, an adult whose age is uncertain, baptized 27 July 1763”,' recorded at Hutton Rudby.22 It was not also uncommon that they be given names of the place where they lived (See Appendix B.). In some much worst cases, they were branded and even castrated like animals by their masters.23 Anyway their lives were left to their masters’ goodwill.
21 Ibid, p.476. 22 http://www.york.ac.uk/library/borthwick/projects-exhibitions/equality/race/black-baptisms/ 23 Peter Fryer, op.cit. p.23. 14
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Prior to the end of slavery in 1833, the legal status of black people in Britain had been as ambiguous as their social functions. Nothing, concerning them, had been clearly and legally settled. Slavery was not recognized by British law, a fact that was attested in 1675 by the Habeas Corpus Act24; nevertheless, it did exist since Britain was involved in the slave trade, and for black slaves could be sold and bought in England. Records of salve auctions and sale advertisements had been published in English magazines during the eighteenth century. An advertisement made by the auctioneer James Parker could be found in the Liverpool Chronicle in which eleven years old ‘fine negro boy’ was offered for sale by auction at the Merchant’s Coffee house25. As another instance, the following sample appeared in the Williamson’s Advertiser paper in 1765, it was as follows:
“To be sold by Auction at George’s Coffee-house, betwixt the hours of six and eight o’clock, a very fine girl about eight years of age, very healthy, and hath been some time from the coast. Any person willing to purchase the same may apply to Capt. Robert Syers, at Mr. Bartley’s, Mercer and Draper near the exchange, where they may be seen till the time of the sale”26
From the mid eighteenth century, it was sometimes difficult for black slave owners to keep ‘their possessions’ in Britain and prevent them from running away, as opposed to the colonies where the status of blacks was clear. The general assumption was that black people were slaves, or at least their masters’ properties. Nonetheless, this presumption was either confirmed or belied at different occasions through court cases opposing black servants and runaway slaves to their masters. Peter Fryer defined it as the ‘legal pendulum’. Frequently, judges were confronted to the difficulty to conciliate between British common law and the dominion of a person over his slave. The rulings they issued were frequently dubious and set a lot of confusion such as in Catherine Auker, Gelly vs. Cleve, and Butts vs. Penny’s cases.
24 Habeas Corpus is a writ which requires a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court. This ensures that a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention, in other words, detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to the prisoner's aid, in other words, it states that no one has the right to imprison or detain another person against her will except if the detainee presents a proof of his authority on him and that in case the said proof being not available, the custodian has to be released from custody. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus. 25 Op.cit, p. 475 26 Ibid, p. 476. 15
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
The fist one was the case of Catherine Auker, a slave who was brought to England by her master who tortured her and then expelled her without discharge, the fact that prevented her from having a job. Left in the street, then arrested, she was brought to the court where she called on the Court Judge to grant her the right to be employed by another person. As her master had returned to the Barbados, the judge ruled that she might serve any other person until his return27. The ambiguity of ruling here stood in the fact that she had been ‘free’ to work anywhere like any other white servant till the return of her master in which case where she would probably return to a her status of slave, furthermore, at any moment of the case, was it said if slavery was legal or not in Britain. The confusion and the difficulties that the judges faced in a country that denied slavery in its soil but recognised it in its colonies might easily be understood. In fact, British slave owners were often obliged to move from the colonies to Britain and vice versa, very often with their slaves whose status changed from one place to another.
As far as the last two cases are concerned, the rulings had been more confusing and misleading than the preceding one. In the Butts vs. Penny28, a case concerning an action of trover- a common law form of action used to recover the value of personal property29- concerning 100 African slaves which took place in 1677, the judge attested the state of slavery in Britain and declared that “being infidels, they do not have the same rights as Christians and there might be a property in them”. This fact was to be confirmed, in 1694, in the case of Gelly vs. Clever30 (1694) in which it was decided that trover would lie for a Negro boy for “they are heathens, and therefore a many may have property on them”.31 The ruling being highly equivocal spread the wrong idea amongst the black people that once having been baptised, they became free. Thus, these cases, in addition to a number of other ones, such as the Chambers vs. Warkhouse (1693) in which ‘negroes’
27 Patricia Crawford and Laura Gowing, Women’s in Seventeenth Century England: A Source Book , ( Routledge. 2000), pp.76-77. 28 Saunders and Benning, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus, (1833), p.5. 29 Trover is a form of lawsuit in common-law countries (e.g., England, Commonwealth countries, and the United States) for recovery of damages for wrongful taking of personal property. Trover belongs to a series of remedies for such wrongful taking, its distinctive feature being recovery only for the value of whatever was taken, not for the recovery of the property itself ( compare replevin). Trover damages are measured by the market value of the object ( not its replacement cost ) plus compensation for deprivation of use and compensation for other losses naturally and proximately caused by the wrongful taking. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/606864/trover . 30 Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, op.cit. p.257. 31 John Godman Hurd, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States Volume 1 , (Little, Brown and company, 1858), p.181 16
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 were defined as merchandise and compared with “musk cats and monkeys”, have asserted the status of slavery of Black people in Britain.
This assumption came to be contradicted by a number of chief justices the most important of whom was Lord Chief Justice Holt. In the Chamberlain vs. Harvey case (1697), he declared that English common law recognised villenage32 but not slavery. In another case Smith vs. Gould (1706), he stated that common law takes no notice of negroes and that as soon as a negro comes to England he becomes free. In the same line, Lord Justice Powel said that “in a villain, an owner has property, the villain is an inheritance; but the law takes no notice of a negro”; an assert that was supported by Baron Thomson in Galway vs. Cadee ( 1749) where he declared that a man turned free as soon as he set foot in England.
The ambivalence about the status of slavery had continued till the very well known Somerset case (1772). This latter was about an American slave, Somerset, brought by his owner, Charles Stewart to England in 1769. Two years latter, he managed to escape but was soon captured by his owner and put on a ship to the West Indies. A group of his friends with the help of the abolitionist Granville Sharp brought the case before the Court of King’s Bench where it was heard by the Chief Justice Lord Mansfield. After six months of heated debates, he declared that a slave could not forcibly be removed from England and that:
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.33
32 The main type of unfree tenancy was villenage, initially a modified form of servitude. The unfree tenant never knew what he might be called to do for his lord. Although at first the villein tenant held his land entirely at the will of the lord and might be ejected at any time, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/629222/villenage . 33 Carol Harlow, Pressure Through Law, (Routledge, 1992 ), p.14.
17
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
In the end of the case, the chief Justice ordered Somerset be free. The case was highly mediated and the judge’s decision was enthusiastically welcomed and celebrated by the Black community as well as by the abolitionists, both in Britain and abroad. Actually, the ruling did not say that slavery was illegal, what is stated was that black servants could not be removed from Britain against their will. Although, slavery and ill- treatment against black people continued after that case, it was; however, considered by great a many people as the first step that brought about the end of slavery.
5.2 Slavery and the British Empire’s Ascent
It is largely settled among historians that trading in slave was the real cause that brought about British industrialization in the eighteenth century and, consequently, boomed British economy, making of Britain one of the most important powers. According to a number of historians, it was the origin of modern capitalism. William Darty Jr. stated:
Is it notorious to the whole World that the Business of planting in our British Colonies, as well as in the French, is carried on by the Labour of Negroes, imported thither from Africa? Are not we indebted to those valuable People, the Africans for our Sugars, Tobaccoes, Rice, Rum, and all other Plantation Produce?34
The first time when Britain realized the profits that it might amass from trading in slaves was in 1562 when John Hawkyns made his first triangular voyage, returning back to England with £10.000 worth of pearls, hides, sugar and ginger35. Although Queen Elisabeth I had described the trade as “detestable”, she was eager to lend for his second voyage. Almost century later, Britain was trading officially in black slaves when the Royal Adventurers Company was established under a royal charter, competing is this Spain, Portugal and France. Then, through wars and treaties, it managed to have more territories in the Atlantic and in the West Indies the fact that increased the demand for a cheap and hard working labor force to work the land in the colonies.
34Qtd.in: Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley L. Engerman, The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and People in Africa, The Americas and Europe (Duke University Press, 1992), p.247. 35Peter Fryer, ibid., p. 8. 18
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
At the middle of the eighteenth century, as a matter of fact, Britain managed to have supremacy over the transatlantic slave trade. During that period more than half of the African slaves taken to America and the West Indies were delivered by Britain. The proceeds gained by British merchants thanks to the purchase and sale of 2.500.000 African slaves, between 1630 and 1807, were estimated at about £12.000.00036. The number of slaves imported by Britain to British America during the period ranging from 1619 to 1808 is very revealing about the wealth accumulated thanks to Britain’s trading in slaves. During that period, the numbers of slaves carried by Britain to the Americas from the Barbados and Jamaica only were about 490.300 and 1.074.600 slaves, respectively. (See Table 1.1)
British commodities were loaded on board ships to African coasts where they were bartered for African slaves who were crammed in the same ships, delivered to American and West Indian colonies. There, they were sold or exchanged for colonial goods for many times their purchase price. Dr. Ian Rice stated that a slave that had been bought with trade goods worth £3 could be sold in for £20 in America. The Royal Africa Company was able to make an average profit of 38% per voyage in the 1680s37. The goods were, then, shipped back to England, specifically in Bristol and Liverpool, and Manchester ports, to be sold. The ingenuity of that system laid in the fact that ships were always loaded by one commodity or another which was of great profit to all the parties involved in trade the most important of whom were the British slave owners and slave traders, factories’ owners, British bankers, and workers. In 1788, dealing with slave trade, the Committee of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, said:
In its Effect it employs about 150 Sail of Shipping which carry Annually from the country upward of a Million of property the greatest part Our Own Manufactures and in it’s more remote Effects there is hardly any Branch of Commerce, in which this Nation is concerned that does not derive some advantage from it.38
36 Ibid, p.36. 37 Dr. Ian Rice, in The economic basis of the slave trade. http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the- arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/articles/the-economic-basis-of-the-slave-trade.html 38 Peter Fryer, op.cit.. p. 15. 19
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Not only did the slave trade propelled British economy and power, but it did also change the face of a number of English cities. In the mid-eighteenth century the slave port cities, Liverpool, Bristol, London and Manchester, changed from being mere fish ports to the most important slave ports in England and in the world. Their participation in the triangular slave trade grew more and more important in the early eighteenth century. Trading in slaves caused the development and prospers of the local industries of theses towns as well as the enrichment of many of their inhabitants. Thanks to the trade, many Bristolians and Liverpudlians managed to build huge fortunes and estates by owning shares in slave trading companies, by investing in slave voyages and in sugar or cotton plantations, or by or by supplying local goods to ships and plantations.
From a mere fish port in the seventeenth century, Bristol changed to be the most important slave port in the country by the 1720s, the fact that was the outcome of a number of factors. First, when the Royal African Company lost its monopoly over the trade in 1698, Bristol involvement in the trade witnessed a great leap forward. Its involvement grew even more important when, in 1713, the treaty of Utrecht was signed giving Britain the right to supply slaves to Spanish colonies in America. The other reason was that Bristolian merchants enlarged their activities by trading with hinterlands, proving goods needed for the slave trade both in African coast and in the colonies. As a matter of fact, its local manufactories and industries developed much as well.
Sugar being its primary and most important salve-produced good import, lots of industries were created to process it or to distil it into spirits, this latter being highly prized specifically by African traders. Consequently, many glasshouses were established to manufacture bottles for spirits, as well as other glassware. Gun powder, and copper and brass wares, such as pans and wires, were used by British slave traders as a currency for slaves purchase in Africa, the fact that brought about the creation and the prosper of local works that manufactured pans, pots and other cutleries used by Africans for cooking, manillas39, iron rods and ammunitions . In addition to that, many of the ships used for the
39 Manilas are penannular armlets, mostly in bronze or copper which served as a form of commodity money (and, to a degree, ornamentation) among certain West African peoples (Aro Confederacy, Guinea Coast, Gold Coast, Calabar and other parts of Nigeria, etc.). This form of African currency also became known as “slave trade money” after the Europeans started using them to acquire slaves for the slave trade into the Americas (as well as England prior to 1807). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manillas. 20
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Atlantic voyages were built at place, within Bristol’s shipyards. The outcome of all that was that Bristol trade grew more important, rising the city to the second place after London, in the 1720s. The number of voyages parting from Bristol, from 1698 to 1807, was estimated at 206240. After 1720s, Bristol was outdistanced by her English rival, Liverpool.
The second town that profited greatly from its involvement in the trade of African slaves was Liverpool. It managed to boost its economy, to accumulate huge wealth, and to rise up to the prominent place before British salve ports. It managed to do so thanks to its huge mercantilist activity, to its trade with backland industries and to the safety of its geographical position.
At the beginning, Liverpool exported the goods made in its neighboring towns, such as coal from Lancashire and salt from Cheshire. In the meantime, its involvement in the slave trade expended gradually during the seventeenth century to reach its height by the late eighteenth century. The increase in Liverpool’s involvement in the trade brought about the development of local and hinterlands’ industries and manufactories.
Ship building companies were the first to benefit from the slave trade as more and more ships were needed for slave voyages. Liverpool counted about 144 shipwrights, and four times as much by the end of the century41, as apposed to London which did not develop as much. Between 1782 and 1807, 61 ships were built in Liverpool which was almost the fifth of all the ships built in England and that had been involved in the slave trade during the same period. The percentage of the slave ships that were dispatched from Liverpool was about 6 per cents in the period between 1720 and 1730. This percentage rose to 43 per cents by 1741-1750, then it increased, reaching 70 per cents in 1761-90 until Liverpool outstood its main rivals, Bristol and London.42 During the period of Britain’s involvement in slave trade, this ‘metropolis of slavery’ invested about £
40 James A. Rawley, Stephen D. Behrendt. op.cit, p.154. 41James A. Rawley, Stephen D. Behrendt, op.cit., p. 169. 42 David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne, Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery, (Liverpool University Press, 2008), p.14. 21
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
2.641.200 per year in the trade, and it carried about 1.171.171 slaves to America and the West Indies43.
The development of slave trade and ships building brought about the creation and the development of the British banking system and insurance companies. Plantation owners relied on credit and bills of credit to buy and expand their plantations and their production; whereas, traders, merchants, manufacturers, and the like needed loans to develop, purchase, carry, slaves, goods, and organize transatlantic voyages which could sometimes take over eighteen months. Thanks to this fact, the Bank of England was established in 1694. However, it is during the eighteenth century that the British banking system flourished most. Other banks were set up in different parts of England during that period to face then growing demand for loans. Bankers and insurers invested and profited from the trade, the fact that created for many of them opportunities to make money. Thanks to the Bank of England, Britain was able to wage wars to protect its overseas colonies. Because of the risks engendered by wars, insurance rates increased during the eighteenth century.
As a second impact of Liverpool’s increasing involvement slave trade was the development and expansion of many other industries. During the eighteenth century the British demand for a number of slave grown items increased. Sugar, in addition to cotton and tobacco were Liverpool most important colonial import from the Americas and the West Indies. In 1700, Liverpool’s import of sugar was about 11.600 metric tons44, and in 1800, it peaked to 25.395 metric tons. By the end of century, Liverpool came at the second place among sugar British centers, behind Bristol. Its import of tobacco increased from 771.800 kilograms in 1700 to 4.720.700 kilograms by the last decade of the eighteenth century.45 From the mid- eighteenth century till its end, Liverpool was the third largest British port for tobacco import.
The imported goods that were in the form of raw material were processed either in Liverpool or transited through a chain of rivers and channels to the hinterland towns such as Manchester, Yorkshire, and Lancashire to be proceeded there, the fact that brought
43 Ibid. p.15. 44 1 metric ton= 1000 kilograms. 45 Op.cit. p.17. 22
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 about the growth and development of their industries as well. In the other hand, these thriving hinterland industries transited their manufactured goods and products that slave traders and merchants needed so much for their trade in Africa were sold and exported through Liverpool ports.
Manufacturers and merchants had a preference over the other English ports because of its proximity and because of its safe waters. In fact, Liverpool, as well as Glasgow, was far from the sea routes frequented by French and Spanish privateers, specifically during the war time. It greatly profited from this geographical advantage to expand its transatlantic voyages, carrying more slaves than the other main slave trading ports. The percentage of slave voyages from the port of Liverpool during the period 1739- 1907 was about 84,7% , as compared London’s 12% and Bristol’s 3%. (See.Table 1.2)
Even merchants from other cities, such as London, preferred Liverpool’s ports, in spite of their proximity to Bristol because of the safety of its waters. Thus, because of their strategic geographical situations, and its access to a variety of trade goods, Liverpool gained primacy over other British ports in the slave trade, and Glasgow in the tobacco trade.
Indeed the slave trade brought much good to Britain’s economy and enhanced the development and the prosperity of many of its cities. It was like a chain in which every part was tightly related to the other. The British started by investing money in slave voyages for the acquisition of African slaves. These latter were sold or exchanged for the so prized slave grown products (sugar, tobacco, cotton, etc.) which were in their turn brought to British slave trade ports were they were processed then sold for huge profits. To come full circle, part of these products were manufactured locally, and the re-exported to the Americas for the use of the colonies, or to Africa, in addition to a number of British goods (brass and copper ware, iron rods, linen, guns, ammunition, etc.).
For the fulfillment of that successful business, many vessels were needed to transport all theses goods to the three directions of the slave trade, Britain, Africa and the Americas. In addition to that, the ships had to be built, fitted, and loaded by goods and provisions necessary for the voyage and for the crew (meat, butter, candles, ropes,
23
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 medicines, etc.), boosting less important local commerce. Consequently, all the parts involved in the slave trade managed to make profit of it, slave traders, industrials and manufacturers, plantation owners, bankers. Industries and manufactories were established everywhere in country creating employment and business opportunities for a great many people, among which laborers, carpenters, sailors, and many other craftsmen. It brought about economical and demographical growth. It completely changed the face of Britain, as many less important cities came to be major British centers such as Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester, and as a direct consequence of that, brought about their population growth. For example, in the late eighteenth century, the population of Liverpool increased from 20.000 to 64.000 people and from 5.000 to 78.000 in Bristol.46
5.3 British black People Involvement in the Abolition of Slavery
By the second half of the eighteenth century many people started to question the legality of slavery in Britain and legitimacy of the slave trade as a whole. Although opposition to slave trade started, yet timidly, before the seventeenth century, however, it did not become popular and organized until the second half of the century. The movement had been influenced and stimulated by a number of factors. At that time, the ideas of the enlightenment movement47were spreading all throughout Europe and America. This movement’s main scope was the remolding of the society through reason; its leading thinkers promoted science, and opposed intolerance and abuses of human rights. Its ideas and principles had influenced a great many personalities everywhere in the world such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin shaped their way of thinking and to a farther extent brought about the American Revolution. During the same period, a number of evangelical religious groups started criticizing slavery for its unchristian and blasphemous aspect and its immorality.
46 Ibid, p. 37. 47 The Enlightenment was a cultural movement which appeared in the eighteenth century. It was sparked by people such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and John Locke. This latter’s work which had been very influential in England, as an instance, claimed that all men, including the enslaved, were created with some natural rights which were unimpeachable. These thinkers’ works have largely changed people’s way of thinking. It spread all over Europe then, America where it influenced people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Its ideas shaped the American declaration of independence and the bill of rights. 24
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
The abolition movement arose in the 1770s when a group people petitioned the British Parliament against the slave trade in 1783. However it did not have great effects. In 1787, nine Quakers and three evangelicals formed the Society of Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This latter’s mission was to inform the public about the atrocity of the slave trade through publications, pamphlets, images and artifacts. In Thomas Clarkson, the society found a extraordinary mediator who collected evidence of the appalling treatment that slaves had been subjected to, and traveled all over England and Scotland, popularizing and promoting abolition. The society’s efforts peaked by the end of the eighteenth century when hundreds of petitions were presented to the House of Commons, 100 petitions in 1788 and 519 in 1792. These latter were used by William Wilberforce as means of pressure on the Parliament in order to abolish the slave trade. It was not until 1807 that the huge efforts of these extraordinary abolitionists bore fruits when the Abolition Act was finally passed, outlawing all British involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.
What must be now emphasized is that this great success would not have been achieved without the efforts of the black people themselves, although little is known about their contribution. In fact all throughout the fight against the slave trade and latter on against slavery, black people had worked hand in hand with white abolitionists. From the beginning of the slave trade, they had resisted with the only way provided to them that was running away from their masters.
Solidarity was the second way afforded to them as a way of resisting slavery by assisting fugitive slaves, affording them food and shelters, and keeping the mob away from them. In 1778, Philip Thicknesse complained that “London abounds with an incredible number of these black men, who have clubs to support those who are out of the place.”48 Peter Fryer reported the case two black men, imprisoned in the Bridewell house of correction, who had been visited by 300 of their countrymen and who had been largely supported during their confinement by the black community there.49 The runaway black servants and slaves encouraged, whether directly or indirectly, their fellowmen to do the
48Lindsey German, John Rees, A People's History of London, (Verso Books, 2012), p.87.
49Peter Fryer, op. cit, p.70. 25
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 same the fact that greatly annoyed many British people such as Edward Long who complained about the bad influence they had on the other black people:
Upon arriving in London, these servants soon grow acquainted with a knot of blacks, who, having eloped from their respective owners at different times, repose themselves here in ease and indolence, and Endeavour to strengthen their party, by seducing as many of these strangers into the association as they can work of their purpose50.
During the Somerset case in 1772, there were many people from the British black community attending the hearings, and when the ruling was pronounced and Somerset released, about 200 blacks celebrated the victory at a Westminster public house. Music and sport were other domains where they could express their distinctiveness and their culture. However, the most effective way they had to fight and abolish the slave trade and slavery was through testimonies. Without these testimonies, Granville Sharp, for example, would probably not have completed his fight for the legal status and rights of Black people in Britain. Without them, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce would neither have been able to convince as many people as they did not do about the evil of slavery, nor would they have been able to lead the fight up to Parliament till the end of slavery.
During their campaign against slavery, abolitionists had realized the importance and the impact of vivid testimonies and graphic images on the public opinion. Thomas Clarkson moved all aver England to gather evidence of the atrocities of the slave trade. A great number of black people were too eager to unveil the monstrosities they had been subjected to. Those who managed to learn to read and write published their autobiographies with the help of white people. They worked aside with their foreign black abolitionists and did their share of the fight, as Toussaint L’Ouverture and Phyllis Wheatley did. Their records had a huge impact on the advance of the abolition movement. They made people in Britain conscious of the hidden side of the trade and had a beneficial effect in attracting more and more adherents to the abolitionists cause.
50 Ibid, p.17. 26
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Among the most important British black voices of the eighteenth century was Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, a former black slave who was considered as the first political leader of the black community in Britain. He was born in 1745 in eastern Nigeria. At the age of eleven, he was kidnapped with his sister by slave traders, transported to the Barbados, and then to Virginia. In 1754, he was bought by a British naval officer who gave him the name of Gustavo Vassa and brought him to England. He was baptized with his master’s consent in 1759, and spent the next seven years with him on board naval ships where he learnt to read and write with the help of some sailors. In 1763, he was sold to Captain James Doran, taken to Montserrat, and then resold to a merchant, Robert King. During all this time, Equiano had saved as much money as he could. In 1766, he finally managed to buy his freedom after which he traveled widely, and finally returned to London.
Equiano’s achievements were far from being negligible. He participated in the search for a northwest passage led by Phillips expedition of 1772-1773. He played a very important role, with Granville Sharp, in the movement for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1787, when he was appointed by the government to settle London’s poor blacks in Sierra Leone, he denounced several times the treacheries and mismanagements that were occurring there the fact that caused his dismissal. As a spokesman of all the black community, he wrote letters to newspapers, abolitionist leaders as well as to Queen Charlotte of England pleading black slaves’ cause. (See Appendix C ). It was thanks to him that the Zong massacre, where 130 black slaves had been drowned alive at sea so that the owners could have compensation, was mediated to the general public and brought to the knowledge of Granville Sharp who tried unsuccessfully to bring the responsible for that massacre to court to be judged and punished. Even if the murderers remained unpunished, the case strongly shocked the British white society and brought new adherents to the abolition cause. In addition to that, it helped the passing of the Dolben Act in 1788 which limited the number of the enslaved people in proportion to the ship’s size.
Nevertheless, his most prominent achievement was his autobiography, which he published in 1789. In his book, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavo Vassa, the African, he, as a former slave, depicted life in Africa as well as
27
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 torture and the inhumane treatments that slaves had been and were still subjected to. His book was a best seller in Britain and abroad. It had been translated into many languages and went through several editions. It was his great contribution to the abolition movement. Until his death in 1797, Equiano carried tirelessly his fight the cause of his black brethren.
Another contributor to the anti slavery movement was Ignatius Sancho, a self educated black composer and writer known in his time as the ‘extraordinary negro’. He was a slave born on board a shop in 1729. His mother died soon after and his father committed suicide to free himself. In 1731, at the age of two, he was brought by his owner to England and offered to three maiden sisters. In 1749, he ran away and sought refuge with the Montagu family who engaged him as a butler. During that period he taught himself to read and write. After her death, Lady Montagu left him an annuity and a year salary which, in 1774, enabled him and his wife to purchase and run a successful grocery shop in Westminster.
In spite of being a self educated man, he wrote poems, two stage plays, and ‘a Theory of Music’. In addition to that, he composed and published several music compositions which he published anonymously. He was a well known figure in the literary and artistic circles of that time, was well acquainted with people such as Lawrence Sterne the Anglo-Irish novelist, David Garrik, the well known eighteenth century English actor, playwright and producer and the artist John Hamilton Mortimer. At this latter’s suggestion he appeared on stage in attempt to act the role of black characters Othello and Orinooko, but he was not very successful. In 1768, he had his portrait painted by the worldwide known English artist painter Thomas Gainsborough. Sancho was also known for being the first black person of African origin to vote in Britain. Being a financially dependent male householder, he was qualified to vote in the parliamentary elections of 1774 and 1780. After his death, in 1780, his letters were collected by Frances Crew, and in 1782, The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African was published and subscribed by over 1.160 persons. Sansho represented, in Markman Ellis51 words, the most complete assimilation of an African writer into British culture of the period. During all his life,
51Markman Ellis, The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel , (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.59.
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Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Sancho’s main obsession was to prove to the white people in general and to the British society specifically black people intellectual capacities, and that an untutored African slave may have the same intellectual capacities as any white person.
Among the black people who managed to distinguish during the eighteenth century was Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, a former slave known also as John Stuart who was among the most radical and active black abolitionists in Britain during the eighteenth century. Born in 1757 in Ghana, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of thirteen then taken to the West Indies where he was to remain enslaved for several years. In 1772, he was bought by a British merchant and brought to England where he was baptized John Stuart in 1773 and worked as a house servant. In 1784, he was employed by the well known artists, Richard and Maria Cosway52 thanks to whom he encountered a number of leading political and cultural figures of that time.
Cugoano fought tiredly against slavery by sending letters to newspapers and to political leaders. He had a key role in freeing Henry Demane, a black man who was kidnapped by his owner and about to be shipped to the West Indies, by reporting the kidnapping to the white abolitionist Granville Sharp who took a legal action and rescued him in extremis. His book, entitled Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species which he published in 1787, with the help of Olaudah Equiano, was a serious attack on slavery and a valuable contribution to the abolition cause.
He was the first one who keenly encouraged black resistance to slavery as being not only a moral right, but also a moral duty. According to him, it is a slave duty ‘to get out of the hands of his enslaver, as it is for any honest community of men to get out of the hands of rogues and villain’s.53 Furthermore, he was too the first black person to ask
52 Richard Cosway (5 November 1742 – 4 July 1821) was a leading English portrait painter of the Regency era, noted for his miniatures. His subjects included highly important personalities of that time among which were: the Prince's first wife, Maria Anne Fitzherbert, and Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV of France . In 1781, he married the Anglo-Italian artist Maria Hadfield (1760-1838) who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.. In 1784, the Cosways moved into Schomberg House , Pall Mall, which became a fashionable salon for London society where a number of very important personalities where received among whom the Prince of Wales and many other political and artistic figures. 53 Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, (1787), p.73.
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Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 expressively for ending the slave trade and the freeing of all slaves. In his book, he proposed ‘that a total abolition of slavery should be made and proclaimed; and that an universal emancipation of slaves should begin from the date thereof’.54 In 1791, he published a summarized version of his book in which he expressed his intention to open a school for black people who were willing to be acquainted with ‘the knowledge of Christian religion and the Laws of civilization’.
These black heroes had contributed immeasurably to their cause, their bibliographies and their accomplishments challenged these theories asserting the supremacy of the white race over the black one and it completely contradict and destroyed those arguments used to justify the trade on black souls. In spite of the fact that these figures were among the most well known black leaders of that time, there were other black people fighting daily and actively to ameliorate their fellowmen’s living condition and to end slavery in Britain and wherever it existed. Among these were the members of ‘Sons of Africa’ a group of leading people of the British black community of England, among whom Equiano and Sancho were important members. In fact, the following black people: Yahne Aelane (Joseph Sanders), Broughwar Johgensmel (Jasper Goree), Cojoh Ameere (George Williams), Thomas Copper, William Green, George Robert Mandeville, Bernard Elliot Griffiths, Daniel Christopher, John Christopher, James Forster, John Scot, Jorge Dent, Thomas Oxford, James Bailey, James Frazer, Thomas Carlisle, William Stevens, Joseph Almaze, John Adams, George Wallace, and Thomas Jones55 ought to be remembered in the same capacity as the others for they had made their contribution to the abolition cause, in one way or another. At several occasions, they had co-signed public statements and newspaper articles written by Cugoano and Equiano, and accompanied this latter to parliament to listen to debates. They were a precious source of information for white abolitionists.
Women too had made their share of the fight for ending the slave trade and for Blacks emancipation, Mary prince being one of the best illustrations of that. As the offspring of an enslaved family in Bermuda born in 1788, she was later on sold at the age of ten to a series of cruel masters who put her through atrocious sufferings and sexual
54 Ibid, p.130. 55 Peter Fryer, op.cit, p. 108. 30
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 abuse. After changing owners a number of times, she was sold again to another Bermudian and brought to work in the salt industry at Turks Islands where she had been forced to work in appalling conditions; with other slaves, she worked in salt ponds all day long from ‘four o'clock in the morning till nin’e under the blazing sun. Their ‘feet and legs, from standing in the salt water for so many hours, soon became full of dreadful boils, which eat down in some cases to the bone’.56
In 1810, she was sold by John Adam Wood and sent to Antigua to work as a domestic slave. In 1825, she married a former slave, the act for which she was to be harshly punished for. She was then taken to London in 1828 as the Woods’ servant. Few months later, she walked away of her cruel masters, reported her case to the Anti Slavery Society, and took employment with the English abolitionist writer Thomas Pringle who arranged for her biography The History of Mary Prince to be published in 1831. Afterward, she was obliged to remain in Britain, for although she was free, she could not go back to her husband in Antigua without risking being re-enslaved since her former masters had not freed her officially. She was the first black woman to petition parliament for her freedom. Her autobiography was the first slave narrative published by a black woman in Britain. It unveiled the injustice that slaves had been subjected to in general, as well as the moral and the physical abuses that slave women had to endure in silence. Her book was subject to controversy, the accuracy of her testimonies being highly challenged and misbelieved by the so conservative English society to such an extant that it was subjected to two libels57.
The above mentioned narratives are just few examples of black resistance and campaigns against slavery. They are considered up to present day as highly valuable contributions that to the anti-slavery cause. They fuelled the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves, by making increasing numbers of people join the fight. Their autobiographies were among the first prototypes of slaves narratives and constituted the basis of the black literary tradition in Europe. History has long
56Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, (Wilder Publications, 2008), p. 24. 57 Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander which is oral defamation. It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity (like a newspaper, magazine or political organization) open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie. Proof of malice, however, does allow a party defamed to sue for "general damages" for damage to reputation. In: http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/libel. 31
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 undermined the importance of their contribution until recently. Yet, people have to know that they had done a great deal and that they had worked alongside white abolitionists until their emancipation was achieved through the Slavery Abolition Act which was passed in 1833.
6. Black Community after the End of Slavery
After 1833, the number of black settlers in Britain decreased as a direct consequence of the end of slave trade. However, few black people continued to come to England as seamen, entertainers, students, discharged officers, or political activists. Together with the already exiting black community, they were about 20.000 who lived mainly in seaports. They endured continuous hardship because of lack of jobs and faced racism. The majority of those who managed to have a job were servants of wealthy families. Some of them married white women from the low working class and merged into the society.
It was during the nineteenth century that Pan-Africanism, a new political current, arose in Britain. It called for racial solidarity, African unity, fighting racial discrimination, and independence from white domination. Most of these principles and ideas had already been mentioned in the writings of the British black abolitionists Equiano and Cugoano. This political movement took forms mainly thanks to black people living in Britain. These latter worked alongside other Pan-African activists from Africa and the United States who chose London as the centre for fighting racism and colonization, and established there their African Association in 1897. They met, exchanged ideas and campaigned there until the first Pan –African Conference was held in London in 1900.
The movement reached its peak when the fifth Pan –African Congress was held in Manchester in 1945 and included many world leading scholars, intellectuals and political activists. It called for African economic and cultural unity and campaigned against colonization. As opposed to the other Pan –African Congresses held consecutively in 1919 in Paris, 1921 in London, 1923 in London and 1927 in New York, it was considered as the most important step that brought about the end of colonization during the twentieth century. During the following century, Britain witnessed the proliferation of black
32
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 political organizations such as the West African Student Union, the League of Colored Peoples, in addition to the coming of a number of important world- wide known black political leaders and intellectuals such as George Padmore and Marcus Garvey.
Between the period ranging from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the local black community was enriched by new types of black immigrants; ‘they were active in politics, medicine, law, business, the theatre, music, dance sport, journalism, local affairs’ and included ‘writers, men of God, orators and entertainers, two editors, a nurse, and a photographer’58. At that time, a number of black figures managed to gain fame and to single out within the black community living in England at that time among which were Mary Seacole, a mixed race nurse and heroine of the Crimean War. Daughter of a Scottish soldier and a Jamaican woman, she acquired her nursing knowledge from her mother. Later on, she enlarged her skills through her numerous travels in Britain America and the Caribbean. In 1854, as she was refused by the War Office when she volunteered as an army nurse in the Crimean, she decided to make the journey by herself at her own expense. She marked herself out by nursing and taking care of the wounded, sometimes under fire. Although, she had never been rewarded by the military, she was highly praised, respected and admired by many officers and English people. At the end of her life, she wrote her memoirs untitled The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands which was published in 1859 and was one of the earliest black writings.
This period saw also the appearance of two genius artists among the black community in England, namely Ira Aldridge and Samuel Coleridge Taylor. As far as the first one is concerned, he was born in New York in 1807. Because of his love the theatre, and being fully conscious of the difficulties that he would face to realize his dream in America, he immigrated in England in 1824. When he first appeared on stage he so intensely criticized that he decided to leave England for a tour in Europe where he was greatly acclaimed. Honored as the Chevalier Ira Aldridge, Knight of Saxony, recognized as ‘an actor of genius’ and celebrated as the ‘African Roscius’, he finally returned to England where his talent could no longer be ignored. He was lionized and received the
58 Peter Fryer, op.cit, p. 237. 33
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
Prussian Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences from King Frederick William III, the Golden Cross of Leopold from the Czar of Russia, and the Maltese cross from Berne, Switzerland.
Later on in the century, Britain gave birth to a genius black composer. He was born in 1875 from an English woman and a black doctor from Sierra Leone. He was admitted in the Royal College of Music in 1890 and studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. While still a student, he composed his famous Hiawathas’ Wedding Feast in 1899, a very great success which won him recognition as one of the most talented composers in England as well as international success and fame. It was to be followed by other successful compositions during the following decade. He was referred to as the ‘Black Mahler’. In 1903, he was appointed as professor of composition at Trinity College of London. His pride of his African heritage appeared in many of his compositions as he always attempted to include the African touch to his music. His promising carrier was stopped when he suddenly died of double pneumonia at the age of thirty-six because of extensive work and lack of money.
Except from the minority of artists, educated people and activists, the remaining black majority faced a very hard live for most of them were refused jobs by white people who were not very keen to work alongside coloured people. By 1910, living conditions of poor coloured people, most of which were seamen and to lesser extent black servants who left their masters because of bad treatment had become so disastrous that parliament created the Committee on Distressed Colonial and Indian Subjects to inquire about the situation. The report revealed that ‘three in five distressed black people were seamen.’59 Black seamen were specifically targeted by seamen’s unions who strongly campaigned against their recruitment; as a result their recruitment was highly restricted whether ashore or at see until the advent of the World War I.
7. Black British Efforts during the World Wars
Another factor responsible for black immigration to Britain was British military needs. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Britain made extensive use of its colonial manpower in the West Indies and Africa. They were employed in war
59 Diane Frost, Work and Community among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century , (Liverpool University Press, 1999) , p.78. 34
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 industries and the merchant navy. About 20.000 men came from the West Indies to fight Britain and joined the British West Indian Regiment whereas black women came in smaller proportions to serve as nurses. Two thirds of them came from Jamaica while the others came from Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, British Honduras, Grenada, the Leeward Islands, St. Lucia and St. Vincent60. The great majority was restricted to work in war industries and in the merchant navy. They use of high unemployment rate in their countries of origin, or seeking for glory and recognition.
In spite of the fact that they had overwhelmingly volunteered to serve their mother land, offering their lives and material support, they were discriminated against and were refused by British officials to carry arms and take an active part to the war, for it was ‘not appropriated that blacks should fight white troops’61, and above all because they feared to lose white supremacy over the colonies at the end of the war. Hence, their employment was restricted mainly to low ranked functions such as digging trenches, and transporting supplies laying telephone wires and other guard duties. Nevertheless, when the need for manpower became urgent because of the huge human losses suffered by the Allies, black people were enrolled to fight alongside white officers, and the British West Indies Regiment was established in 1915. A total of 397 officers and 15.204 men from Caribbean colonies served in that regiment62.
West Indies’ recruits were deployed in Europe and the Near East whereas those from African colonies fought almost exclusively in Africa. Black men were not allowed to hold any higher rank than that of a warrant officer or non- commissioned officer despite all their efforts in the war. A great many of them were psychologically and physically crippled and others died in battle. After the end of the war, a significant number of black soldiers were demobilized in Britain.
As long as the war blowing up, black people were employed in war industries in Britain. Most of them established in northern industrial cities and sea ports. At the end of
60 Spencer C. Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts, World War I: A Student Encyclopedia, (ABC. CLIO. 2005), p. 817. 61 Ibid, p.817. 62 The British West Indies Regiment. At : http://www.1914-1918.net/britishwestindiesregiment.html . 35
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945 the war, there were over 20.000 black people in Britain.63 However, as soon as the war ended and white soldiers returned home, they were immediately thrown away of their jobs because of lack of jobs. Accused of competing them for jobs, black people were targeted by white hostility, bringing about a wave of riots in Tyneside, Cardiff, Liverpool and London in 1919.
Black men’s houses were set on fire. Huge mobs of white men hunted and savagely attacked, beat and stabbed every colored man they met in the streets. As a result, the British government enacted a series of restrictive legislation such as the Aliens Order in 1920, which obliged all aliens seeking employment or residence to register with the police at the risk of being deported and gave the Home Secretary complete power to deport any alien whose presence was considered harmful to the community, and the Special Restriction (Colored Alien Seamen) Order in 1925 which purpose was to limit the influx of colored seamen to the country. Under the order, police were empowered to arrest any alien without a warrant; this latter were obliged to register with the police and to carry an alien seaman registration certificate.
Much the same thing happened during the World War II; colonial servicemen were, rather reluctantly, needed to join and serve the motherland. They in fact volunteered to join the British armed forces and the RAF, but this time their motivation changed somehow; their purpose was to put Britain under pressure to achieve independence, especially in Africa. One thousand technicians and trainees were recruited for service in war factories on Merseyside and Lancashire; 1.200 British Hondurans as foresters in Scotland, and an unspecified smaller numbers for the merchant marine. In one scheme 200 trainees were recruited from seven different territories in 1941 for work in munitions factories. The RAF recruited 1.350 men from Guiana, 10.270 from Jamaica, 800 from Trinidad and almost 1000 from other Caribbean islands for military service64. Only part of them was demobilized in their respective countries of origin after the end of the war, the others preferred to stay in Britain.
63 Peter Fryer, op.cit. p. 296. 64 Ian R. G. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The making of multi-racial Britain , (Routledge, 1997), p.17 36
Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
8. Conclusion
From early times, Britain has always been a bastion of a racial diversity. It witnessed a succession of civilizations and cultures throughout time. Although their history had long been neglected by historians, it worldwide known today that there had always been a black presence in Britain, and according to some modern historians even long before the English came there, yet in a negligible proportion.
Their presence became more noticeable during the sixteenth century when it having a black slave in rich families was considered as being highly fashionable and as exotic and evident sign of wealth and prestige. This era saw the establishment of the earliest black community in England; their number increased to such a point that Queen Elisabeth; unsuccessfully, attempted to expel them from her realm.
With Britain’s extensive involvement in the slave trade, the number of black people increased significantly. The majority of them were brought by their owners as slaves or household servants. Their status had been highly ambiguous until the Somerset case 1772 when it was settled by Lord Mansfield ruling when he advocated that the state of slavery was contrary to common law; and those slaves once in England could not be removed from the country to slavery in the colonies against their will. It was a turning point in the history of black British people and was considered as the fist step that brought about the end of the British slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1833.
As apposed to the general belief, black people were not inactive witnesses during the abolition movement; on the contrary, they had an active part in the movement. In addition to white abolitionists, among the most important of whom were Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, many black people campaigned tirelessly for the end of the slave trade and slavery. They wrote testimonies of their lives as slaves unveiling the atrocities black slaves had been subjected to and revealed to the white people the abject and odious side of the slave trade. They wrote articles to newspapers, and organized meetings all throughout Britain to spread abolitionary ideas. Their efforts did not go unnoticed; they are up to the present day considered as first black leaders and heroes among both white and black people.
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Early Black Presence in Britain up to 1945
After the end of slavery, small black communities were well established in Britain; black population in Britain was generally estimated at anything between 10.000 and 40.000 and at about 20.000 in London65. The major part of them established in seaports cities such as Liverpool, Bristol, London and Cardiff. Except from a few who managed to gain fame and recognition, the great majority faced hardship and racism. Because of lack of jobs, most of them were obliged to live in the streets deemed to robbery and beggary. They were refused jobs, unwelcome, and hardly tolerated even during the World Wars when hundreds of thousands of black people volunteered to serve the mother country.
They came numerous to Britain and worked in war industries, whereas those who joined the ranks were discriminated against and relegated to menial functions. Thousands of them died or were wounded for life. Current studies concerning war service of West Indians have stressed all the continuous racism they have experienced during and after the war, whether the British West Indies Regiment during the First World War or the West Indians who volunteered during the Second World War. After the end of the war, they were needed to supply for labor shortage and help reconstruct the country and its economy. Thousands of black people came from the colonies in hope of having a job and a better life. They constituted the largest wave of black immigrants to Britain which brought about the restrictive policy of immigration of the twentieth century.
65 Ibid. p.2
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Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
CHAPTER TWO Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
1. Introduction
The end of the Second World War saw the arrival of the largest wave of black immigrants to Britain. According to the 1999 census, the number of black Londoners was half a million. British subjects from the Empire or from the Commonwealth were free to enter Britain without any restriction. These latter changed completely the face of Britain and marked the beginning of its transformation from an almost homogeneous society to a multicultural one. It marked also the beginning of the most restrictive immigration policy in Britain and in Europe. During the first half of twentieth century, Britain had maintained a very liberal immigration policy. In spite of a clear uneasiness on the part of British government concerning black migration, this period had been characterised by an absence of migration control. The situation; nevertheless, has completely changed from the second half of the century. Under public pressures, the British government issued a series of immigration acts based on race that greatly slowed the number of New Commonwealth immigrants to Britain. Successive governments, whether conservative or labour, have issued a series of harsh and discriminatory laws and acts that targeted more specifically black, or what they called coloured immigration, bringing it almost to an end. These acts, on the other hand
39
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism had been more liberal with white immigrants who did not encounter the same difficulties as the black ones did. This though immigration policy was a highly controversial one, causing heated debates among population and the press for many years. In spite of the fact that these immigrants were now an integrant part of the society, they had to face continuous and increasing racism and prejudice.
2. Black Britons and the Policy of Immigration since WW II
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Britain found itself confronted to a dramatic labour shortage that it so much needed to reconstruct its country and its economy which were greatly destructed by the war. At the beginning, it turned to Europe to find the needed working hand welcoming white workers without reserve. Soon after the war, substantial new settlers started to come from Europe among which many refugees from Communists regimes. Many Hungarians and Poles, in addition to Irish and Italians came to rebuilt the country and fill the gap created by lack of working hand especially in textiles and metal manufactures and transport. However, they were far from meeting the high rate of labour shortage in Britain. On the other hand, the West Indies were facing a dramatic economic situation caused by the war as well. West Indian people were enduring a very serious unemployment crisis. Once they heard about the job availability in Britain, they pressed their respective governments to make them share these opportunities. Under the pressure, these governments made their best, yet unsuccessfully, to convince the British government to use its available and quiet eager working hand rather than the European one. Actually, those people who have actively participated during the war were no longer desirable during peace time. According to Spencer:
The Colonial Office has been pressed to so [lobby government] by the Governors of Officers Administrating in Barbados, British Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica each of whom wrote to London in 1947 advertising the needs of their surplus, skilled and often ex-service labour. The demands of the governors of Trinidad and Jamaica were provoked by- and they referred directly to- the use of labour imported from continental Europe in reconstruction in the United Kingdom… In 1948, at the behest of the colonial office, an Interdepartmental Working Party on the employment in the United Kingdom of surplus colonial labour chaired by the Under-
40
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
Secretary of Sate for the colonies, was set up to inquire into the issues raised by the Caribbean authorities.1
Reluctant as it might have been at the beginning, Britain finally realised that its desperate need for labour could only be fulfilled through colonial and ex-colonial immigration. The work force shortage after the war was estimated between one million and a million and a half people.2 Once this was admitted, Britain let its doors wide open to waves of Commonwealth immigrants. They were especially needed for the menial, dirty, badly-paid and night shift work that white Britons did not want. Thousands of Barbadians and Jamaicans were recruited by Hotels and Restaurants Associations, and Industries such as British Rail, the National Health Service (NHS) and London transport. The first consistent wave of black immigrants arrived to Britain on board the SS Windrush. The boat docked at Tilbury on June 22nd, 1948 with 292 passengers coming from Jamaica.3 This is very often considered as a turning point in the history of Britain, since it marked the beginning of a multicultural society since then. Ten years after the Empire Windrush, 125.000 West Indians had come since the end of the war4. They established themselves rather in Greater London, the West Midlands, Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire where the best job opportunities were available. Immigration from African countries started rather later than the one from the Caribbean; Owen stated that it was about 5000 African a year until 1980s.5 The greatest majority of African Caribbean immigrants suffered terrible conditions in work and great hardship outside work. They suffered from discrimination in housing, education, ‘colour bars’ in public places, and were sometimes even attacked in streets. The number of Afro-Caribbean people who settled in Britain after the war is estimated at a quarter of a million. All arrived full of hope for a better life for them and for their families. Since then, the number of black immigrants has been continuous. In addition to the availability if job opportunities, this increase was mainly due to two other major factors. The first one was the passing of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act (INA) in the
1 Spencer I.R.G, British Immigration Policy sine 1939: The Making of Multi-Racial Britain , (Routledge, 1997), p.39. 2 Spencer I.R.G,op.cit, p.38. 3 Peter Fryer, op.cit, 372. 4 Ibid, p. 372. 5 David Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.5 41
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
United States in 1952 which allotted each country an annual quota of immigrants, based on the proportion of people from that country present in the United States in 1920. Consequently, the INA “ended the system under which ‘British West Indians’ could enter the USA under the quota available for British citizens,”6 and instead allotted West Indians small quota on their own, causing these latter to turn their attention to Britain. The second factor which brought about the increase in black immigration to Britain was the passing of the British Nationality Act of 1948 (BNA) which gave free entry to British soil to all commonwealth citizens.
2.1 The British Nationality Act of 1948
Before 1948, all Britons, residents of independent dominions and British colonies were ‘British subjects’. However, two years after the end of the Second World War, the Attlee’s Labour government passed the BNA giving all citizens of the British Commonwealth, colonies and protectorates the same status of ‘Citizens of the United Kingdom and the Colonies’ (CUKC). Consequently; any person who could prove that she or he was born within the empire was theoretically entitled to enter freely the British soil, if they so wished, and enjoy the same political, civic and social privileges as white Britons. This was mainly what encouraged thousands of people, specifically West Indians; to come to settle and work in Britain. This might be contradictory when confronted to the fact British government and population reluctance against colonial immigration. This contradiction might be understood once put within the wider context of a series of other events under which the act was passed. According to Hansen (1999), the BNA had nothing to do with immigration. He states that it was rather
‘an attempt to maintain a uniform definition of subjecthood in the face of Canada’s unilateral introduction of its own citizenship, and it was an affirmation of Britain’s place as Head of Commonwealth structure founded on the relationship between the UK and the Old Dominions.’7
6 David Mason, Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain, (Oxford University Press, 2000), p.24. 7 Randall Hansen, The Politics of Citizenship in 1940s Britain: The British Nationality Act; Twentieth Century British History, Vol.10, No. 1, 1999, pp.75-95. (Oxford University Press, 1999). 42
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
The BNA was the by-product of dominions nationalism, it came, more specifically, as a response to the Canadian Government intention to introduce its own citizenship legislation through the Citizenship Act of 1946 which made Canadian people’s primary allegiance to Canada; hence, reducing their status of British subjects to the second place. It was a real shock to the British government which was not only confronted to the great destruction resulted from the war, but it was also faced with the loss of most of its former territories. Therefore, the status attributed by the BNA to all Commonwealth citizens, though less important, ‘was seen as contributing to the unity of the Commonwealth and to Britain’s leading role’.8 Rather unintentionally, the act had entitled and encouraged huge numbers of people, specifically from the West Indies, to immigrate and settle in Britain. By the late 1955, the flow of immigrants from the Caribbean, only, had reached the unprecedented peak of 20.000 immigrants every year9. There was a disproportional concentration of black settlement in areas with a declining white presence because these latter had moved out.10 For instance, about 80 per cent of all West Indians were conurbation dwellers.11 Thanks to the Home office and the National Insurance, approximate estimates of black immigrants entering Britain are available and displayed in (Tables 2.1) and in (Table 2.2), respectively. In spite of the differences of estimates between the two structures, they, nevertheless, both very clearly show a steady increase in the numbers of arrivals from West Indians and African countries since 1958 with peaks by the early 1960s the fact that caused great alarm among British politicians and the public. The fact that the arrival of these waves of immigrants coincided with a recession in a number of industries, such as textiles, did really help to diminish their worries.
By passing the BNA, the British government created the legal basis for massive coloured immigration to the United Kingdom. In addition to those workers who came thanks to national recruitments schemes by NHS and London Transport, a great majority of black immigrants came to Britain on their own initiative. These waves of immigrants
8 Atsushi Kondo, Citizenship in A Global World: Comparing Citizenship Rights for Aliens, p.120. 9 Ian . R. G. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939, (Routledge, 1997), p.83. 10 Christina Julios, Contemporary British Identity: English Language, Migrants, and Public Discourse, (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008), p. 91; Colin Bock, The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, , France and the Netherland, (Routledge, 1986), pp. 71-72. 11 Christina Julios, op.cit, p. 91. 43
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism created in their turn waves of racist attacks towards black settlers and brought about social unrest within Britain. Black workers were harassed and discriminated against. They had the least remunerated jobs. Colour bars were hung everywhere in houses and other public places; as a result, finding a place where to live became highly difficult and some property owners, such as the famous Paul Rachman, greatly profited from West Indian migrants.
During the following decades this open door policy was maintained by both political parties despite public pressure to introduce immediate restrictions on immigration. According to Hansen, this policy was ‘conditioned by an ideological commitment, in both parties, but especially among conservatives, to a previous century’s colonies: the ‘Old Commonwealth’ of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia12. However, after the significant increase of non-white immigration in the 1950s, discussions concerning the introduction of immigration control exclusively to the New Commonwealth population the fact that brought about the Colonial Secretary’s objection who was for migration controls on both the Old and New Commonwealth or no controls at all. Thus government chose the second option.
Attempts were; nevertheless, made to dissuade black immigrants to come in a form of propaganda warning them of bad work and housing conditions, and by other indirect and sometimes illegal means. They dispatched a film in the Caribbean showing the deplorable conditions they would face, such the cold weather. Committees were set up to report on the problems caused by coloured immigration, yet they failed to constitute the required evidence. On the contrary, the reports showed, to their great displeasure, that these black immigrants had found jobs where they had made favourable impressions and were greatly contributing to the reconstruction of the country. On the other hand, the government opposed ‘all measures such as Fenner Brockway’s Bill prohibiting racial discrimination’ and refused to do any thing that would facilitate their integration through education and assistance in housing and other matters. It aimed at constructing an ideological atmosphere in which black people were considered as threatening13.
12 Hansen Randall, op.cit, p.17. 13 Bob Carter, Clive Harris, Shirley Joshi, The 1951-55 Conservative Government and the Racialisation of Black Immigration, Policy Papers in Ethnic Relations N°.11, (University of Warwick, October 1987). 44
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
Other illegal and other unbiased administrative measures were taken to prevent West Africans from entering Britain: references to British subject statuses were intentionally omitted from their British Travel Certificates the fact that would enable the authorities to send them back as aliens. As far as West Indians were concerned, their nationality being certain, ‘the governors were asked to tamper with shipping lists and schedules to place migrant workers at the back of the queue, to cordon off ports to prevent passport holding stowaways from boarding ships; and to delay the issue of passports to migrants’14. Theses measures, which were ineffective to prevent increasing numbers of coloured settlers from coming to Britain, clearly expressed British people’s little commitment to non-white immigration.
The major factors that made the British Government radically change its policy and introduce restrictions over immigration in 1962 were public pressures on government to take quick measures to stop immigrants’ flows to Britain, housing shortage, education problems and the social unrest that manifested itself in a number of violent racial riots the worst of which occurred in Nottingham and Notting Hill in 1958.
2.2 Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962
Up to 1962, the successive governments had adopted a ‘laissez-faire’ policy towards immigration because of their commitment to Old Commonwealth countries and because they were afraid that such restrictions would probably disturb the remaining colonies. However, because of the continuous public campaigns against immigration waves, and the number of black settlers which reached its peak in 1961, the government changed radically its policy in 1962 by setting up the first legislation that was to restrict British subjects and more specifically, though undeclared, non-white settlement in Britain.
Though exact estimates are not available, it seems that the number of people born in the West Indies and settled in Britain rose from 15.000 in 1951 to 172.000 in 196115. Echoes of immigration restrictions spread abroad making greater numbers of immigrants come to Britain before doors were definitely closed. This had made their presence more
14 Ibid. 15 Colin Brock, The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France and the Netherland, (Routledge, 1986), p.65. 45
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism visually apparent. When introducing the legislation to the House of Commons, the Conservative Home Secretary Richard Rab Butler stated that:
The justification for the control which is included in this Bill, which I shall describe in more detail in a few moments, is that a sizeable part of the entire population of the earth is at present legally entitled to come and stay in this already densely populated country. It amounts altogether to one- quarter of the population of the globe and at present there are no factors visible which might lead us to expect a reversal or even a modification of the immigration trend.16
A Gallup poll conducted in May 1961 had shown a white British majority in favour of controls. Respondents had to answer questions such as: ‘do you think that coloured people from the Commonwealth should have the right to completely free entry into Britain, should there be restrictions on entry, or should they be kept out completely?’, to which the majority (67 per cent) was in favour of restrictions, another minority (21 per cent) was for free entry, six percent were foe complete exclusion of ‘blacks’, and the last six per cent were undecided17.
Public anxieties were partly nurtured and reinforced by media campaigns. In 1958, for example, the Daily Sketch wrote: “the government must introduce legislation quickly to end the tremendous influx of people from the commonwealth…Overcrowding has fostered vice, drugs, prostitution and the use of knives. For years, the white people have been tolerant now their tempers are up” (Daily Sketch, 2 September 1958).18 The charges of resentment against black people were, according to an article published by The Times in September 1958, the facts that “they were alleged to do no work and to collect a rich sum from Assistance Board. They are said to find housing when white residents cannot. And they are charged with all kinds of misbehaviour, especially sexual.” (The Times, 3 September 1958)19
16 Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, in: HC Deb 16 November 1961 vol. 649 cc687-819. 17 Christina Julios, op.cit, p.91. 18 Benjamin Bowling, Violent Racism: Victimization, Policing and Social Context, ( Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 33. Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain, (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 114-115. 19 John Solomos, The politics of immigration since 1945, in: Peter Braham, Ali Rattansi, Richard Skellington, Racism and Antiracism: Inequalities, Opportunities and Policies, (SAGE, 1992 ) p. 13. 46
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
The Conservative’s Commonwealth Immigration Act (CIA) was introduced as a Bill in the Queen’s speech in October 1961, passed through various stages of Parliamentary procedures and received Royal Assent on 18 April 1962. The Labour leader of the time Hugh Gaitskell described it as ‘miserable, shameful, and shabby’. According to him, the problem of coloured immigration could have been solved with a little implication of the government. Defending the Opposition case, he questioned
Do the government deal with [integration difficulties] by seeking to combat social evils, by building more houses and enforcing laws against overcrowding, by using every educational means at their disposal to create tolerance and mutual understanding, and by emphasizing to our own people the value of these immigrants and setting their face firmly against all forms of racial intolerance and discrimination…There is no shed of evidence that the Government have even seriously tried to go along this course and make a proper inquiry into the nature of this problem. They have yielded to the clamour, “keep them out”.20
Under the Act, all holders of Commonwealth passports were now subject to immigration control, excluding those who were born in the UK or Ireland, or holding passports issued by the governments of these countries. Entry was limited to family members who were closely related to those who were already established in the country. The would-be immigrants needed to apply for work vouchers issued by the Ministry of Labour. Three categories of employment vouchers were provided under the CIA: (A) for Commonwealth citizens with a specific to come to; (B) those possessing specific skills, training or qualifications which were useful to the country’s economy or in short supply; and (C) unskilled persons without any specific employment or skill with priority given to those with war service.21 The quota for (A) and (B) together was set at 20.800 vouchers per year while the one for (C) was 10.000.
The CIA made temporary provision for controlling the immigration of into the United Kingdom of Commonwealth Citizens; it authorised the deportation from the UK of certain Commonwealth citizens convicted of offences and recommended by the courts for
20 Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain, (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 114- 115. 21 James Patrick Lynch,Rita James Simon, Immigration the World Over: Statutes, Policies, and Practices, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), p.125. 47
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism deportation, and it also modified and established the qualifications for citizenship required by Commonwealth citizens applying under the British Nationality Act of 1948. Thus, the Act limited entry to the country to the holders of the above mentioned employment vouchers, students, veterans, family members who were closely related to those who were already established in the country (wives, unmarried partners, and children under sixteen), and those independently wealthy who were able to support themselves and their dependents without working.
On the other hand, it refused entry to those who were suffering from mental disorder or who were undesirable for medical reasons; those convicted for a crime subjected to extradition, and any person considered by the Secretary of State as threatening for national security. It also made for the first time a distinction between the CUKCs holders of passports issued in Britain and those holders of passports issued by commonwealth governments.
The fact that conditions of entry, which were based on requirement of birth un UK or the possession of a passport issued by the UK government, would actually be fulfilled for the majority by white entrants made many people consider it as a racist piece of legislation which targeted New Commonwealth immigrants. This was in fact confirmed by the exclusion of Irish citizens from control. Although, the Act was intended to halt immigration flows, it did not plan the large scale of secondary immigration that occurred after its enactment. It actually missed its target, for it was followed by a substantial drop in the number of immigrants who entered Britain under the family reunification provision granted by the Act. The Ministry of Labour’s relaxed application of the Act allowed wives, children (even up to 18 years), and even grand parents over sixty-five to come to join their relatives in Britain. In addition to that, the Ministry of labour was rather generous with work vouchers as indicated in (Table 2.3).
After a short lull, racist agitations rose again especially in the Midlands, particularly the West Midlands in such areas as Birmingham and Smethwick. Thus, immigration controls remained a political issue even under the following Labour government and brought about the following immigration law in 1968.
48
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2.3 Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1968
In spite of the fact that the labour party was opposed to the CIA, when they took office in 1964, they did nothing to repeal this legislation they highly criticized. On the contrary, they tightened controls over immigration in 1965 and reduced the number of vouchers. This reversal was partly due to the sudden death of their leader Hugh Gaitskell, or to the fact they had realized that opposition to immigration controls was a ‘vote loser’,22 especially after Peter Griffiths, the Conservative candidate defeated the sitting Labour MP, Patrick Gordon Walker, in the 1964 general election thanks to an anti- immigration campaign under the racist slogan “if you want a nigger for a neighbour - vote Labour".
When the Labour government came to power under the leadership of Harold Wilson, it changed its policy towards immigration and adopted a two folds policy based on integration and control. In 1965, the government presented a White Paper entitled ‘Immigration from the Commonwealth’ which, on the one hand proposed the prohibition of discrimination on racial grounds to ease the integration process of immigrants; and on the other hand tightened the rules governing immigrants’ entry to Britain: Controls became stricter on dependent relatives; the right of entry was limited to children under 16. The Government gave the Home Secretary the power to repatriate Commonwealth citizens. It also completely abolished the (C) vouchers issued under the CIA of 1962 and reduced (A) and (B) vouchers to 8.500 per year. It also imposed health checks on all immigrants, including their dependents as well as students, under the supervision of the British High Commission in their country of origin.23
The publication of the paper was received with disillusionment and hostility. It was followed by the resignation of three members of the British Overseas Fellowship. It was harshly criticized by Labour’s supporters in the Press. The New Statesmen accused the government of entrenching a ‘colour bar’ and the Tribune called the paper ‘as white as leprosy’, whereas Lord Brockway wrote in the Tribune (13 August) that he felt ashamed
22Jeannette Money, Fences and Neighbors: The Political Geography of Immigration Control , (Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 88. 23 Randall Hansen, op.cit, p. 147. 49
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism to be a member of the Party.24 All in all, it was the proof that the Party, despite its previous liberal views, had surrendered to pressure. On the other hand, the paper was welcomed with great enthusiasm by the population. According to a Gallup poll carried after its publication, public approval rated at 87 per cent.
In 1968, the labour government went still further by issuing the highly controversial Commonwealth Immigration Act which came as immediate response to the Kenyan Asians crisis and aimed at stopping the flow of the 200.000 Kenyan Asians fleeing their country and claiming their right to reside as holders of passports issued by the British Government. Their arrival coincided with a campaign against immigration led by conservative leaders such as Duncan Sandys and Enoch Powell asking for closing the doors to immigrants and the repatriation of those already settled in the country; in addition to that, public opinion polls showed a majority of about 70 per cent for further controls to prevent their entry25. In the end, the government capitulated to public pressure and opted for stricter measures. The Commonwealth Immigration Bill was introduced precipitately on 27 February 1968 by James Callaghan, the new Home Secretary, and rushed through parliament; it was passed in just three days on 1 March 1968.
The Act amended sections of the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962, removed CUKCs’ right to enter the country in spite of having a passport issued in UK. Under the Act, all British citizens were subjected to immigration control, at the exception of those who were, or whose parents and grand parents were, born, adopted or naturalized in the UK. It distinguished between those who were ‘belonging’ and those who were not. As a consequent, thousands of Asian Kenyans who had chosen to keep their British nationality after the independence of Kenya became stateless. On the other hand, it made a little concession of an annual quota for Kenyan Asians of about 6000 to 7000 people. Although it was first intended for Asian Kenyans, it prevented hundreds of coloured people from entering the country.
The Act was the culmination of restrictive measures against coloured immigration and a betrayal to Britain’s old commitment to Commonwealth countries. Once again, the British government issued a legislation which on racial bases targeted more specifically
24 Op.cit, p.151. 25 Peter Dorey, The Labour Governments 1964-1970, (Routledge, 2006), p.314. 50
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism coloured immigration since it clearly privileged white immigrants from the Old Commonwealth such Canada, Australia or New Zealand, for they would more likely fulfil the requested conditions of entry. Four years later, on 4 August 1972, the same crisis repeated itself with the Ugandans’ Asians when Idi Amin expulsed all Asians who were Citizens of the United Kingdom and the Colonies.
2.4 The Immigration Act of 1971
During the years following the CIA 1968, Enoch Powell led a severe campaign for further and harsher immigration restrictions which he started by his ‘River of Blood’ speech given in April 1968 and which exasperated public hatred making greater pressures on government. In the aftermath of his speech, Asians and West Indians lived constantly with the fear to be beaten up or killed. In 1970, the general elections was fought over race and won by the Conservative Party. This victory was probably due to the fact that Edward Heath, the leader of the party, had promised in 1968 to reduce Commonwealth citizens’ rights so as to equal those of Aliens, and to his four initiatives to curb immigration which he promised in his January 1969’s speech26. As soon as it came to office, the new government worked to reform immigration law, as promised. The Immigration Bill received the Royal assent on 21st October 1971.
The 1971 Immigration Act repealed and replaced almost all previous legislation on immigration. It aimed at providing a clear definition of the legal position of the CUKCs abroad. It also introduced the ‘Patrial’27 clause, giving people who were ‘UK CUKCs and other CUKCs resident in the UK for more than five years and their wives’ the right to abode28. Furthermore, employment vouchers were replaced by work permits. However, work permits holders would no longer have the right to permanent settlement as with vouchers; instead, they will be given work permits to a specific job in a specific area and
26 The four initiatives were as follow: (i) commonwealth citizens once admitted would no longer have the right to permanent settlement, and they would only be admitted for specific jobs in specific locations, (ii) Commonwealth immigrants’ work permit would have to be renewed every year, and, unlike labour vouchers, they would not carry the automatic right of settlement, (iii) those admitted would only be able to bring their dependents at the discretion of British authorities, and (iv) the decision on an immigrant’s right to enter should be taken upon arrival in the United Kingdom. In: Randall Hansen, op.cit, p.188. 27 Partials are those citizens who possess identifiable ancestors in the British Isles. 28 Randal Hansen, op.cit., p.194. 51
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism for a limited period, no longer than twelve months; then they would have to re-apply for permission to stay. In addition, Commonwealth citizens, as well as aliens would have to register with the police.
Under the Act, the police and immigration officers were given power to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without a warrant; whereas the Home Secretary could deport immigrant workers provided that could be ‘conductive to the public good’. Furthermore, travel expenses would be paid for those who wish to be repatriated. Like other immigration legislations, the Immigration Act of 1971, exclusively targeted non-white immigration and was actually very effective in stopping primary immigration. Once under application, the act prevented some of its citizens from entering their country of nationality which was contrary to international law.
2.5 The British Nationality Act of 1981
The British Nationality Act (BNA) of 1981 which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Government made provision about nationality and created for the first time since many centuries an exclusive citizenship for the UK. In an attempt to rationalize citizenship and immigration legislation, the Act reclassified the Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. It came into force in 1983 and has been since the 1st January of the same year the basis of British nationality law.
The BNA, 1981 completely amended the 1948 definition of British nationality and replaced it with a new classification of citizenship divided into three categories: British citizenship, British Dependent Territories citizenship (BDTC), people from Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, and Hong Kong, renamed in 2002 as British Overseas Territories citizenship (BOTC); and British Overseas citizenship. Holders of the first category of citizenship were the only people who had the right to settle and live in the United Kingdom. Under the Act ‘patrials’, allowed for the right for abode under the 1968 (CIA) and 1971 (IA), became British citizens.
52
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
The Act made a number of other significant changes to British nationality law. It abandoned the old jus soli29 (right of the soil) regime at the benefit of the jus sanguinis30 (right of blood); consequently, after the Act came into force, a baby born on the British soil could no longer have British citizenship except if one of his parents was a citizen.
All the changes created by the Act which was introduced by the conservative government under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher had the effect of restricting the entry of Commonwealth immigrants and their dependents in addition to stripping a great number of New Commonwealth citizens of their British citizenship the fact that had deep effects on the lives of many people. According to Shamit Saggar Thatcher’s immigration policy ‘… represented an unparalleled attacks on the rights of black people in Britain.’31 For some Britons, the act just like the previous restrictive laws was the direct consequence of public unrest during the 1970s-1980s, whereas for others, it was, in fact, these latter which were the result of the too restrictive policy that was specifically directed against the black immigrants.
3. Race Riots, Disorder and Urban Unrest in Britain
Throughout its history, Britain has witnessed a series of recurrent urban disturbances mainly due to a number of racially motivated riots that occurred during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. In addition to being targeted by unfair and tough immigration measures, black immigrants, clustered in squalid slums, had to endure disastrous housing conditions. They were exploited by unscrupulous landlords such as Paul Rashman. They were subjected to continuous discrimination, verbal abuses and collective attacks in the streets and even in their homes. Their properties were often vandalised or completely destroyed by angry white mobs. Their children and they were continuously threatened, intimidated and terrorized. In spite of the fact that they did their best to defend themselves, many were injured and some killed in the confrontations.
29 Jus soli is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognized to any individual born in the territory of the related state, in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli. 30 Jus sanguinis is a principle of nationality law by which citizenship is not determined by place of birth but by having one or both parents who are citizens of the nation, in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis. 31 Shamit Saggar, Race and Politics in Britain, (Harvester and Wheatsheaf, 1992). 53
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
Actually, the first kind of these disturbances occurred as early as 1919 and lasted for eight months. The hostilities burst following the end of WWI, when white soldiers returned home and found that their jobs had been ‘usurped’ in times of depression. White mobs attacked black people at different places of Britain; Liverpool, Cardiff, Newport, Barry, London, Glasgow and South Shields. The rioters poured their accumulated frustration and rage on black workers due to all the social problems that they were facing during that time such as unemployment and housing shortage. Several thousands of pounds' worth of property was damaged during the riots (Jacqueline Jenkinson, 2009) and five men were killed. Nevertheless, the Notting Hill race riots that occurred in the 1950s are often referred to and commonly remembered as the first and worst race disturbances that occurred in Britain’s history. It is during that period that the belief and conviction that black immigrants were the real cause for social problem and that black immigration should be restricted was established.
3.1 Nottingham and Notting Hill Race Riots in 1950s
During the middle of the twentieth and up to the twenty-first century, different parts of London had been convulsed by a series of serious anti-black riots. These latter had been the result of a culmination of public and racial tensions due to the social malaise that smouldered because of poor living conditions during that period. At that time poor white families lived along side black immigrants in overcrowded slums and squalid conditions, competing each others for job and housing. Consequently, black immigrants turned to be the cause of the troubles for white Britons, especially middle class workers who were seeking scapegoats for these social problems. The tensions kept growing since the passing of the (CIA) of 1948, when several hundreds of West Indian people became entitled to come to Britain and settle and work there. As the number of Caribbean migrants became more noticeable and their presence more visible, especially in areas such as Notting hill where the presence of Caribbean community had grown up, the hostility of white working class’ Teddy boys kept growing as well as their xenophobic feeling. In the beginning, the hostility towards black presence in Britain was ‘only’ expressed through verbal abuses and colour bars in public places. At
54
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism that time, police did not intervene a lot to settle the abuses that black were undergoing. On the contrary, it rather supported the white rioters. According to Edward Pilkington, the prime cause for the Notting Hill and the Nottingham riots was the resentment that white Britons felt towards interracial relations, i.e. coloured men’s relation with local white women. The precipitating event that had triggered the civil disorder in Nottingham on the 23rd of August 1958 was a dispute in the Chase Tavern, one among the very few pubs in St. Ann’s where coloured people were admitted. The dispute sparked because a West Indian was seen discussing and having a drink with a white British woman. This had unveiled the resentment that white people had towards black people and the way interracial relations were perceived in that society. Latter on that night violence escalated, and what might have been just a common melee in a bar turned to be a much larger interracial rampage. Black people were besieged in their homes, lynched, kicked and stabbed in streets by angry white mobs of about 1500 to 4000 youths32 “West Indians were ambushed down back-alleys and severely beaten”. For other black men, the only way they found to save their life was to jump into their cars and to drive at high speed at the crowd. (Pilkington, 1988) After the incidents began to calm down in Nottingham, other riots erupted again in Notting Hill on 30 August and kept raging for a week. The confrontations were of such violence and ferocity that they are still remembered today by a great many people as the worst racial clashes ever witnessed in Britain. The incidents started when a group of white men saw a white woman, Majbritt, arguing with her Jamaican husband, Ray Morrison in the street. As they intervened by insulting him, the woman stopped arguing and defended him. Destabilised, the white mob turned on her calling her ‘nigger lover’33 Things got worse when Morrison’s west Indian friends came to support her; and the dispute turned into a fight. Consequently, that minor domestic dispute turned into a series of massive riots that lasted for days. Groups of white youths numbering in the hundreds were joined by other working- class people from neighbouring parts of the city, armed with iron bars and knives, chased coloured people in streets shouting racist slogans such as “lynch him!”, “Let’s get the blacks!”, “kill the niggers”, “Down with the niggers” and “Go home you black
32 Randall Hansen,op.cit. p.81. 33 Ashley Dawson, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain , (University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 27. 55
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism bastards”34. They vandalised their properties and threw milk bottles on their houses. They smashed several windows of black people using bottles and bricks. Black youth, in their turn, counterattacked in self defence. A lot of people were badly hurt; many others arrested most of whom were white. According to Greenslade “the worst struggles were between white youths (teddy boys) and the police.”35 However, extraordinarily, no one was killed. The Nottingham and most importantly the Notting Hill riots had unveiled the hidden face of Britain, revealing the racist character of the British people. One year later, the Notting Hill carnival was established by the black activist Claudia Jones as a direct response to the riots; it is still celebrated in the streets of west London every year. The tensions between white Britons and black immigrants kept rising, fuelled by media propaganda and racist political discourse of people such us Oswald Mosely and Enoch Powell. Nevertheless, these incidents would not be the last. In fact in the 1980s, Britain was again to be shaken by a series of serious uprisings in Toxteth and Brixton in 1981 and in Handsworth and Tottenham in 1985.
3.2 Brixton Race Riots in 1980s
Following the Notting Hill riots, the government had enacted a series of Acts that greatly restricted commonwealth immigration to Britain. By the mid seventies settlement was restricted to immigrants with work permits or those who managed to have permission to join their relatives. In the eighties, immigration was even more restricted because of the economic recession Britain was facing and which had started from 1973. Consequently, the acquisition of work permits became even harder to obtain. During the seventies and the eighties, Britain saw the emergence of a second generation black residents who knew quite well all the difficulties and racism their parents faced, and who were over conscious about the obstacles they themselves were enduring at the educational, professional, and the social levels. During that period, commonwealth immigration was harshly tackled with under the conservative government of Margaret
34 Mark Olden (2008), ‘White riot: The week Notting Hill exploded’, The Independent, 21 August [Online]. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/white-riot-the-week-notting-hill-exploded - 912105.html (assessed: 18 April 2013) 35 Roy Greenslade, Seeking Scapegoats: The Coverage of Asylum in the UK Press, p. 17. 56
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism
Thatcher who, in reflection to the majority of the white British population, considered the black community as a problem and a source of breaking down laws and raising crime. As such, they were continuously persecuted by the police who had the impunity to act freely thanks to the infamous ‘sus’ laws36. These latter empowered the police officers to stop and search any person suspected of loitering in a public places in the intent to commit a crime or to cause public disorder, most of the time without any evidence. The law was finally repealed in the 1970s after black protests; however, it did not prevent them from police abuse. At that time, Brixton was an area of high concentration of Afro-Caribbean presence. The number of West Indians who immigrated to Britain was about 16.000 in 1959; it jumped to 66.000 in 1961. In 1981, among the 6.6 London’s population, 170.000 were born in Africa and 168.000 in the Caribbean37. More than 30 per cent of these were unemployed. According to Muncie (2004), in 1982, 60 per cent of black youths available for work were without a job. The impact of the economic recession, altogether with unfair social and professional opportunities in addition to police lack of intervention made of Brixton an area of high rate of crime. Furthermore, long before the riots burst in Brixton, there had been a long series of incidents of police harassments that long exasperated the black community living there. Relations between this community and police were extremely strained and intensive policing of black youths was a common experience in that area the fact that generated a sort of war between the police and the black youths. Because of the rise of crime, such as mugging and street robbery, in the area, the police launched the operation that would be known as ‘Swamp 81’ on 6th April. Hundreds of plain cloths officers stopped and searched suspects, and other hundreds of youths were stopped, the great majority of which were black. Among the 943 ‘stops’ made in Brixton during the period between 6 to 10 April, only one arrest was made for robbery38, the fact that caused youths anger in the streets. In order to justify their targeting of black youths, the police regularly released reports and statistics confirming the alleged criminality and lawlessness of black
36 Sus laws are laws authorizing the arrest and punishment of suspected persons frequenting, or loitering in, public places with criminal intent. In England, the sus law formed part of the Vagrancy Act of 1824, repealed in 1981, in http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sus+laws. 37 Roy Porter, London: a social history, (Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 354. 38 J. A. Cloacke, M.R. Tudor, Multicultural Britain, (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 62. 57
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism people and their own practices. These reports were reinforced and spread via excessive media coverage, thus fuelling popular anxiety and discrimination. Tensions kept mounting until they erupted into destructive violence and great disorder on 10th April 1981. Unlike, the 1958 Notting Hill riots which opposed black to white people, the uprisings, this time, opposed mainly black youths, who were joined by some white youths, to the police. Contrary to the previous generation of immigrants who “were intimidated by white racists, by the 1980s, their children had become young adults, and had begun, since the 1970s, to assert their place in British society.”39 Bing born and brought up in Britain, they were conscious about the fact that they were British citizens and refused to be treated unfairly. According to Lea and Young (1982), “the younger second-generation West Indians born and educated in the UK had developed expectations of equal treatment with white people in all spheres of life. Thus it was the integration of this generation into the British society which continued to be discriminatory that gave rise to discontent.”40 What differentiated these riots from the previous one were the proportions they had taken, their great destructiveness, the rioters’ use of petrol bombs and the police use of CS gas. Riots burst on 10 April 1981 in Brixton. The clashes were highly destructive and opposed about 7000 police and 5000 young people, black and white41. In few days, they spread to over thirty other towns and cities and resulted in widespread damage. “The riots resulted in 300 police injuries, 65 serious civilian injuries, over 100 vehicles burned, nearly 150 buildings damaged and 82 arrests”42. In this respect, David Mason argues that
“The crucial point about these circumstances [Brixton disturbances]… is not simply that relations between the police and the communities involved had deteriorated to the point of open conflict. It is that the police were to become the focus for a more general sense of disillusionment and exclusion from full participation in the life of the nation. Since the police were highly visible representatives of the state, poor relations with them could become a symbol of a wider sense of exclusion from full citizenship”43
39 Elaine Bauer, The Creolisation of London Kinship: Mixed African-Caribbean and White , (Amsterdam University Press, 2010), p. 219. 40 Paul Bagguley,Yasmin Hussain, Riotous Citizens: Ethnic Conflict in Multicultural Britain, (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008), p.27. 41 J. A. Cloacke, M.R. Tudor, op.cit. p. 60. 42 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly - Working Papers - 2008 Ordinary Session, Fourth Part, 29 September-3-october 2008 – 2009, p.68. 43 David Mason, Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain, (Oxford Modern Britain, 2000), p.111. 58
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Immediately after the end of the clashes, the government appointed Lord Justice Scarman to investigate about the causes of Brixton riots. In his report, lord Scarman underlined the fact that the riots were not premeditated, they were rather spontaneous, and came primarily as black youths’ reaction to police harassment, racism and bias. He also added that bad living standards in the inner cities with multiracial presence due to unemployment, in addition to poor housing and low educational achievement nurtured people’s hatred and anger and contributed to the outburst of the disturbances. He recommended recruiting more black people in the police and investigating about cases of police abuse. As a result, the British parliament introduced the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in 1984 which for the first time delimited police powers under the same code of practice and protected the rights of members of the public. Yet, he denied the existence of institutional racism within the metropolitan police. Nevertheless, relations between black youths and the police kept deteriorating, during the subsequent years. Following the Brixton disorder, 176 police officers, provided with warrants to search for unlawful drinking and petrol bombs, raided 11 houses in Railton Road. During the operation, the inhabitants were terrorised; their houses, furniture and personal possessions were smashed, yet no evidence was found.44 Other forced entries into black people’s houses and a series of ‘stop and search’ in the streets culminated in people’s anger and rage. According to Bowling and Phillips (2002; 129), once black young people came into contact with the police as witnesses, victims or suspects, they are more likely to be treated in the worst manner as compared to white and Asian people. A series of other disturbances, although on a reduced scale, took place in 1982 and in subsequent years. Serious disturbances erupted again in 1985. Riots sparked on 28-29 September 1985, when a black woman, Dorothy 'Cherry' Groce, was shot in the chest during a police raid on her home in search for her son and; consequently, became paralysed from the waist down. Rioters plundered shops, threw petrol bombs on cars and buildings and a journalist, David Hodge, was injured during the riots and died tree weeks later. Douglas Lovelock, the police officer who shot the woman, was prosecuted, but he was finally acquitted of malicious wounding.
44 Ernest Cashmore, Eugene McLaughlin, Out of Order?: Policing Black People, (Routledge, 1991 ), p.46. 59
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Only a week later, on 5 October, violent contests burst around the Broadwater Farm area of Tottenham in North London. The events flared up after the death of Cynthia Jarrett, a 49 year black woman who passed away from a heart attack during a police search of her house. Demonstration were organised after the event; however, the already tense relations between black people and the metropolitan police ended in violent and destructive protests, and once again, buildings were burnt, shops looted, milk bottles and bricks were hurled in the air, windows smashed, and a police constable, Keith Blakelock, was stabbed and died from his injuries. Three people were charged and convicted of the murder but they were later freed on appeal. The Tottenham riots have undoubtedly worsened the relations between the black community and the police. Urban unrest continued during the following decades, and Britain saw a number of violent outbursts in a number of cities and towns. The continuous police blunders and harassment brought about violent disturbances and black community protest. Damage to properties, wrongful arrests, unlawful detentions, and brutality persisted within the black community and remained unpunished. Black grievance and mistrust reached its peak during that period after a number of black people’s deaths during police custody in highly controversial circumstances which sparked violent responses. These cases of police violence were the most obvious examples of police brutal racism. In addition to police mistreatment, black people also complained about the fact that the police did not effectively, nor fairly deal with racial crimes committed against ethnic groups in general and against them in particular. One of the most illustrating examples of police inadequacy was the highly mediated murder of a black teenager, Stephen Lawrence. On 22 April 1993, he was brutally assaulted and murdered by a group of five white men as he was waiting for the bus. The subsequent police inquiry, after the continuous complaints of the family, was “dilatory, incompetent and characterised, at best, by insensitivity and, at worst, by racism.”45 His family was treated rudely and denied access to information although they were entitled to. The murder caused great outrage among member of ethnic minorities in general and the black community in particular while the far-right racist British National Party was accused of encouraging and provoking racist attacks on black people. Few weeks after the murder marches with thousands of
45 David Mason, op.cit., p.116. 60
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism people were organised by a number of anti racist associations in protest against racist murders. Thanks to the various protests that followed Lawrence murder and to his family’s perseverance during the subsequent years, a commission was set up in 1997 at the request of the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, and was headed by Sir William McPherson to inquire into the case. The report published in 1999, defined institutional racism as “Institutional racism is defined in the Macpherson report (1999) as
“…the collective failure to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or their ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic groups.”(Macpherson, 1999, para.6:34)46
The report underlined as well a number of deficiencies in the original inquiry such lack of urgency to place suspects under police surveillance and the casualness in the search of suspect’s domiciles. The investigation was found to be “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.” MacPherson concluded by making 70 recommendations for reform. Yet, his main finding, as opposed to the Scarman Report, was that there was in fact institutional racism within the metropolitan police. In this respect, the report was, and still is, considered as turning point in race relation in Britain.
4. The Roots of Racism and Urban Unrest in Britain
Race riots are not a new fact in Britain. They may be traced back to the twelfth century. According to Jan Voogd, the first of these riots occurred as early as 1190 in York and targeted Jewish people in York. During the eighteenth century, British white rioters attacked Germans, Jews and Irish; whereas in the late nineteenth and the twentieth century, theses attacks were oriented towards Germans, Jews, Irish and Chinese.47
46 Craig Paterson, Ed Pollock, Policing and Criminology, (SAGE, 2011), pp.64-65. 47 Jan Voogd, Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919, (Peter Lang, 2008), p. 15. 61
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Negative images and racist attitudes towards dark skinned people are deeply uprooted in Britain’s colonial past. They go back to the late eighteenth century when it had been largely agreed upon the fact that humanity was classified into different races according to physical characteristics in addition to mental and moral capacities (Edward Long. 1774, Vol. II; Carl Linnaeus, 1758). During the nineteenth century, this idea of natural selection was developed into the Darwinian theories of scientific racism which preached the savagery and the inferiority of the black race, justifying slavery and white colonialism. However, racism as an ideology developed and flourished as a direct outcome of capitalism and turned to be a justification for imperialism. It advocated white biological and moral superiority and accounted for their dominance over the other races of the world and honourably justified all the unspeakable atrocities that black people had been subjected to. These, altogether, with earlier stereotypes developed and spread in the western world thanks to a number of historical and anthropological accounts and descriptions of black peoples and cultures, had largely shaped current racial attitudes. The media had, too, a major role in the distribution and the acceptance of racial and racist ideologies, particularly during recent years. Several studies had been conducted concerning race and racism in Britain during the twentieth century, one among which was designed by the Political and Economic Planning (PEP) in 1966. White British employers, landlords and many other persons who had the power to discriminate or have restrictive practices on the basis of race had been interviewed in addition to people belonging to minority groups who were likely to be discriminated against. These latter had been interrogated about the way they had been treated and the problems they had faced. Reactions to applications of people from different ethnic origins had been observed definitely demonstrating that:
The experiences of white immigrants,[…], compared to brown or black immigrants, […], leave no doubt that the major component in the discrimination is colour…Of all groups the experience of West Indians was consequently the worst…(Daniel, 1968, 209)48
48 Ibid, p.37 62
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A number of theories had been drawn during the middle of the twentieth century as to why riots had occurred. Some put the blame on the massive immigration, other on the fact that black immigrants were competing white Britons for jobs and housing and that they were responsible for the rise in crime. Some maintained that immigrants were mainly attracted by and relied on welfare state; and they were said to be “likely to indulge in all kinds of misbehaviour, especially sexual” (The Times, 3 September 1958). Indisputably, race was the catalyst of the riots and tensions that burst in Britain. Nevertheless, according to many scholars (Rowe, 2000, p.57; Jenkinson, 1996, p.109) Pilkington, basing his opinion on a Gallup poll that was conducted after the incidents, argued that the fear of interracial relations was the major reason for white resentment and conflicts. He stated in that respect that:
A Gallup poll conducted shortly after the race riots found that the most common resentments expressed by whites were that blacks should not be allowed to compete equally for jobs (37 per cent) and the blacks should not be able to enter housing lists on the same conditions (54 per cent). But these were dwarfed by a startling 71 per cent of respondents who were opposed to racial intermarriage. (92-95)49
Up to 1955, the majority of immigrants to Britain were male (about 85%)50, and this, inevitably, brought about miscegenation due to interracial relations and marriages with white working class women the fact that was very badly considered, specifically at that time. The Nottingham and the Notting Hill riots were irrefutable proofs of that reality. Neil Evans had observed that even in the 1919 race riots, competition for women and interracial liaisons were primary factors51. Bill Schwarz attests that “all pretence of English civility collapsed at the point when black men were seen to be with white women”.52 John Steel, the leader of the National Labour Party, went much further stating that “we [the British] will be a nation of half-castes. The result is that the nation will possess neither the rhythm of the coloured man, nor the scientific genius of the European.
49 France Winddance Twine, A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy , (Duke University Press, 2010), p. 35. 50 Ashley Dawson, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture And the Making of Postcolonial Britain , (University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 28. 51 Neil Evans , Across the Universe: Racial Violence and the Post-War Crisis in Imperial Britain, 1919-25, in Diane Frost (ed.), Ethnic Labour and British Imperial Trade: A History of Ethnic Seafarers in the UK , (Routledge,1995), p.70. 52 Mica Nava, Alan O'Shea, Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of English Modernity,( Routledge, 1996), p.197. 63
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The only thing we will ever produce is riots, just as do the mixed races of the world.”53 Lea and Young, on the other hand argue that these factors are not sufficient; they suggest that “the lack of adequate means of political representation of young ethnic minority residents in the inner city is also important”. Obviously, political discourse and media coverage of the events had greatly participated to the radicalization of the events by spreading, and sometimes building up, stereotypes and prejudices among the population, the fact that precipitated legislation for commonwealth immigration control. Newspapers reports made things even worst by exaggerating, over stating, and dramatising the impact and the danger of unrestricted coloured immigration on the British society. Their role had been central in perpetuating racism and xenophobia within the British society through overstatements and stereotyping, especially during special periods of extreme tensions. They portrayed black people in a very negative way suggesting they are a threat to the British race and way of life, that they are criminals. Black immigrants, especially youths, are represented ad being the responsible for the increase of crime, prostitution, drugs, and violence in the inner cities. Statements such as “the flood of coloured immigrants” were reported by the Daily Express. In spite of the fact that disturbances had always been the out come of periods extreme racism and prejudice towards the black community, and had been sparked by serious and sometimes tragic events, right wing press had more than once described them as ‘vicious’ or ‘malicious’, the idea that the disturbances had been contrived rather then spontaneous.54 Furthermore, police officers were described as heroes or victims. When Kheith Blakelock was killed, for instance, the Mail and the Sun described the murder stating that he was “stabbed to death when he was trying to defend firemen from the mob” or that “brutally stabbed to death”, consecutively. Whereas, the death of the two black women shot by the police during custodies were hardly mentioned as tragic accidents or errors, the Sun goes even further, stating that “Mrs Cynthia Jarrett died of a heart attack. She was grossly overweighed and had other medical problems”, and thus rejecting the responsibility of the police.55
53 Ashley Dawson, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture And the Making of Postcolonial Britain ,( University of Michigan Press, 2007), p.28 54 Teun A. Van Dijk, Race, and the Press: An Analysis in the British Press about the 1985 Disorders, (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands), p.236. 55 Ibid, p.237. 64
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In addition to fascist unions’ propaganda, such as the White League and the British National Party, public personalities such as Colin Jordan and Sir Oswald Mosely and Enoch Powell, founder of the pre-war British Union of Fascists, exploited the miseries that poor white people were facing in order to amplify their anxieties and the xenophobia they felt towards black immigration. They held regular meetings and led anti- commonwealth immigration campaigns asking for the removal of black immigrants from Britain, and urging white Briton “to keep Britain white”. In spite of the fact that they never held power within the government, they, nevertheless, influenced their thinking and decisions.
4.1 Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood The River of Blood speech (See Appendix D.) was an explosive and highly controversial speech about coloured immigration in Britain. It was made by Enoch Powell, a British politician, member of the conservative party and Minister of Health from 1960 to 1963. He became renowned in 1968 when he delivered his infamous speech which cost him his place as Shadow Defence Secretary in the then shadow cabinet. In fact, the day following his speech, Edward Heath sacked him from his post. Following the violent disturbances that took place in different parts of England opining black immigrants to white youths, and the inquiry that followed about the reasons of such a vague of violence, the British government introduced another Race Relations Act which extended the powers of the 1965 Race Relations Act, making discrimination in housing, employment, education and public places on the basis of race, colour, and nationality illegal. The act’s aim was to promote “harmonious community relations”. On April 20, 1968, two days before the introduction of the second race relation bill), at the annual meeting of the West Midlands Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham, in the Midland Hotel, Powell angrily addressed himself to his audience, warning them about the continuous floods of black immigrants from the New Commonwealth countries. His speech referred to the Roman poet Virgil’ words statement: “like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” His speech came as a reaction to the “background of the third reading of the Race Relations Bill”56 of the same year.
56 Roger Hewitt, White Backlash and the Politics of Multiculturalism, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 25 65
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In his speech, Enoch Powell stated that the British “must be mad, literally mad as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50.000 dependents.”57 for letting new commonwealth immigrants pour in the country uncontrolled and unrestricted and predicted much violence in the streets of England taking the Detroit riots, the worst riots that America had ever witnessed until then, as a vivid example and proof of his statements. He suggested that new commonwealth immigration be halted immediately; furthermore, he suggested that the already settled immigrants be immediately repatriated in their respective land in Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. He put the blame on the British officials who had long hesitated to put an end to immigration the fact that led to the current situation. He predicted that by the turn of the century, Britain would have been so metamorphosed by increasing numbers of coloured immigrants that “the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’, and that the white indigenous workers “Found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to find school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated.”58
He was highly concerned with the 1968 Race Relation Bill which he violently criticised as he was persuaded it would give black people the right to ‘pillory’ the white indigenous population. In that respect, he stated that “The legislation proposed in the race relation bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their follow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal with the legal weapons which the ignorant and ill- informed have provided.”59
There were mitigated reactions from the British media and the pubic as a whole. The labour supporting papers were stunned by the racist language used by Powell. The Times’s editor, William Rees-Mogg described the speech as ‘evil’ and ‘shameful’.60 Other newspapers, on the other hand supported his and considered his speech as the reflection of
57 Roy Greenslade, Seeking Scapegoats: The Coverage of Asylum in the UK Press ,( Institute for Public Policy Research, 2005 ), p.19. 58 Roger Hewitt, op.cit, p. 26. 59 Ibid. p.26 60 Ibid. p.20. 66
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism white British people and supported his suggestion of repatriation as the “only honest course”61 During the days following his dismissal, large numbers of dockers and meat porters marched in support to Powell, protesting against Heath’s decision to sack him from parliament. Thousands of letters were sent every day expressing the support of working class people. Moreover, according to opinion polls conducted after his dismissal, 67% to 82% of the population were in favour of his speech and 61% to 73% were against his dismissal.62 Pubic support to Powell made both conservative and labour governments aware of the issue of immigration and the necessity to take measures to restrict. During the following years, they introduced pieces of legislation further restricting immigration, especially the one concerning dependents, and they introduced other race relations promoting integration and harmonious relations between both white and black citizens.
5. Race Relations Policy in Britain
The post- Second World War period saw the toughest and the most restrictive immigration policy in Britain. This period was also characterised by the British government’s desire to tackle racial inequality and to ensure the same rights for all British citizens no matter what their race religion or nationality. After the enactment of the BNA, the British ethnic minority kept rising particularly since the 1950s, the fact that brought about unprecedented racial tensions within the population, engendering a series of riots among the most serious of which were those of Notting Hill and Nottingham in 1958. Since their arrivals, black immigrants were discriminated against and were denied equal job and housing opportunities as white natives. The situation worsened with the economic recession by the mid-twentieth century for black workers were the first to loose their jobs. They also faced great discrimination in housing, employment, education and were subjected to colour bars.
61 This statement was made by the columnist Perigrine Worsethone, in the Sunday Telegraph. 62 Ibid, p.27. 67
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Consequently, successive governments committed themselves to take necessary measures to tackle the problem of racism in order to help the process of minority groups’ integration and to create cohesion among the whole population. Actually, the idea of introducing legislation that would outlaw and prevent discrimination was first taken up by the Labour Party while in opposition in 1958. The Race Relation Bill had been regularly presented by Fenner Brockway, a labour bencher, to parliament since 1956 but had been defeated each time. It was pursued later on when the party came into office in 1964 with the enactment of three Race Relations Acts in 1965, 1968 and 1976.
5.1 Race Relations Act 1965
Race relations acts were the outcome of post war immigration and all the tensions and disturbances it had engendered. As the number of immigrants to Britain rose dramatically, the government decided to introduce legislation in order to restrict it as far as possible claiming that limiting the number of immigrants inflow was the only way to get rid of racial violence and urban disorder, especially in inner cities. By the second half of the twentieth century, a series of acts had been issued by the successive governments making the entry to Britain extremely hard to achieve. Nevertheless, racial disturbances continued to burst in the British society. In 1965, the first Race Relation Act came into operation under the Labour government, outlawing discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins in public places such as restaurants, bars, cinemas, and other recreation places, in addition to public transport. Furthermore, it penalised oral and written incitement to hatred. It also set up the Race Relations Board with local committees whose function was to deal with complains. The act was described as a poor piece of legislation since it considered discrimination as a civil rather than a criminal offence, contrary to what had been intended when the Labour government first published its Race Relation Bill on April 1965. It was also considered as limited because it did not cover racism in housing and workplaces; and its actions did not extend to Northern Ireland. Its effectiveness was also reduced, for the provisions that were undertaken by the committees to deal with acts of discrimination were based on reconciliation and long administrative processes. In case of complaints of
68
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism discrimination, the committees had, in the first place, to settle the dissension between the two opposed parties. If reconciliation was not achieved, then, the case had to be submitted to the Race Relation Board and, as a last resort, to Attorney-General. As a matter of fact, very few acts of racism had been penalised under the act. Nevertheless, in spite of its limited actions, the 1965 Relation Act was considered, and in fact it was, as the first step towards racial equality.
5.2 Race Relations Act 1968
During the short period following the adoption of the 1965 Race Relations Act, the weaknesses of the Act became blatant. Over the subsequent years, a number of civil uprisings continued to sprout up sporadically, opposing whites to blacks, and on a larger scale, blacks to the metropolitan police. These disturbances were fuelled by right-wing leaders’ discourse and media propaganda. The tensions reached their peak with the arrival of new waves of immigrants after the Asian Kenyan crisis. People such as Enoch Powell continuously and regularly made public speeches that exasperated white citizens’ fear and xenophobic feelings. With the threat of these new waves of immigrants to Britain, he made his infamous and widely mediated speech gaining increasing support from the white public. He asked for a complete halt for immigration, specifically from the new commonwealth, and suggested the assisted repatriation of those who were already there. Under public and conservative MPs’ pressures, and because of continues public disturbances the Labour Government, yielded, legislating for further restrictions to immigration, claiming that these latter were necessary measures to lessen the burden of housing and work shortage and to restore social cohesion and peace. It, nevertheless, counterbalanced immigration controls with anti discrimination measures. Describing, the Labours ideology, MP Roy Hattersley declared that ‘without integration, limitation is inexcusable; without limitation, integration is impossible’. The 1968 Race Relation Act was also prompted thanks the Political and Economic Planning’s report commissioned by the Race Relations Board. The report, published in 1966, revealed widespread discrimination, specifically in employment and housing and
69
Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism mostly targeting West Indians and Asians; and called for the extension of the powers of the Race Relations Act.63 In his ‘River of Blood’ speech, Colin Powell opposed to the Race Relation Bill, too before it was presented to the parliament, for- according to him- it placed immigrants in a privileged position, further stating, that “his speech, made just before the act was passed, represented a last opportunity for an Englishman to speak”.64 Under such circumstances, when the act was received in parliament, it was not warmly welcomed. The second Race Relation Act came into force on 26 November 1968. It superseded the previous one and was rather modelled on the American of anti-discrimination law. It strengthened and expanded the legal scope of the previous act to housing, employment and the provision of goods and services and advertisement and notices. It also enlarged the powers of the Race Relations Board giving it the authority to investigate complains and when necessary to instigate court proceedings against discriminators. In addition to that, it set up the Community Relations Commission which task was to promote harmonious community relations thanks to Community Relations Officers. However, once again, the race relation act made little impact. Sanctions against discriminators remained weak and very difficult to achieve, and, most importantly, it did not cover discrimination in government services such as the police and forms of indirect racism, these two factors being the triggering factors of the most destructive uprisings of that period. Its weakness concerned also its broad definition of racism.
5.3 Race Relations Act 1976
In July 1975, the Committee on Race Relations published a report demonstrating the weaknesses of the of the 1968 Act and government’s failure to legislate for racial equality. It replaced both the Race Relations Board, and the Community Relations Commission by a common body, that is, the Commission for Racial Equity whose task was to get rid of racial discrimination by investigating and prosecuting the offenders and whose duty was to achieve racial equity.
63 Pat Thane, Unequal Britain: Equalities in Britain Since 1945, (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), p.36. 64 John Rex, Colonial immigrants in a British city: a class analysis, (Routledge, 1979), p. 57. 70
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After the Labour party took office in 1974, with Roy Jenkins as Home secretary, they introduced the Race Relations Act in 1976 which completely repealed and replaced the previous acts. It defined and prohibited both direct and indirect discrimination as well as harassment and victimisation65 on grounds of race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin in field of housing, provision of goods, facilities and services, education and public functions. It was also extended to cover training, recruitment and promotion. Under the act, complainants could take their cases of access racism directly to civil courts66. As far as racism within the police is concerned, the act still failed to protect victims of such a type of racism. It was not until the Stephen Lawrence murder, the subsequent disturbances in the 1990s and the enquiry made by Sir William Macpherson, that it was finally recognised that institutional racism in fact exist within the metropolitan police and that measures had to be taken.
The act was finally strengthened through the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 which came into force in April 2001. It was extended to cover some government functions that were out of the scope of the previous acts. It enforced the Commission for Racial Equality, set up under the 1976 Act, with over one hundred Local Racial Equality Councils funded by the Commission for Racial Equity.
The various attempts to irradiate racism from the brutish society had not been sufficient to protect black citizens from other form of racism and discrimination is still black people daily lot. Thought a great deal has still to be made, nonetheless, the government laudable efforts have greatly improved the situation and the lives of black communities in Britain as compared to the past.
65 66 Erik Bleich, Race Politics in Britain and France: Ideas and Policymaking Since the 1960s, p.99. 71
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6. Conclusion
During the period following the Second World War, Britain encouraged people from abroad to come in order to fulfil the labour shortage caused by the war and to help reconstruct the economy of the country. Although, Britain would have preferred workers from European countries, it was soon admitted, albeit with great reluctance, that the latter would not meet the labour shortage finally resorted to people from its former and remaining colonies. The first who answered the call were the West Indians. This was mainly due to two major reasons: firstly, they were stimulated by job opportunities that Britain offered, for their countries of origins faced critical unemployment problems; secondly, they had more than any other British colonial people a sense of patriotism towards their ‘mother land’ which they had proved several times during the Wars, and which was acquired because of their isolation from their ancestral land, in addition to a exclusively British education. They were joined by many Africans and settled mainly in seaport cities. All of them arrived there with the hope to have better living standards.
In 1948, the first group of black immigrants, mainly Jamaicans and Barbadians, arrived near London on board the SS Windrush. This marked the beginning of a large influx of black immigrants in Britain as well as the development of a multicultural and multiracial Britain. In spite of the fact that they came to help for the reconstruction of Britain, they were hardly tolerated by the local white population. They were discriminated against and given the most undesirable and the least remunerated occupations, such as low-paid jobs and night shifts, despite their skills and their educational assessments. The great majority of them were employed in public services like transport and National Health Services, Restaurants Associations and British Railway. They suffered from ‘colour bars’, discrimination in housing, work and education, as well as public harassment.
During the decade following the arrival of the Windrush Empire, thousands of other black workers settled in Britain, enflaming the anger of the local white population. The main factors that caused the increase in coloured immigration were, the British government’s passing of the 1948 BNA, actually intended primarily for Old Commonwealth, that gave all citizens of British Commonwealth, colonies and
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Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism protectorates full British citizenship; and the United States Government’ passing of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act in 1952 which prevented them from entering the country, making them turn their attention to Britain.
Continuous and increasing waves of black immigrants generated frictions with white native population which in their turn brought about serious urban unrest. Yet, the government maintained an open door policy in spite of public pressures to introduce restrictions on immigration, although various attempts were made to dissuade black immigrants from coming to Britain thanks to various forms of propaganda, or via unbiased and sometimes even illegal means. Soon after, a number of serious race riots arose in different parts of Britain, specifically in Liverpool, London and Cardiff. Black people were hunted, beaten, and their houses were burnt to fire. The government was urged to take measures to deal with the problems of immigration. In fact, a number of acts were introduced from 1962 to 1981 that highly restricted black immigration from colonial and commonwealth countries almost to its end. On the other hand, the government counterbalanced these restrictions by adopting an anti-discrimination policy since the 1965 in order to appease the population and protect the already settled black communities.
From the outset of black immigration to Britain, various cities of the country had been the scene of violent racial uprisings the most notorious of which were the 1958 Notting Hill riots that opposed black people to white Britons, and the Brixton riots in 1981 and opposed this time black people to the police. Since the 1960s, resentment among the black communities kept rising until it reached its peak in the 1980s when it erupted into a massive and destructive violence, due principally to institutional racism within the metropolitan police. As a result, the labour government in 1960 and subsequent governments, issued a series of race relations acts in 1965, 1968 and 1976 that prohibited all forms of discrimination on the ground of race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin in field of housing, provision of goods, facilities and services, education and public functions, in addition to training, recruitment and promotion.
In spite of all the measures that have been taken by successive governments, they have not succeeded in completely eradicating racism and to establish peace and equality, for racial discrimination still persists in the British society, and much action has still to be
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Black Immigration after the WWII and the Rise of British Racism done. Nonetheless, it must be recognised that the consecutive race relations legislations marked a turning point in the history of British minority groups and Britain’s evolution towards a multi racial and a multicultural society.
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CHAPTER THREE
Black British Challenges and Achievements during the 21st Century
1. Introduction
The twenty first century has brought about the emergence of Britain as a multicultural and a multiracial society. Large waves of African Caribbean and African immigrants, in addition to other ethnic groups, have settled in Britain. During the period from 1960 to 1962, Britain witnessed the arrival of the largest wave of immigrants to Britain. According to the Home Office statistics, of the half million Asian and black immigrants who came to Britain after the Second world War and up to 1962, a quarter of a million came during the two years between 1960-1962. If their intention had been to stay for a while until to save some money then return home, the majority of them decided to stay definitely for fear that they would not have other occasion to return later on. Consequently, draconian measures had been taken by successive government to restrict, as far and as fast as possible, the entry of new commonwealth immigrants by the
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introduction of a number of tough immigration laws. From the second half of the century, the number of black immigrants coming from the Caribbean decreased significantly, while more and more immigrants came from African countries.
Restrictive immigration policy was, nevertheless, counterbalanced by a race relations policy since the 1950s via the enactment of the 1965, the 1968 and the 1976 race relations acts. In spite of the fact that these latter did not effectively end discrimination in Britain, yet it represented a recognition of black community rights as citizens, and a starting point towards the acceptance of minority groups in the one hand and towards the development of Britain into a multicultural and a multi ethnic society.
Post second world war immigration to Britain has had non reversible consequences on the British society that are becoming more and more blatant nowadays. The various ethnic communities have impacted the British society in all sectors of life. They have brought with them their cultures, music, religion and traditions which greatly influenced the native one. Their contribution to Britain’s economy and society in general is undeniable. Their situation has improved since the first immigrants arrived to the British soil, they made lot of achievements, yet great challenges have still to be overcome.
The following chapter gives accounts of the socio-economical situation of the black community in Britain (housing, education and work) during the twenty first century, it deals with the rise of Britain as a multicultural society with a well settled black community, in addition to other ethnic communities, which had a great impact upon the British society and the British way of life in general in all the sectors of life. Furthermore it will deal with contemporary issues concerning black struggle for equality, as well as black immigration during the 21st century; and shed the light to the main achievements of black Britons and challenges that they are facing.
2. Black Immigration and Multiculturalism in Britain:
The concept of multiculturalism is generally associated with the post World War immigration; although it had existed since the 19th century. It became very popular among British Elite during the beginning of the twentieth century. Debating on
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immigration policy, the Conservative Minister for colonial affairs, Henry Hopkins commented the principles of multiculturalism stating:
“In a world in which restrictions on personal movement and immigration have increased we can sill take pride in the fact that a man can say Civis Britannicus sum whatever his colour may be, and we take pride in the fact that he wants and can come to the Mother Country” 1
After the end of the WW II, black immigrants came from the New Commonwealth counties in great numbers, especially from the West Indies and Africa. Most of them found it hard to assimilate to the British society, especially when no effort was made to facilitate the process, as a result, some of them preferred to cut themselves from the main stream society and keep their culture and their religions. Without measuring the consequences of such a situation, the local government did nothing to prevent them from doing so. In the 1980s, Bradford city council adopted a policy that declared that every section of the “multicultural, multiracial city” had “an equal right to maintain its own identity, culture, language, religion and customs”2. Ray Honeyford, headmaster at Drummond Middle School in Bradford, was among the first to raise the impact that multiculturalism might have on the British society, stating that it would create division and conflicts among the British society and, out of his teaching experience, he thought that it would highly diminish pupils’ opportunity for success.
Nevertheless, from the twenty-first century, it has become clear for every body that multiculturalism has had a deep impact on the British society and it has turned to be highly criticised by the local population and the media the fact that has made the current government shift again towards the policy of integration, British unity and a common commitment to Britain. This policy was even more stressed on after the July 2005 terrorist bomb attacks.
Today, it is generally agreed upon the fact that these immigrants’ settlement has had many ethnic, social and cultural implications. They have participated in changing the face of Britain and many aspects of British way of life. They made British life more diverse
1 (Hansard, 5 November 1954, Col. 827) 2 Alasdair Palmer, Multiculturalism has left Britain with a toxic legacy, (The Telegraph, 12 Febrary 2012). At: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9075849/Multiculturalism-has-left-Britain-with-a-toxic - legacy.html. Accessed: 5 May 2013.
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and had a great impact on its culture. People from afro-Caribbean origins have helped develop popular music in Britain and have changed the eating habits of white Britons. In the end, Britain turned to be a multiracial and a multicultural society with significant non- white communities against the will of the successive governments whether labours or conservatives.
Various attempts have been made to make them assimilate to the local culture, yet it has not been of much success. According to some race relations experts such as John Rex (1986; 1988) and Michael Banton (1967; 1977; 1988), immigrants would achieve a complete assimilation to the mainstream society through time and education. However, reality has proved the opposite and denied such assumptions, for immigrants have shown a resistance to assimilation by creating and reproducing, as much as possible, their new world within Britain. The result is rather a ‘salad bowl’ model of society in which both ingredients, native and foreign, are present.
In the political scene, immigration became a major and central theme within the British policy. Immigration policy issues have evolved from primary immigration and family reunification to asylum seekers during recent years. Black immigration to Britain has had major implications that are lately becoming more visible and evident. Black minorities are physically distinct from other immigrants, and because of this distinctiveness, they are denied equal rights and opportunities, and consequently they face huge difficulties to assimilate. In the long run, these communities are gradually reproducing their original and own cultures in the host society, the fact that will probably asserts the multicultural aspect of the British society, and might lead to a new form of racism in reverse, that is minority racism.
The current situation in Britain has proved that what is actually happening is a two- ways mutation; these ethnic minorities have let their imprint in the local society; and in the other hand, they have been influenced by the local culture as well. Both of them are no longer what they used to be. Multiracial Britain accounts currently a diversity of nationalities from different races and cultures. According to the 2001 National Statistics census, 7, 9 % of the British population was non-white. These latter were forced to learn about Britain’s language, culture and traditions as part of the process of assimilation which has never been achieved. Nowadays, the reverse is happening: it is their host
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country that is gradually compelled to learn about their culture. Classical research works about immigration and race relations, though useful, are now outdated; Britain has to know more about its minority communities in order to deal with their problems and their needs.
3. Socio-Economic Situation of the Black British Community
The estimation of the ethnic population in the United Kingdom is a very hard task for it relies on people’s self identification which is quite changing and subjective. The feeling of belonging to a specific group seems meaningful to the person concerned. People form mixed ethnic parentage, for instance, generally identified themselves to one of the ethnic groups of their parents-most often the one of the father. Furthermore, there is a tendency among people from this category specifically, depending on political and attitudes’ changes, to change their self identification towards the one with the least negative connotation.
Ethnic identification has undergone great changes through time. In the past, the word ‘black’ encompassed the majority of people from ethnic backgrounds, other than white, whether they were Asians, Arabs, black Caribbean or black Africans. In 1991, censuses recorded race in the United Kingdom according to five main categories without including a separate ‘mixed’ ethnic group within the census. In 2001, a new ethnicity classification was issued modifying the 1991 classification. It included mixed categories, and added White sub-categories. Finally, in the most up to date census in 2011, two other subcategories have been added, namely Gypsy or Irish Traveller and Arab.
In spite of the fact that nowadays Britain remains still a predominantly white society, yet the situation is constantly changing because of the increase of ethnic minority groups. According to Population Census data, the British population has witnessed an increase of 4% in the 1990s, 73% of which were mainly due to the growth of ethnic minorities, the fastest one being the Black African which has almost doubled in a decade.3 In general, minority groups grew more noticeably in areas with already well established minority
3 Ruth Lupton and Anne Power, (November, 2004) ‘Minority Ethnic Groups in Britain’, CASE- Brookings Census Briefs. No.2 [Online], p.1. Available at: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/CBCB/census2_part1.pdf. Assessed: 10 May 2013. p.3
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population which is a quite normal phenomenon since newly arrived people prefer to settle in areas where their families and acquaintance have established. Currently, Britain has a well established black community with second and third generations born there, the oldest one being the Caribbean one. According to the 2001 date Census of Population, the black community accounted for 1.15 million of UK population. More than half a million were black Caribbean. These latter came since the Second World War in increasing numbers, making of the Caribbean community the oldest and the longest established community. However, by middle of the twentieth century, black immigration from the Caribbean almost ceased and black immigrants arrived from African countries in increasing numbers, mostly as refugees, asylum seekers, or students. Nowadays, the African community has grown so rapidly so as to almost equal the Caribbean one (See Figure 3.1). Other second generation black people are classified under the Mixed Parentage ethnic groups and account for 677 thousand people (See Table 3.1). In 2001, the British black Caribbean population counted for 566,000 and the Black African for 485,000, in addition to 674,000 other who identified themselves as mixed race.4 The comparison between the graphs 1, 2 and 3 concerning the ONS estimates of ethnic population in England and Wales in 2001, 2007 and 2011, consecutively (see Figure 3.2) indicates a constant expansion of ethnic population with more noticeable increases in specific categories than in others. By and large, England and Wales population has considerably expanded, and all ethnic groups have kept increasing since the last two decades. (See Figure 3.3). In 2011, the white population has decreased of about a seven percentage point since 2001.Within the black, black/ African/Caribbean/ black British category, the African sub group has some of the largest increases between the 2001 and 2011 Censuses due to natural change and to an increasing number of asylum seekers’ immigration from African countries such as Zimbabwe, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The decrease has been from 0,9% in 2001 to 1,8% in 2011. The proportion of Black people in the Other Black group has also increased between 2001 and 2011. The Black Caribbean group, on the other hand, has remained almost unchanged probably because primary immigration from the Caribbean had been halted by the 1980s due to the successive restrictive immigration legislations, and because members of this
4 Ibid, p.4
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community have gradually been absorbed by the host society through intermarriages. Most of their progenies identify themselves to the mixed (white and black Caribbean) group the fact that may explain as well the increase within that group. According to the 2011 census concerning the ethnic population of England and Wales by age and sex (See table 3.2), the estimates show an interesting change in sex ratios within the Black Caribbean group as compared to the past when the percentage of women was higher than the one of males. As far as the structure of ethnic minority populations and their family patterns, Black Caribbean, as compared to other black and mixed groups, display very low marriage rates and a great number of one-parent families, the largest majority being lone mothers. As far as the age of members of black minority groups in England and Wales, The current age structure of the Black ethnic minority groups displayed in table 3.2 concurs with past trends in immigration. Immigration from the Caribbean peaked in the early 1960s whereas the highest point of immigration from African countries was in the 1990s. Theses facts may explain the relatively high proportion of people aged about 50 years among Black Caribbean and those of 30 years within the African group today. The statistics also reveal specific fertility patterns thought current high birth rates within the African group as compared to other black groups and to a lesser extent within the white and Caribbean mixed group.
3.1 The Spatial Distribution of Black Minorities
Research and government understanding of any evolution in special distribution and concentration of population is central in order to deal with problems of economic decline, poverty, housing, work opportunities, social exclusion, educational achievements and race relations, specifically in urban areas. Due to natural change (births and deaths) and population movement, the special distribution of black ethnic communities in general and black communities in particular in Britain has changed considerably during the last decades. (See. Figure 3.4)
There is a noticeable increase in ethnic communities in declining urban areas with a large concentration of minority population. During the last decades, there has been a two ways population movement phenomenon that completely changed the geographical
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distribution of the British population and that was mainly due to population concentration and dispersal. While there is an increasing tendency towards minority groups’ population growth and concentration, white communities, on the other hand, tend to disperse to least urban areas, the process that is known as counter-urbanisation.
Immigration from the Caribbean reached its peak in the 1960s. Most of them settled in London and major cities and were joined by other groups during the subsequent decades, largely and rapidly expanding UK ethnic communities. Black Africans did not arrive in Britain in consequent numbers until the end of the twentieth century. Most of them settled principally in London. The greatest concentrations of black communities are in inner city areas. They are located in Greater London with the remaining part living in the West and East Midlands, and East of London, where they worked in service industries (such as: transport, National Health Service, Restaurants and hotels), textile or metal manufacturing industries. Half of the afro-Caribbean community is concentrated Greater London. According to the Office of National Statistics, London had the largest proportion of minority groups in 2011 with 7.0% from African origin and 4.2% from Caribbean origin. (See Figure 3.5)
The demographic growth that has taken place during recent decades within these communities is not solely due to immigration but is also the outcome of the expansion among the already established ethnic minority groups, who established in industrial areas. This increasing geographical concentration in already strained inner cities makes most of the members of black communities suffer from racial discrimination and disadvantage in all sectors of life.
Overall, censuses show a long established pattern of black population’s tendency to be more spatially concentrated in some specific areas. In fact, there has always been a general propensity among newly arrived black immigrants to settle where their families and acquaintance are already established. The fact that these latter are likely to assist them in entering the labour market and in finding accommodation might explain this tendency. In this respect, Simpson and Finney argue that “Extended family relationships, participation in religious and other group-related activities and opportunities for work within ethnic enclaves may each provide benefits from clustering, whether in settlement
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areas or in new locations.”5 These variables have an important impact on population dynamics.
3.2 Educational Attainment of Black Ethnic Groups
An extraordinary wealth of documentation and researches had been carried out during the last decades concerning the intellectual aptitudes, the educational achievements of children from the various minority ethnic groups in Britain, and the reality of racism within the English education system. Under the New Labour government, educational attainment being a key to success in the modern world has become a major issue in the Government policy.
3.2.1 The Evolution of the Conceptual Approach to Education in England
Education in Britain has undergone a diversity of reforms since the arrival of the first waves of immigrants in the post war period. The consecutive governments have tried different approaches to tackle the differences of educational achievements within the various ethnic groups in Britain. The main concepts underlying the English Education Policy-making Discourse have varied since that time. According to Richard Race, the political discourse concerning the English education policy was definitely for assimilation during the period between 1950 and 1965: immigrants’ children were asked to abandon, at least publicly, their ethnic identities the fact that accentuated their disadvantage due to their unfamiliarity of the English culture and educational system. By the 1960s, the absorption of children of immigrants became more and more difficult to achieve as their number increased the fact that brought about serious educational difficulties, specifically for West Indian and Asian pupils who were seen as problems and believed to be intellectually inferior as compared to their white peers.
Later on, from 1965 to 1974, the English education policy changed from assimilation to integration. During that period, there was a gradual recognition of the cultural diversity within schools and an attempt to promote, as Roy Jenkins the then Home
5 Ludi Simpson and Nissa Finney, Spatial Patterns of Internal Migration: Evidence for Ethnic Groups in Britain, (University of Manchester, 2009), p.38. Available at: http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/ documents/ Simpson Finney_PSP_09.pdf. Assessed 14/05/2013.
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Secretary put it in 1966, “equal opportunities in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance”6. Theoretically, integration was considered, contrary to the one-way assimilation, as a two way process. However, in practice, it proved to be difficult to achieve. In 1967, the Plowden Report highlighted in one section of the report entitled ‘children of immigrants’ the educational difficulties and disadvantages that some children of immigrants, specifically West Indians and Asians who were seen as problems, were facing in areas with great high concentration of immigrants. Educational authorities, particularly teachers, confessed facing huge difficulties with those students, for they had not been trained to teach to immigrant students and they lacked knowledge of their pupils’ original culture. The conceptual ideology underlying the English education policy shifted towards multiculturalism with the Labour government return to power in 1974; it became the centre of all political, social and educational discourse and was maintained under the conservative government until 1985. That period coincided with the release of Rampton Report in 1981, which produced evidence of West Indian children’s failure in the English educational system due to teachers’ unintentional racism’ in the form of self conviction of their low aptitudes in addition to stereotyped or patronising attitudes towards those students. These findings were used again in Lord Scarman report in 1982 when it mentioned educational failure of as one of the reasons leading to Black youths’ disappointment and frustration. Earlier reforms seemed to have made no change, since children of immigrants had not made much improvement and they were still seen as the cause of the problem. The same observations were confirmed by the Swan Report in 1985, albeit with a slight but significant difference. It reported that West Indian children were doing poorly as compared to their peers, blaming not only teachers but the education system as a whole. For the first time the education system was officially blamed for those pupils’ underachievement (Race, 2011).
The Report stressed the fact that education should prepare pupils from all communities to life in a multicultural society, giving them equal opportunities in the future. The report failed to recognise the inadequacies of the curriculum, for difficulties faced by ethnic minorities’ pupils could be overcome by a more multicultural curriculum.
6 Richard Race, Multiculturalism and Education, (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), p.20.
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However, the recommendations were not totally taken into consideration by the conservative governments of the 1980s which failed to make multiculturalism in practice in the education system, making only ‘superficial changes’. The multicultural education was finally criticised for demeaning ethnic minorities by concentrating only on their respective cultural symbols. By doing so, the education system was accentuated their differences from the British norms while it promoted white British culture which in other terms would be a kind of cultural racism. The English education system, actually, did not change a lot, and conceptual approach to education gradually swung away from multiculturalism to anti racism.
According to anti racist researchers such as Troyna, the main advocate of anti racist approach in England, anti racism tended to access discrimination within the English education system which gives more opportunities to some groups over others. He was for some education reforms that would enable teachers to cope with multicultural classrooms. Until the end of 1990s, anti racism has been the conceptual idea underlying education policy until 2000 onwards when it became totally directed towards citizenship7.
By the end of the twentieth century, education became the centre of political reforms, especially under the new labour government. In 1996, former Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2007) announced in his pre-election speech that education was amongst his greatest ambitions and that education reforms would be the centre of his government policy. According to him it has to ‘adapt and adjust to the changing world’, for it is the key for economic competitiveness, and as such it should be accessible to all children no matter their social background, as he put it in his speech:
…education is our best economic policy…This country will succeed or fail on the basis of how it changes itself and gears up to this new economy, based on knowledge. Education therefore is now the centre of economic policy making for the future. What I am saying is, we know what works within our education system, we can learn the lessons of it. The key now is to apply those lessons, push them right throughout the education system, until the young children, whether they are growing up here in the constituency of Sedgefield, or in the inner city urban estates of London, or Liverpool, or Manchester, or Newcastle, wherever they are, they get the
7 Ibid, p.16.
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chance to make the most of their God given potential. It is the only vision, in my view, that will work in the 21st century. (Blaire, 2005s).8
Home Secretary laid stress on promoting diversity within the society, tackling racism; developing a sense of civic identity and shared values as well as the knowledge of the English language. From that time onwards, people aspiring to live within Britain; have to prove their knowledge of the English language and the British way of life. They have to show their commitment to Britain as citizens.9
3.2.2 Educational Attainment of Black Pupils: Current Facts
During the last decades, numerous organisations have managed to gather remarkably detailed data concerning the different educational achievements of various minority ethnic pupils in Britain as compared to their white British born counterparts. They display great disparities between pupils belonging to the various groups. The available data concerning the educational achievements within ethnic minority groups in Britain show that the score of Black pupils in GCSE examination is still below the national average. Children from ethnic minority backgrounds, specifically from the Caribbean and other black groups, perform poorly in early cognitive tests at primary school entry at key Stage 1 (6/7 years) as compared to white British born pupils.
However, data concerning the evolution of the ethnic test- score gap throughout compulsory school show that the achievement gaps between white British pupils and those from specific ethnic minority groups tend to narrow through primary and secondary school. This is the case of Chinese and Bangladeshi pupils who manage generally to catch up and sometimes to overtake the British white pupils. The only group who does not display any improvement through key stage 1 to Key Stage 2 (10/11 years) is the Black Caribbean group. The gap in mathematics and English score of Black Caribbean pupils tend to widen trough the primary school then it stabilises at Key Stage 3 (13/14), yet
8 Stephen Ball, The Education debate, (The Policy Press, 2008), p.12 9 Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, (The Stationery Office Limited, 2001), p.30. Available at: http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/ cm53/5387/ cm 5387.pdf, (Assessed on 20/05/2013).
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without any remarkable improvement. Then, at the following stage at Key Stage 4 (15/16 years), a slight improvement is noticed among this category of pupils in mathematics and English; yet, by the end of compulsory schooling, as compared to all other ethnic groups’ achievement, Black Caribbean pupils are those who lag behind, most particularly for boys.10 As far as high education, within the population belonging to ethnic minorities in UK, black African are among those who are likely to have degrees than the white population, whereas those from black Caribbean men were the least likely to have degrees. However, all for all, Pupils of black ethnic background remain the lowest attaining ethnic group.
Statistics show an over representation of permanent school exclusions among black pupils. In 1998, “The Times Educational Supplement reported in 1998 that Black boys were 15 times more likely to be excluded from school”11. British schools, like other schools of the world, reflect and reproduce the inequalities within the society because of teachers, the educational system, or the direct environment of the pupils. Institutional racism within the British educational system was openly mentioned for the first time in 1971 in Bernard Coard’s book, The West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British Educational System. In his book, Coard blamed the educational system, whether the curriculum or the teachers, for black pupils’ underachievement. They were constantly diminished because of their alleged cognitive inferiority. In 1996, the Ofsted Report revealed that things have remained unchanged, showing that African Caribbean pupils still fail at school due mostly to teachers low expectations.12 Ainley added the lack of black teachers in British schools as another factor for black pupils’ failure. She argued that “they are vital as role models for black pupils’ confidence and they show white pupils that black people are quite capable of being teachers.”13 Yet because of racial discrimination black graduates are not incited to take up teaching due to lack of career progression.14
10 Paul Gregg, Jonathan Wadsworth, The Labour Market in Winter: The State of Working Britain, (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.236-237. 11 Mekada Graham and Gil Robinson, "The Silent Catastrophe": Institutional Racism in the British Educational System and theUnderachievement of Black Boys”, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 34, No. 5, (May, 2004),p. 655. 12 Beulah Ainley, Black Journalists, White Media, p.15 13 Ibid. p.15. 14 Ibid.p.15 87
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This persisting phenomenon has been called by Diane Abbott, a black member of parliament, the “silent catastrophe”. From all ethnic groups, black Caribbean pupils are those who are the most likely to be excluded from school. Children from ‘other black’ groups displayed the highest rates of exclusion in 2001-2 with (40 in every 10 thousand pupils) followed by Black Caribbean children with (38 in every 10 thousand)15, most of those excluded being boys. Social environment and family patterns have a great influence on pupils’ achievements and failures at school. Black pupils are more likely to come from law income families the fact that may explain their low achievement at school. Black Caribbeans, as compared to other ethnic group, seem to have more difficulties. In that respect, Hervé Picton states that:
Black Caribbean, by contrast, seem to accumulate a number of handicaps including poverty, less positive attitudes to education, the prevalence of unstable or lone-parent families (involving a lack of positive role models for young black men), as well as, arguably, less responsible parenting. In this respect, one should bear in mind that the teenage pregnancies, which are increasingly common in Britain, affect the black community more than any other ethnic group.16
In addition to child’s abilities, his socio economic environment, his family patter and the place where he lives have an enormous impact on his cognitive development and his educational attainment. The gap in attainment at GCSE17 (General Certificate of Secondary Education) between boys and girls belonging to Black Caribbean and Black Other groups is relatively wider than for other ethnic groups. It seems that “Black Caribbean and Black Other boys are the least likely of any ethnic group to achieve 5+ A*-C GCSE passes, but Black Caribbean and Black Other girls are not disadvantaged to the same extent.”18 All for all, Black Caribbean and White/Black Caribbean pupils are the most likely to have lower results at Key Stage 4. Permanent exclusion rates are higher than average for
15 Editor: Amanda White, National Statistics (December 2002), Social Focus in Brief: Ethnicity 2002, p.12 16 Hervé Picton, A Handbook of British Civilization: Introduction À la Civilisation Britannique , (Ellipses Marketing, 2008), p.120. 17 GCSE is the certificate of secondary education which is an examination which is normally taken at the end of compulsory schooling at the age of 16 in Great Britain. 18 Gender and education: the evidence on pupils in England , Department for Education and Skills. p.4
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Black Caribbean, Black Other and White/Black Caribbean pupils. Analysis of the characteristics of excluded pupils in 2009/10, held by the Department of Education, show that in spite of the fact that rates of permanent exclusion are in continuous decline for all ethnic groups since the mid 1990s, they still remain among the highest rates. ‘Black Caribbean pupils were nearly four times more likely to receive a permanent exclusion than the school population as a whole (See Figures 3.6 and 3.7) and were twice as likely to receive a fixed period exclusion’19.
According to a research on the educational attainment and economic performance of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain made by Dustmann and Theodoropoulos20, findings show that Black African individuals, in addition to Chinese, have the highest number of years of full-time education, while the Black Caribbean are among those who have the fewest years of full-time education as compared to their white native peers. In addition to that, a considerable improvement in educational qualifications has been observed for all British born ethnic minority immigrants. (See table 3.3)
Results in table 3.3, show that the percentage British Born Black Africans with ‘High’ qualifications is about four times higher than the one of first generation people. Black Caribbean pupils, on the other hand, still lag behind other ethnic minorities people, for in spite of a marked improvement as compared with their first generation counterparts; they display the highest percentage of people with ‘Low’ qualifications and the lowest percentage of people with ‘High’ qualification.
3.3 Labour Market Activity of Black British People
Ethnic minority economic conditions are greatly interrelated with the previous parameter that is education. The types of employment and incomes of people from ethnic minority background depend greatly on their educational attainments. Available data show that ethnic minorities, in spite of marked improvements, still face high unemployment rates as compared to white British people. People from a number of ethnic backgrounds are likely to face unequal opportunities in the labour market.
19 Education Standards Analysis and Research Division, A profile of pupil exclusions in England, (The Department for Education, 2012), p.ii. 20 Christian Dustmann and Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, Ethnic Minority Immigrants And Their Children In Britain, (University College, London)
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Initially when the first black immigrants arrived in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, they came to fulfil particular functions in the labour market. British labour recruitment schemes brought about “economic specialisation and geographical concentration”21. They were mainly recruited in public service employment and in industrial jobs such as hotels, restaurants, transport, and hospitals and manufacturing industries with low pays, night shifts and hard conditions. The majority worked rather in skilled and semi-skilled manual jobs rather than white collar jobs where they were under-represented (See table 3.4). In the 1970s, Black Caribbean women were more likely to be employed in white collar occupations while men from the same group were the least represented within white collar work and were rather compressed in skilled manual occupations (see table 3.4). This still the case in 2004, for census data of that year showed that 54% of Black Caribbean women were employed in public administration, education or health22. This pattern of recruitment lasted for the subsequent decades, and thought it has changed a little, it did not completely disappeared. With the decline of manufacturing in throughout the 1980-90s, a number of industrial sectors were hardly hit, making a great number of manual workers loose their jobs. Moreover, most of the tasks they had been initially recruited to do were now performed by technology. The people who were the most likely to be concerned by the effect of economic recession and reconstruction were from black Caribbean ethnic background. (this fact had great impact on these people income which in its turn impacted on their education attainment, a sort of vicious circle that is still at work today, albeit with lesser impact that in the past. In 2007, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Findings had revealed that ethnic minorities in general and black ones in particular faced discrimination and job opportunity inequalities within the British labour market. According to them, “once age, education and other characteristics had been controlled for, persistent differences remained in social class as measured by occupational status between the white group and other ethnic groups in
21 Vaughan Robinson and Rina Vanely, Ethnic Minorities, Employment, Self- employment, and Social Mobility in postwar Britain, in: Glenn C. Loury, Tariq Modood, Steven M. Teles, Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy: Comparing the USA and UK, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.414. 22 Joy Dobbs, Hazel Green and Linda Zealey, Ethnicity and Religion, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p.34.
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2001”23. The same study demonstrated also inequalities in earnings of men from ethnic groups as compared to white people having in the same professional and managerial jobs. Research’s findings showed that Black Africans together with Bangladeshis earn up to 25 per cent less than white men in similar positions.24 African students with high education attainments and qualification reported having faced institutional discrimination. Waite and Aigner have reported that this discrimination was due to the fact that
“…their previously acquired university education was not respected in the UK labour market which led to institutional entry barriers. African accents were said to be a barrier to employment and training opportunities, specifically in the experiences of first generation migrants.”25
This was particularly true within first generation African immigrants, nevertheless, according to the same authors, even second generation Africans face the same process of ‘de-skilling’ despite their large qualifications for the same reasons that is their cultural background26. The share of black Africans who work in managerial or professional occupations in 2001 was about 26% and 23% in routine or manual occupations.27 The ONS estimates of Labour Market status by ethnic groups ranging from July 2010 to September 2012 (See. Table 3.5), revealed that unemployment rates among people of 16 to 64 years old from Black ethnic background (Black/ African/ Caribbean groups) had been the highest during all the period covered by the study. Furthermore, the number of unemployed males among the population of black background, estimated at 75.000, was higher than the number of unemployed women belonging to the same groups which was estimated at 58.000 in 2012.
Recent findings reveal a marked progress within the Black Caribbean group by an increasing number of men accessing to managerial jobs which is mainly due to
23 Ken Clark and Stephen Drinkwater, Ethnic minorities in the labour market: dynamics and diversity, (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007), p.3. Available at: http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/2010.pdf, assessed in: 26/05/2013. 24 Ibid., p.3 25 Louise Waite and Petra Aigner, Country Monograph: Britain. In: Claudine Attias-Donfut, and al., Citizenship, Belonging and Intergenerational Relations in African Migration , (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p.112. 26 Ibid., p.112. 27 Jacques Barou, Petra Aigner and Bernard Mbenga, African Migration in its National and Global Context. In: Claudine Attias-Donfut, and al., Citizenship, Belonging and Intergenerational Relations in African Migration , (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p.29
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improvement in levels of education. A longitudinal study concerning Labour market trajectories of minority ethnic groups within the labour market in Britain from 1972 to 2005 conducted by Li and Heath revealed that though second generation Black Caribbean men are doing better than first generation, they remain still among the most disadvantaged within the labour market.28 Inequalities in labour market are inevitably related to disparities of income within ethnic groups. The Family Resources Survey ( See table 3.6) shows that the major part of income of Black minority households derives from wages and salaries and that a high proportion of their income, just like the one of Pakistani and Bangladeshi, is derived from social security benefits – other than those for disability or state retirement pension. Furthermore, evidence has been provided by Greater London Authority about the existence of a pay gap between ethnic minorities in London in, and that it has significantly widened during the period covered by the research since, according to the collected results, Black people’s median pay was found to be lower than the one of all white groups from 2006 and up to 2009 (See Figure 3.8).
Overall researches and available data, show an increase in median earning within all ethnic groups have increased during the last two decades, albeit higher increases for some groups. Nonetheless, the data reveal the existence of persisting inequalities in the labour market and the presence of earning gap between the different ethnic groups that has considerably narrowed during the last decade due, probably, to the introduction of the national minimum wage.29 Men from black ethnic background continue to undergo higher unemployment rates, with Pakistani and Bangladeshi, and to display an important concentration in a number of specific occupations.
In addition to that, too many black people in Britain today are being denied the opportunity to start their own business and get on in life.30 Being the least likely to be
28 Yaojun Li and Anthony Heath, Labour Market Trajectories of Minority Ethnic Groups in Britain: 1972-2005, For ESRC/UPTAP Conference, LGA, 28 Nov. 2006 (ESRC RES-163-25-0003), p.48. Available at: http://www.slideserve.com/eagan/labour-market-trajectories-of-minority-ethnic-groups-in-britain-1972-2005 - for-esrc. Assessed on: 26/05/2013. 29 Diana Kasparova, and al., Pay: Who were the winners and losers of the New Labour era?, (The Good Work Commission, 2010), p.26. 30 David Cameron, We'll change black Britain, The Gardian. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/17/black-britain-unemployment-conservatives . Assessed 12/05/213..
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given bank loans to start, (about four times than their white counterparts). They are denied equal opportunities as other groups.
4. Black Immigration During the 21st Century
By the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, Britain has witnessed a revival of primary immigration triggered of by the dramatic increase of students and economic migrants, particularly from Europe as well as asylum seekers from different parts of the world who were seeking protection and refuge from either natural disasters or political conflicts in their home countries. Consequently, these growing numbers of immigrants created tensions, caused great concern within the media, and brought about government’s restrictive measures to control it. Black Immigration to UK has begun after the end of the Second World War and peaked during the 1950-1960s. Most of them were originated from the West Indies. They came to fill labour shortage caused by the war and were greatly encouraged by labour availability and by their statuses as British subjects that were conferred to them by the British Nationality Act of 1948.
With the dramatic increase of coloured immigrants in Britain and the urban unrest due to racial tensions between them and the white British population, consecutive governments begun to take up harsh measures to halt primary black immigration to Britain. The Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962 was introduced to which uncovered aim was to prevent non white immigrants from settling in Britain. Further pieces of legislation aimed at non-white immigrants were introduced in 1968, 1971 and 1981. The latter was considered as a turning point in the history of British immigration policy, for it created for the first time since centuries, a separate citizenship for the UK. The aim of these legislations was according to Hansen to equate the status of non-UK Commonwealth citizens with that of aliens.31 The government also expressed its will to tackle racial discrimination issue experienced by black immigrants by introducing a number of race relation acts to facilitate and promote their integration within the society.
31 Hansen, op.cit, p.180.
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After the passing of the 1981 British Nationality Act, primary Black immigration to Britain decreased considerably and came almost to an end. It was reduced to family reunification (wives, children and, to a lesser extent, other dependents) which was in its turn cut dramatically. ONS census in 2001 has revealed a decrease in the Caribbean –born population living in Britain since the passing of the 1981 BNA (See table 3.7). This fact was greatly due to immigration restrictions on the one hand, and to natural change (deaths, interracial marriages) and to the flows of Caribbean people who decided to return to their country of origin32. During the subsequent years political and media concern about immigration weakened greatly until 1990s when it came again into the public and political arena. The estimates of the Office of National Statistics on Long Term International Migration (LTIM) have revealed that, since the 1990s, overall migration has undergone a continuous rise with a peak of 252,000 in 201033. White migration peaked due to growing numbers of both European immigrants after the enlargement of the EU in the 2000s, and to economic workers after Britain opened its labour market to the Accession 8 (A8) countries34 in 2004. Consequently, during the last decades, immigration, as underlined by the Guardian, has turned to be, the second issue for British voters,35 just behind economy. As for Black population increase in UK, it is, primarily, the outcome of increasing numbers of people from African countries who came as part of family formation or reunification, to study as for Kenyans who “have a long- standing pattern of migration to the UK for educational purposes”36, to work, or most importantly to seek refuge. According to data estimates, since the post world war II period and up to 1980s, the total black African migration to UK was relatively low, about 5.000 people a year, it increased up to 20.000 in the early 1990s, then peaked to 30.000 people per year in at the beginning of the twenty-first century (See Figure 3.9).37
32 Margaret Byron, Stéphanie Condon, Migration in Comparative Perspective: Caribbean Communities in Britain and France, (Routledge, 2008), pp.208-214 33 CARLOS VARGAS-SILVA, BRIEFING: Long-Term International Migration Flows to and from the UK, (The Migration Observatory, University of Oxford, 2013), p.3. Available at: http://www.migration observatory.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/migobs/Briefing%20-%20Long%20 Term%20Migration%20Flows%20to%20 and %20from%20the%20UK_0.pdf. Assessed on 20/05/2013. 34 The Accession 8 countries are Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) 35 Haroon Siddique, “Pre-election build-up – as it hapenned,” Ellection blog, comment posted March 31, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/mar/31/general-election-2010-conservatives 36 Jacques Barou, Petra Aigner and Bernard Mbenga, op.cit. p.26. 37 Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.6
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According to 2001 official estimates, the first, second and third generations of African immigrants in Britain totalled up to 0.8% of the total population. That year, the African population included 16% of which were born Nigeria, 10% in Ghana, 8% in Somalia, 4% in Zimbabwe and 3% in Uganda, Sierra Leone and Kenya, respectively (See table 3.8). The great majority of these were geographically concentrated in London, and to a lesser extent in the South and East of England and Wales (See Figure 3.10).
The 2001 census data showed that most of African immigrants were relatively young, 30% of which were under the age of 16 and 2% over 65 years. The median age for men and women was about 27 and 28, respectively. In terms of occupational attainments, 26% black Africans of working age were in a managerial or professional occupations and 23% routine or manual occupations.
The increase of the number of UK black non-British born people during current times is mainly due to the waves of asylum seekers and refugees from a number of African countries such as Somalia, Zimbabwe and the Congo. While most African immigrants came for reunification reasons in 1980s, from 1990 and up to 2002, they arrived mostly as asylum seekers38 from countries that have displayed warfare, political repression, or devastating economic and ecological situations. By the last decade of the twentieth century, a number of conflicts erupted in different parts of Africa; and Britain, in accordance with the 1951 United Nations Convention and 1967 protocol, started to accept substantial numbers of refugees who were seeking asylum due to their fear of persecution in their home lands for reasons of race, religion, nationality or political opinion. This fact has caused public discontent which intensified during the 1980s and 1990s the fact that brought about government concern. African asylum migration kept increasing until it peaked in 2002, with 30.5 thousand applications, again declining during the subsequent years (See Figure 3.11). Between 1998 and up to 2007, there were not less than 171.5 thousand asylum applications from African principal applicants.39 The highest share for asylum applications to UK in the period between 1998 and 2007 was for Somalia with 43 thousand applications. Migration applications from this country
38 Ibid.p25. 39 Ibid. p.8
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kept rising during the 1990s; they peaked in 2002, and then have declined. It was followed by Zimbabwe with 21 thousand applications, Congo and DR Congo both with 11.5 thousand, these latter reaching peaks in 2002 while Nigerians asylum applications during the covered period were about 9.8 thousand. (See Figure 3.12)
Because of public and media greatest concern about increasing numbers of asylum seekers and refugees particularly during the early 1990s, successive governments have set about tightening immigration controls and restricting the rights of asylum seekers in UK by introducing a plethora of legislation. Policy makers began by restricting access to asylum procedures by preventing people first from reaching UK. This could be achieved by tightening visas controls. Effectively, the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act in 1987 imposed civil and financial penalties on carriers who bring passengers to UK without the required entry documents. Somerville states that “the strategy behind these Acts was to extend UK borders beyond the existing physical borders of sea sharing the responsibility for control with carriers.”40 For each illegal passenger, carriers had to pay were about £1.000 which was doubled in 1991and extended to cover passengers without transit visas. Those not retained had the right to appeal as stated in the 1969 Immigration Appeal Act, however, appeals right have been greatly restricted since 1993.
The role of the media has been crucial during that period and up to 1990s when they particularly targeted Asylum seekers and refugees who were alleged to be ‘illegal refugee’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘asylum cheat’ or ‘bogus asylum seekers’. Heated debates have arisen as to the reason of such increases of asylum seekers and refugees and the most accepted interpretation have been that most of these applicants were ‘bogus’ and that they were seeking for welfare rather than asylum. In 1993, John Major’s government made further reforms, introducing the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 which prevented asylum seekers from enjoying the social services (housing and welfare benefits) like other citizens. As an example, they were denied homeless accommodations if they had a place where to stay ‘however temporary’, even a church floor. On the one hand, the Act introduced a ‘fast track’ procedure that greatly limited the period for appeals of applications considered to be ‘without foundation’, empowered immigration authorities to detain asylum seekers while their cases were being decided.
40 Will Somerville, Immigration under New Labour, (The Policy Press, 2007), p.19
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On the other hand, it abolished the right of appeal to students, short term visitors and tourists, and those seeking the expansion of their duration of stay provided their applications had been refused.41 It was “largely criticised as an ‘anti-black’ family measure that further curtailed family reunion rights of Britain’ settled migrants”.42 As an example of the impact on family reunification was the initiative of immigration officers to detain and deport a whole plane- load of Jamaicans who had come to visit their relatives on Christmas Eve in 1993. The act was particularly effective in terms of increasing the rate of refused asylum applications which slumped from 16% in 1993 to 75% in 1994.43 Those whose appeals were rejected were either deported or detained in immigration detentions centres are where they were badly treated the fact that brought about hunger strikes and various riots.44 Despite all these measure, asylum applications kept rising.
The conservative government’s next legislative measure aiming at reducing asylum claims was via the introduction of the 1996 Immigration and Asylum Act. The act empowered the immigration authorities to “expel immediately people claiming asylum at ports of entry to the ‘safe third’ country through which they had arrived,”45 It extended the denial of statutory housing to everyone subject to immigration control. Under the act, the Home Secretary set up a ‘white list’ of a number of countries which were judged as safe, thus all asylum applicants from these countries were refused entry to the UK. It also restricted the rights of refugees and asylum seekers to employment, housing and welfare benefits by limiting these rights to in-country asylum applicants and removed it for the others. It made it an offence for any employer to employ any person who is not able to provide eligibility to live and work in the UK, in which case he would be fined up to £5.000 for each illegal worker46. This latter provision had the dramatic effect of intensifying already existing employment inequalities, for employers became even more
41 See Linda McDowell, Working Lives: Gender, Migration and Employment in Britain, 1945-2007, (Wiley, 2013), p.254. 42 Christian Joppke, Challenge to the Nation-state: Immigration in Western Europe and the United States , (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 137. 43 Ibid. p. 138. 44 Ibid. p.138. 45 Sylvie da Lomba, The right to seek refugee status in the European Union , p.158. 46 Op. cit. Linda McDowell, p.255.
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reluctant to employ people from ethnic minorities.47 Furthermore, civil and criminal sanctions related to immigration were greatly extended.
4.1 Immigration Under the New Labour Government
At the turn of the century, immigration legislation underwent important changes and restrictions as a reaction to the new threat of global terrorism in the world, specifically after the September 11th terrorist attacks in the USA. Since then, general attitudes towards asylum in UK have changed greatly, particularly towards those who were Muslims. The provisions made under the previously mentioned acts were not repealed when the Labour Party came into power in 1997 under the leadership of Tony Blair. On the contrary, mistreatment to people subjected to immigration controls, particularly asylum seekers, culminated with the introduction of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. In 1998, the new Labour government presented a white paper entitled Fairer, Faster and Firmer: A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum which contained a series of suggestions aiming at both integrating asylum seekers and tightening controls. The white paper constituted the grounds for the controversial 1999 Act. This latter was to be considered as “the latest piece in a long line of immigration control legislation going back to the 1905 Alien Act” and it “… represent what is probably the greatest tightening of controls since 1905.”48 Its major aim was to make UK the least attractive to Asylum seekers as possible and to clear the backlog of asylum seekers that was about 52.000 asylum cases.49 The National Asylum Support Service (NASS), a section within the Home Office, was established and made responsible for the delivery of social and welfare support of the increasing numbers of asylum seekers in UK. Under the act, those were subject to control and their dependents were not allowed to work before a year of living in UK and were provided with the strictly essential needs such as food and accommodation. However, it
47 Andrew Geddes, Denying Access, Asylum Seekers and Welfare Benefits in the UK, p.16. In: Michael Bommes, Andrew Geddes, Immigration and Welfare: Challenging the Borders of the Welfare State Immigration and Welfare: Challenging the Borders of the Welfare State, (Routledge, 2013). 48 Steve Cohen, Dinning with the Devil, p.143. In: Steve Cohen, Beth Humphries and Ed Mynott, From immigration controls to welfare controls, (Routledge, 2002). 49 Jordan Wagner, A Changing Immigration System: Immigration Policies Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown , p.25. Available at: http://pages.wustl.edu/wuir/changing-immigration-system-immigration-policies-under-tony - blair-and-gordon-brown, assessed on: 28/05/2013.
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replaced the Cash- paid welfare benefits by a new voucher system: every adult was given a voucher worth £35 a week. On the other hand, it completely withdrew their right to social security benefits such as attendance allowance, income support, child benefit and housing benefit.50 It went even further, by depriving those who were disabled from disability benefits and those entitled for housing were dispersed throughout the country with no choice of location, and it gave more power to immigration officials such as, arresting and detaining immigrants without warrants. The New Labour Government has; nevertheless, brought a major change in respect to immigration. In February 2002, they presented a white paper entitled Secure Borders, Safe Havens: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, which introduced a new approach to immigration policy based on the concept of ‘managed migration’ favouring migration of highly skilled migrants, students and workers. The goal of such a policy was to restrict entry to undesirable labour and restrict access to citizenship on the one hand, and to promote highly skilled immigration as being beneficial to the economy of the country. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 which received royal assent on 7 November 2002 expanded the ‘white list’ of the countries from which asylum applications would be rejected, denied asylum seekers support in case they did not make their claim upon their arrival, and further restricted social assistance to those whose applications were being decided. Furthermore, it required people to pass an English test concerning general notions about the English language and the British way of life. Since his election and up to his resignation, Blair sought to curb asylum seekers while he encouraged high skilled migration to the point that the number of work vouchers have more than doubled during his first premiership51. During years following the 2002 Act, the immigration rates kept raising dramatically, particularly after UK’s access to the UE, consequently making it once again a major issue within political, media, and public discourse. This led to the introduction of the 2004 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment Claimants) Act. In an attempt to decrease the number of asylum claimants, new offences were created for those entering UK unlawfully, and added further tougher restrictions by preventing failed ‘asylum seekers with family’ from NAAS support with the possibility of
50 Migration Watch UK, Asylum Seekers and Destitution. Available at: http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/ briefingPaper/document/69. Assessed on 28/05/2013. 51 Op.cit. Jordan Wagner, p.28.
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their children being taken into care in case their parents become destitute and in the incapacity of taking care of them. In spite of the provision brought by the 2002 Act, there were still criticisms raised particularly from the Opposition asking for further legislations. Two years later, the government enacted the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2006 the aim of which was to further secure UK’s borders from all types of immigrants and , most importantly, from terrorism. It actually came after 2005 attacks in London. The main focus of this act was economic migration and nationality issues. Yet, it was of some concern to asylum seekers, too. It added sanctions targeting both unauthorised labour and those who employ them, leading to discrimination. Furthermore, the recognised refugees were given loans instead of the former grants allotted them. Most importantly, it empowered the Home Secretary to deprive any person of British citizenship or right of abode provided it was ‘conductive to public good’. The latest act, but not the last, drawn up by the British government and aiming at deterring asylum seekers from coming to the UK, was the Borders, Citizenship and immigration Act, 2009. Its aim is to make immigration law more comprehensive and to strengthen UK borders by bringing together customs and immigration powers for the aim of which immigration authorities have been allowed to carry out functions that had been up to then performed by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) only52. The 2009 Act has introduced a new approach to citizenship, making it clear that it has to be “earned” thanks to work, respect of the law and a general knowledge of the English language and the British culture. It has made provisions in respect to citizenship and naturalisation: persons who were born overseas to British mothers before 1961 and British Nationals (Overseas) with no other nationality have been allowed to register as British Citizens while children of parents serving in the British armed forces have been granted citizenship. The act has introduced several stages within the citizenship’s acquisition process. They have to stay for five years before becoming ‘probationary citizens’, they can then apply for citizenship under an ‘points earning’ system that may last for a one to five years period. Social benefits were restricted to citizens and permanent residents only. The period up to permanent stay has been extended to eight years; on the other hand, the
52The Guardian, Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, 20 January 2010.
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qualifying period for the naturalisation of migrants may be shortened thanks to “civic activism” such as becoming active members of political parties and trade unions53.
This, then, is the later but probably not the last of the plethora of pieces of legislation issued by the successive British governments and reflecting the political trends towards immigration and asylum in Britain during the current century. Since the mid 1990s, successive governments have sought to restrict immigrants’ entry to UK, particularly refugees and asylees. These latter have been greatly dissuaded from coming and applying for asylum within the country. In addition to the former traumatising experiences they have undergone and from which they have fled, they have still to endure isolation, dispersal and denial from social and housing benefits and sometimes deportation, in some cases even risking to be separated from their children. They have been stereotyped as ‘bogus’ and ‘illegal’ migrants at the expense of the great majority of real ‘genuine’ asylum seekers. The cash- paid benefits to which they had access have been replaced by vouchers, further marginalising and stigmatising them.
5. The Political Participation of Black Ethnic Groups
Since the beginning of their settlement in Britain, black people have faced racism and discrimination in all ranges of life (housing, education, employment). The host population have welcomed them with great suspicion while the government hardly tolerated them at times when they were desperately needed and targeted tem with a number of pieces of legislation once they became more visible blaming them for all the social and economic problems the country was facing. Black people’s consciousness of increasing racism and inequalities in the 1960s British society incited them to react and organise into groups and unions. Nevertheless, their impact had not been of much effect, for according to Kalbir Shukra
Organisation everywhere remained local, responding to particular incidents of racial harassment or exclusion. No political party emanated
53 BBC News, Citizenship points plan launched, 3 August 2009. Available at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ 8180749.stm. assessed on 29/05/2013
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from the campaigns to pull the energy and debate together. Instead, the black movement remained small, isolated and fragile. 54
Yet black people, and youth particularly, organised significant demonstrations in the major cities which, even if they had not completely eliminated racism, they had the effect of attracting the attention of political officials who improved somehow their situation by introducing a number of Race Relation Acts. To counter balance the effect of racism, a number of organisations and unions, whether social, political or religious, have been set up to fight for their rights and to oppose discrimination. Their major aim was to facilitate settlement processes for their black fellow citizens and to help promote better opportunities for future generations so as they would not encounter the same difficulties as their predecessors.
Some of them disappeared, while others are still active nowadays. They came as a reaction to public and political leaders’ racist discourse in addition to police brutality and combated for the welfare of black people. In this respect, Teri Sewell argued that “the campaign for Black Sections was an important sign that black people were no longer content with being passive observers of the political process.55
Currently, though the situation has improved, black participation in mainstream politics remains symbolic, for black people are still greatly underrepresented in parliament. The fact that black people are the most underrepresented in political participation is due to their conviction that action through pressure groups is more effective than voting or lobbying.56 The 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Study shows that black African and black Caribbean people’s political participation in general and electoral elections were the least as compared to the other minority ethnic groups (See Figure 3.13): 22% of black Africans reported being engaged in a civic or political organisation or association while 20
54 Kalbir Shukra, The Changing Pattern of Black Politics in Britain, (Pluto Press, 1998), p. 27. 55 Ibid., p.96 56 James Jennings, Race and Politics: New Challenges and Responses for Black Activism, (Verso, 1997 ) p.119.
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to 23% of Black Caribbeans reported having signed petitions and boycotted products and companies.57 As far as people from African background, Nigerians and Ghanaians display higher rates of political participation in general and local elections while Zimbabweans tend be more involved in non electoral activities as compared to people from other African origins. Differences in political engagement among black African groups are explained by Silvia Galandini in terms of “divergent immigration experiences and socio- cultural backgrounds.”58 She argues that these differences are due to the fact that some recently arrived groups are facing unemployment and difficulties with the English language such as the Somalis while the other well settled groups with higher educational attainments such as the Ghanaians who consider their political involvement as part of their British citizens’ duties.59 Black Caribbeans’ lack of community mobilisation and political participation is due to their distrust in the willingness and the ability of politicians to represent the interests of their community. Campbell and McLean relate African Caribbeans’ under representation in politics to these latter’s “negative experiences of marginalisation”60 which stands for their former negative experiences at schools and in workplaces. To these reasons, they have also added black Caribbean lack of unity. In fact, internal divisions within their community make political mobilisation hard to achieve61 and when fractions of the community manage to gather in a group or organisation, there is little chance that its impact be of greater effect because of lack of general mobilisation. So far, current studies and data statistics have proved black minority groups under representation in the British political scene as a reaction to former negative experiences. This is specifically the case for African Caribbeans as compared to most Africans who feel a little more integrated than the former due to their higher educational achievements and consequently feel more concerned.
57 Maria Sobolewska, Religion and Politics among Ethnic Minorities in Britain, British Religion in Numbers, 2011. Available at: http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/religion-and-politics-among-ethnic-minorities-in-britain/ . Assessd: 30/05/2013. 58 Silvia Galandini, Political Participation of Black Africans. Available at: http://www.ethnicpolitics.org/2013/01/25/political-participation-of-black-africans/ . Assessed 30/05/2013 59 Ibid. 60 Catherin Campbell and CARL McLean, Ethnic Identity, Social Capital and Health Inequalities: Factors, Shaping African -Caribbean in Local Community Networks, (Elsevier Science Ltd, 2002), p.18. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/181/1/ethnic_identities.pdf. Assessed: 14/05/2013. 61 Ibid.p.25.
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Currently, it became clear among black communities’ leaders as well as British politicians that measures have to be taken so as to make them more concerned and more involved in the political activities both at the local and the national levels. Black communities have to comprehend the fact that only through higher political participation and thus greater representation will it be possible for them to improve their lives and most importantly provide equal opportunities for themselves and their children. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that, despite the great changes that have still to be made, huge improvements have been achieved up to now as compared to the past and that the situation is progressing, albeit slowly, from one generation to another.
6. Black British Impact on British Culture and Society
The successive waves of immigrants to Britain, whether self determined or forced, have had great dramatic impact on the British society and brought about irreversible changes to the British culture, politics and geography. Black people from African and Caribbean decent are among those who have greatly impacted on the British society and culture. Their presence has irreversibly altered the meaning of ‘Britishness’. The major impact they had may be reflected in UK’s development from an almost homogeneous society to a multi racial and a multi cultural one. Every aspect of British life whether political, cultural, or social (food, music, literature, art, etc...) has been influenced by black culture. African-Caribbean’s diverse features have become a common and established aspect of the British society. The Notting Hill Carnival is one example of black culture which asserts black people’s right to in the UK. It has been set up for the first time in 1959, a year after the Nothing Hill riots. It came as a reaction to the riots and was intended to celebrate and preserve the black culture as well as to promote white and black cultural unity. Initially celebrated indoors with a few West Indians, it ended to be held indoors since 1966. It has become, nowadays, the second biggest street festival in the world and one of the major annual celebrations in Britain which lasts for three days and hundreds of thousands of people every year. Economically, black immigrants, contrary to popular and media assumptions, is greatly beneficial to UK economy. They are vital to British economy. They fill
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employment gaps, perform professions that are undesirable for white workers and pay taxes. Those self employed in their own businesses are offering employment to hundreds of people little helping to tackle unemployment. Some sectors would undoubtedly collapse without their presence and efforts, such as health and social care services, in addition to the cleaning and transport industries. Food, too, is one of the features of the Caribbean, and to a lesser extent African, culture that may be found in current Britain. As an instance, white Britons have become familiar with the Caribbean salt fish, salted pork, yam and peppers. Nevertheless, the African Caribbean food is not as spread and appreciated within the white British society as is the Asian one. African Caribbean artists on the other hand have had a great impact, perhaps the greatest, on the British culture thanks to their numerous and estimable contributions in all aspects of artistic expressions such as music, art and all types of writing. The Jamaican Sculptor Ronald Moody, the Trinidadian Dramatist John Errol and the Guinean conductor Rudolph Dunbar are but few examples of black people who managed to achieve success and fame in Britain and the world. Music, too, is another field where Africans and Caribbeans have left their distinctive print and contributed to the development of popular music. When the first black immigrants came to settle in Britain, they brought in their luggage their musical styles, such as gospel, the calypso, the reggae, the ska and the 2 Tone which have since then greatly influenced Britain’s popular music. In the world of media, the Trinidad born Trevor MacDonald is Britain’s favourite newscaster and “almost a British institution in himself.”62 He was knighted in 1999 for his valuable contributions to journalism, won more awards than any other British broadcaster63 and as such he represents a model of success for the black community. In addition to that, the black community have managed to set up a number of publications, radio stations and TV channels. Examples of these latter are The Voice, a leading Afro- Caribbean newspaper, and Pride Magazine, a successful publication for Afro-Caribbean women.
62 Ian Bradley, Believing in Britain: The Spiritual Identity of 'Britishness', (I.B.Tauris, 2007), p. 172. 63BBC News, Sir Trevor reads final bulletin. Available at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4531122.stm. assessed : 03/01/2013
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Steve R. McQueen, the artist and filmmaker of Grenadian Descent, most well known for his film Hunger, and whose talent has been nationally and internationally recognised when he received the Turner Prize in 1999 and the Caméra d’Or in Cannes Festival in 2008 is among those whose works have contributed to British artistic expression. Another example of black British artists is Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, a welsh singer of African descent, was recognised as "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"64, and is well known for her worldwide successful songs ‘Gold Finger’, ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and ‘Moonraker’, James Bond’s themes. She was made a Dame by the queen in 2001. Although black people are still under represented in British politics, yet a number of individuals have managed to find a way to the restricted political milieu. Among these are Diane Abbott, the first black woman Member of Parliament and “one of Labour’s best front bench performers"65, Baroness Amos, the first black woman to be elected to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng, he is the first black cabinet minister in the UK and was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury. However, the field where black Britons have made boundless contributions is in sports and literature. Numerous are those who have represented the UK in international competitions, such as the Olympic Games. Black people are over represented in British boxing. Kelly Holmes, the Jamaican born athlete and the winner of two golden medals in the 2004 Olympic Games, had proudly honoured the colours of the UK. Jason Robinson has been an icon in British rugby who became the first black man to be the captain of the British rugby team. In regards to black British literature, it may be traced back to the 18th century with writers and auto-biographers such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho whose aims where to cry out the abuses black peoples have underwent for centuries and to fight for their liberty. Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist, Cyril Lionel Robert James is considered as an eminent scholar who has left an indelible mark on his time and whose numerous works have been invaluable contributions to British literature. The Guyanese born, ER Braithwaite, is another example of pre war writer who
64 BBC Music, Shirley Bassey, Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/05ec70a5-3858-4346-a649 - fda0a297b8c1, assessed: 15/05/2013. 65 The Telegraph, The Top 100 Most Influential People on the Left 2011: 25-51. Available at :http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ politics/labour/8787643/The-Top-100-Most-Influential-People-on-the- Left-2011-25-51.html, assessed: 15/03/2013.
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Black British Achievements and Challenges during the 21st Century
settled in Britain. The Windrush generation of the 1950s and 1960s brought also with it African and Caribbean intellectuals who wrote about the history of their immigration to a changing post-war Britain such as Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Jamaican poet James Berry, the Trinidadians Samuel Selvon and the Jamaican Stuart Hall, to list but a few. Drawing their inspiration from the American civil right movement, they, like a great many others, campaigned against bigotry and fought to “address the issues of lack of housing, racial discrimination, the search for dignified jobs and the open hostility of their new 66 hosts”. They brought about the emergence of a new literary genre known as postcolonial literature and expressed their frustration of being treated as aliens in spite of their being British. More recently, a number of book store publishing houses have emerged to promote black writing in Britain. The above cited examples are but few examples of black Britons who have managed to achieve, Britain’s and worldwide fame, success ad above all recognition. They represent good examples and indisputable proof of that black Britons is beneficial to UK and that they may carry positive image of their communities and of Britain as a whole.
66 Onyekachi Wambu, Black British Literature since Windrush, BBC History. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/literature_01.shtml . Assessed 12/05/2013.
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Black British Achievements and Challenges during the 21st Century
7. Conclusion:
The fact that Britain is nowadays a multiracial and a multicultural society is an undisputable reality. Various waves of immigrants came all throughout the twentieth and the twenty-first century and have brought various races, religions and cultures which have greatly impacted the former homogeneous society. The twentieth century’s largest waves of immigration stemmed mainly from the New Commonwealth countries. With time, their presence became increasingly visible the fact that brought about number of highly restrictive pieces of legislation which aimed at restricting coloured people’s settlement in the UK. In fact, since the 1960s, primary immigration, specifically from the West Indies, began to decrease and came almost to an end by the 1980s. Albeit greater difficulties, fewer numbers of secondary immigrants continued to arrive under family reunification process. Yet, despite a continuous flow of immigrants Britain, successive had managed to counterbalance rates of in-coming immigration. By the late 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, Britain has experienced once again a revival of primary immigration of a different kind. Recent waves of black immigrants are mainly consisting of economic workers, students and above all asylum seekers. White immigration increase is due to Britain access to the European Union and to opening of the British market to the Accession 8 countries (A8). The increase of Black immigrants, on the other hand, is mostly due, in addition to students and economic workers, to asylum seekers. As a signatory of the 1951 United Nations Convention and following the1967 protocol, Britain is under the obligation to accept those who seek protection and refuge due to natural disasters, political conflicts or persecution in their homelands. Black asylum seekers have come from different parts of Africa, such Somalia, Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Uganda. The number, the period and the origin of asylum seekers have been related to the different natural disaster and conflicts that have burst in different parts of the world. The increasing waves of immigrants and asylum seekers have brought about public and media concern which in their turn caused the successive governments to react in order to limit it as mush as possible. The dilemma of the British officials was comprehensible. In the one hand, they had to respect their engagement vis a vis the European Union and the
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Black British Achievements and Challenges during the 21st Century
1951 Convention, and in the other hand they had to limit the flows of immigrants that poured within the country. The rise to power of Blair brought a new approach to immigration, that was a commitment to economic labour and greater firmness towards ‘bogus’ asylum seekers. Under the assumption that most of these latter were cheating on the British government, for they were more attracted by welfare and other social and housing benefits, different pieces of legislation have been introduced preventing them from the state benefits, and taking harsh and controversial measures to dissuade them from applying asylum in the UK. Over time the black community have greatly expanded because of the already settled black people, those newly arrived and the second and third generations black people. Most of them, especially those from Caribbean background, became absorbed in the society because of interracial marriages, the children of whom identify themselves under the Mixed group. Geographically, they tend to be concentrated in London inner cities where there are long established black communities. Educationally, the African people do much better than the Caribbean people who, despite great improvements, keep lagging behind the other groups the fact that have serious repercussions on their income and decreases their opportunities for work. Recently greater action is undertaken to integrate black communities to the British society and to offer black people equal opportunities as compared to the past in respect to education, job opportunities and combating discrimination. Undoubtedly, a great deal have still to be changed and improved, nonetheless, in comparison to the first immigrants and even farther to the first slaves in Britain, extraordinary progress has been made. Today numerous black Briton are celebrated for their great achievements in different fields such as art, sport, literature and music. They have achieved fame and success in their respective disciplines. Thanks to their positive and valuable contribution, they are certainly contributing to changing the settled negative images that white British have always had towards them and are promoting the idea that black communities may be beneficial to Britain.
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General Conclusion
The present study was set out to investigate the political, economic and social condition of the black communities in the United Kingdom since the post World War period. It has given an account of early presence of black people in the country. It has attempted to analyse the origins of British racism, and British immigration policy towards coloured immigrants in the twentieth and the twenty-first century. In addition to that, it has looked at the current situation of the settled black communities, as well as to their achievements and the challenges that have still to overcome.
Black presence dates back to Roman times when Black soldiers were sent by the Roman army to the province of Britannia, some of which stayed when the Roman legions left Britain. As Paul Edwards have noticed, the ironical side of this fact is that Black communities, albeit very small, might have settled in England long before English invaders came from Europe centuries ago. However they were not numerous; their number started to raise gradually during the sixteenth century to such a point that Queen Elizabeth I soon expressed her disapproval and ordered their deportation, yet unsuccessfully. This was in fact the first manifestation of racism towards black people in Britain, and the first attempt to repatriate them.
Significant rise of black settlement occurred during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries due to Britain’s intensive involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. During that era, Britain carried thousands of slaves from the African coast to, its colonies in America and the Caribbean, some of whom ended in Britain. They were transported there by traders, captains and ex-officers and used servants in households, labourers, prostitutes, entertainers or simply as fashion accessories and status symbols used to flaunt their wealth. In fact this was the first factor responsible for the development of black communities, especially in London, Liverpool and Bristol. They were joined by seamen and freed slaves who worked in a variety of occupations and some intermarried with white women.
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In 1972, a court decision made it a crime to send back a black person into slavery once in Britain. This was misinterpreted as meaning that slavery did not exist in Britain and that any black person coming there would be free. This misunderstanding increased the number of runaway slaves throughout the eighteenth century. These were joined by black loyalist who fought on the British side in the American war of independence in exchange of their freedom. Yet, when they arrived in Britain, they discovered a country that was neither ready, nor eager to accept or to assist them. They were blamed for beggary, criminality and prostitution and all the other social problems that the country was facing. This was one of the reasons that made Henry Smeathman suggest resettling them in Africa. In the eighteenth century, their presence became less visible as some had been resettled in Sierra Leone. By the beginning of the next century they were about 10.000 to 20.000 black people living in Britain.
Despite the great achievement that black emancipation was, actually it did not make a great change for Black Britons. Life was still hard and they were constantly targeted by white racism, encouraged by the pseudo-scientific theories about black inferiority. Later on, with the outbreak of the WWI and the WWII, black immigrants came from British colonies to join the arm forces. In spite of their commitment and their readiness to sacrifice their lives for their mother country, they were nonetheless not treated the same way as white soldiers. They were used as porters, worked mainly in arms industries, and had no chance of being promoted.
The most important waves of black immigrants however took place during the post world war period and peaked during the 1950s and 1960s. They came to fill the severe labour shortage that Britain was undergoing and to reconstruct the country’s economy. the first waves arrived on board SS Windrush in 1948 and this represented the beginning of mass migration to UK. All of them arrived full of hope and expectation for a better life, however, they found great disillusionment. During the 1950s, their numbers increased rapidly bringing about tensions with the host society. They faced hostility, racial prejudice and violent attack from white people. They confronted fear in the streets and had to suffer discrimination at work and housing. Furthermore, they were employed in the meanest jobs with low pays night shifts, that white people did not want. Discrimination in housing was
112 a common feature in their life, for most landlords refused to have them as tenants, displaying notices stating ‘no blacks, no dogs’.
As they continued to come to Britain, the white population began to express its disapproval with fierce anger accusing them for competing the white people for housing, jobs and women. This racial antagonism turned into violence and riots erupted at different places of London. The situation became so intolerable that politicians begun to discuss about the way to control the influx of black. Pressed by the white population, the media and right wing public people, the British government introduced the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962 that was followed by a series of other pieces of legislation all of which targeted mainly immigrants from the New Commonwealth countries until primary black immigration came to an end.
By the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, Britain has witnessed a revival of primary immigration from different parts of the world. Black immigrants nowadays are mainly coming from African countries seeking asylum in Britain and fleeing conflicts and persecution in their home lands. This has caused the British governments to legislate once again to restrict the flows. A number of acts have been issued during the late decades targeting asylum seekers while economic immigrants were granted entry.
Nowadays, black communities constitute more than 2% of the total population. They are still facing a great number of difficulties in all sectors of life. Although their situation has greatly improved, black British are still suffering from bad economic, educational and social conditions. The study has shown that though some have high qualifications, such as British Africans, they do not receive the same rewards as their white counterparts. As far as educational attainment is concerned, the findings have shown that black pupils, specifically British Caribbeans, drag behind minority children. Consequently, they do not have the equal job opportunities the fact that great greatly impacts on their income.
Nevertheless, the different improvements and achievements accomplished by the black population in all sectors of life should not be minimised. A number of associations have been created to improve the living of British ethnic minorities. The main issued of
113 these latter are police harassment, housing problems and employment difficulties. Their role is also to organise social manifestation such as carnivals and festival in order to celebrate African- Caribbean cultures. Recently, the labour government have done a great deal to encourage ethnic minority’s recruitment in education, police and the army.
In the public life, a great number of African Caribbean people managed to achieve fame, success and above all recognition in politics, business, show business, literature and all forms of artistic expression.
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TABLE 1.1 Slave Imports into British America, 1619-1808
Period1 Barbados Jamaica Other British British North Caribbean America 1619-50 22.400 - 1.200 800
1651-75 63.200 22.300 5.600 900
1676-1700 82.300 73.500 26.600 9.800
1701-25 91.800 139.100 36.000 37.400
1726-50 73.600 186.500 82.000 96.800
1751-75 120.900 270.400 243.900 116.900
1776-1800 28.500 312.600 222.800 24.400
1881-8 7.600 70.200 48.300 73.100
490.300 1.074.600 600.400 360.100
Source : David Eltis, “The Distribution of the Slave Trade in the Americas” unpublished manuscript, 2002. In : James A. Rawley Stephen D, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, Revisited Edition, (U on Nebraska Press, 2005), p.145.
1 Theses were the years vessels arrived in British colonial ports.
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Table 1.2 Slave Voyages from Liverpool, London and Bristol in War Time 1739-1807. (Number and percentage share of three ports)
Years Liverpool London Bristol
N° % N° % N° %
1739-48 313 48,0 94 14,5 245 37,6
1756-63 480 58,4 176 21,4 166 20,2
1776-83 332 64,0 147 28,3 40 7,7
1793-1807 1.605 84,7 227 12,0 62 3,3
Source: David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson and Herbert S. Klein. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge, 1999). In: David Richardson, Anthony Tibbles, Suzanne Schwarz, Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery, (Liverpool University Press, 2008), p.21
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TABLE 2.1 Home office’s estimates of net inward movement of persons from West Indies and East and West Africa, 1955-1962.
Years 1955 1956 1957 1958 1969 1960 1961 1962
West Indies 27.55 29.800 23.000 15.020 16.39 49.67 66.290 31.800 0 0 0 E.W.& 2.200 2.660 2.830 1.380 1.880 -240 18.110 8.940 Africa
Source: Home Office figures adapted from: Ian R. G. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939, (Routledge, 1997) p. 90.
TABLE 2.2 National Insurance’s estimates concerning immigrants from West Indies, East Africa, West Africa and South Africa, 1956-1960.
Year 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 Totals
West Indies 30.442 19.576 17.084 17.895 44.825 129.822
East Africa 1.289 1.251 1.510 1.731 2.543 8.324
West Africa 2.837 2.843 3.369 3.467 4.401 16.917
South Africa 3.250 3.008 3.119 2.986 4.006 16.449
Source: CAB13/ 1005 reproduced in Ian. R. G. Spencer, British Immigration Policy Since 1939, (Routledge, 1997) p. 91.
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Table 2.3 Immigration vouchers issued under the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962-1964.
Category Definition Vouchers issued, 1962- 1964
A Coming for specific, advertised job vacancies. 34.000
B Skilled workers-such as doctors, teachers, 22.000 nurses, postgraduates, builders, craftsmen [sic], members of the armed forces.
C Unskilled persons- those entering without 42.000* specific employment or dedicated skills.
Note: *380.000 applications.
Source: adapted from figures taken from the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act. In Mike Raco, Building Sustainable Communities: Spatial Policy and Labour Mobility in Post-War Britain, (The Policy Press, 2007), p. 128
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Table 3.1 Ethnic Composition of the UK, 2001
Source: David Owen, Profile of Black and Minority ethnic groups in the UK, (University of Warwick), p.2
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Table 3.2 Ethnic Groups by Age (DC210EW) England and Wales.
Source : Adapted from NOMIS Data about Ethnic Groups by Sex and Age (DC210EW) England and Wales, 2011.
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Table 3.3Distribution of Educational Qualifications by Status of Generation and Ethnicity.
Source: Christian Dustmann and Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, Ethnic Minority Immigrants and Their Children in Britain, (University College London), p.28.
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Table 3.4 Social Class Profile of the White and Ethnic Minority Populations, 1971, Females and Males (%)
Source: Vaughan Robinson and Rina Vanely, Ethnic Minorities, Employment, Self- employment, and Social Mobility in postwar Britain. In: Glenn C. Loury, Tariq Modood, Steven M. Teles, Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy: Comparing the USA and UK, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.422.
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0000Table 3.5 Labour Market Status of Ethnicity
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Table 3.6 Sources of t Total Weekly Household Income: by Ethnic Group of Household Reference Person, 2006/07–2008/09.
Source: Family Resources Survey, (DWP, 2010a). In: Sonia Carrera and Jen Beaumont, Social Trends: Income and wealth, (Office of National Statistics, 2010), p.7
Table 3.7 Decline in UK-Resident Caribbean- Born population, 1981-2001
Source: Margaret Byron, Stéphanie Condon, Migration in Comparative Perspective: Caribbean Communities in Britain and France, (Routledge, 2008), p.21
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Table 3.8 Black African Population: by Region of Birth, April 2001
Source: Joy Dobbs, Hazel Green and Linda Zealey, Ethnicity and Religion, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p.34.
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Figure 3.1 Growth of Minority Ethnic Population in Britain 1951-2001.
Source: 1951-1991 data reproduced from peach (1996). 2001data from 2001 Census Key Statistics Table 6. Reproduced in Ruth Lupton and Anne Power, (November, 2004) ‘Minority Ethnic Groups in Britain’, CASE- Brookings Census Briefs. No.2 [Online], p.1. Available at: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/CBCB/census2_part1.pdf. Assessed: 10 May 2013. p. 4
Refers to chapter three page
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Figure 3.2 ONS estimates of ethnic population in England and Wales in 2001, 2007 and 2011, consecutively.
Graph1. The ethnic minority population of England and Wales in 2001
Source: ONS, 2001 census.
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Graph 2. The ethnic minority population of England and Wales in 2007
Source: ONS mid-year population estimates, 2007
Graph 3. The ethnic minority population of England and Wales in 2011
Source: 2011 Census Ethnicity Data (released on 11th December 2012)2
2 The ethnic minority population of England and Wales, 2011 census. Produced by the Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA), The future ageing of the ethnic minority population . Runnymede Trust (December 2012). 112187
Figure 3.3 Ethnic Groups in England and Wales, 2001-2011
Source: Census - Office for National Statistics.
Available at: http://www.cpa.org.uk/presentations/runnymede-ageuk-ageing%20and%20ethnicity-13-12-12 - futureageingoftheethnicminoritypopulation.pdf
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Figure 3.4 The Geographical Distribution of Black Caribbean, Black African and Black Other Groups, 1991.
Map.1 Black Caribbean Ethnic Group, 1991
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Map.2 Black African Ethnic Group, 1991.
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Map.3 Black-Other Ethnic Group, 1991.
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Figure 3.5 Ethnic groups by English regions and Wales, 2011
Source: Office for National Statistics: Ethnicity across the English regions and Wale (2011)
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Figure 3.6 Number of Pupils Permanently Excluded from School in 2000- 2001
Source: Department for Education and Skills. Available at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/educational_achievement.stm, Assessed: 08/06/2012
Figure 3.7 Rates of Permanent Exclusions by Ethnic Group.
Source: permanent and fixed Period Exclusions from School in England, DfE; England; Updated Jul 2011. Available at: http://www.poverty. org.uk/27/index.shtml?6 113243
Figure 3.8 Ethnic Pay Gap, London Residents, 2006 to 2009.
Source: Annual Population Survey, 2009. In: Equal Life Chances for All, Greater London Authority, p.2. Available at: http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/ default/files/ELCFA%20 Bulletin%201%20The%20pay%20gap.pdf. Assessed on 26/05/2013.
Figure 3.9 Year of entry to the UK of Black African- Born People, 1960-2007
Source: Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.6
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Figure 3.10 Geographical Distribution of Black-African people, 2001
Source: David Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.18
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Figure 3.11 African Asylum Migration to UK, 1998-2007
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
A s y l u m a pp li c at i on f r o ca 10,000
5,000
0 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Source: David Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.7
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Figure 3.12 Asylum applications by country of origin, 1998-2007
Asylum applications 1998-2007
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000
Algeria Angola
Burundi Cameroon Congo Dem. Rep. of Congo Eritrea Ethiopia Gambia Ghana
Ivory Coast Kenya Liberia
Nigeria Rwanda Sierra Leone Somalia Sudan Tanzania Uganda Zimbabwe
Other sub Saharan Africa
Source: David Owen, African migration to the UK, (University of Warwick, 2008), p.9
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Appendix A. Dunmore’s Proclamation.
By His Excellency the Right Honorable JOHN Earl of DUNMORE, His MAJESTY'S Lieutenant and Governor General of the Colony and Dominion of VIRGINIA, and Vice Admiral of the same
A PROCLAMATION
As I have ever entertained Hopes, that an Accommodation might have taken Place between GREAT-BRITAIN and this Colony, without being compelled by my Duty to this most disagreeable but now absolutely necessary Step, rendered so by a Body of armed Men unlawfully assembled, firing on His MAJESTY'S Tenders, and the formation of an Army, and that Army now on their March to attack His MAJESTY'S Troops and destroy the well disposed Subjects of this Colony. To defeat such treasonable Purposes, and that all such Traitors, and their Abettors, may be brought to Justice, and that the Peace, and good Order of this Colony may be again restored, which the ordinary Course of the Civil Law is unable to effect; I have thought fit to issue this my Proclamation, hereby declaring, that until the aforesaid good Purposes can be obtained, I do in Virtue of the Power and Authority to ME given, by his MAJESTY, determine to execute Martial Law, and cause the same to be executed throughout this Colony: and to the end that Peace and good Order may the sooner be restored, I do require every Person capable of bearing Arms, to resort to His MAJESTY'S STANDARD, or be looked upon as Traitors to His MAJESTY'S Crown and Government, and thereby become liable to the Penalty the Law inflicts upon such Offences; such as forfeiture of Life, confiscation of Lands, etc., etc. And I do hereby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY'S Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His MAJESTY'S Crown and Dignity. I do further order, and require, all His MAJESTY'S Leige Subjects, to retain their Quitrents, or any other Taxes due or that may become due,
113298 in their own Custody, till such Time as Peace may be again restored to this at present most unhappy Country, or demanded of them for their former salutary Purposes, by Officers properly authorised to receive the same.
GIVEN under my Hand on board the Ship WILLIAM, off NORFOLK, the 7th Day of NOVEMBER, in the SIXTEENTH Year of His MAJESTY'S Reign
DUNMORE
(GOD save the KING.)
Source: Dunmore's proclamation CO 5/1353, no. 335. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/transcripts/d unmore_proclamation.htm
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Appendix B. Black servants/slaves baptized into the Church of England (St Marys, Lancaster) as adults & death records.
Name Comments as stated in records date
William YORK a negroe 27 Jan 1759
John MASON a negroe, Lancaster 18 Oct 1759
John LANCASTER a negroe 21 Feb 1760
Henry HIND an adult negroe, Lancaster 31 May 1761
John THOMPSON an adult negroe 23 Aug 1761
Richard PETERS an adult negroe 10 Nov 1761
William LONDON an adult negroe 20 Jan 1762
Rebecca THORN an adult negro 27 Oct 1763
George STUART an adult negroe, Lancaster 20 May 1764
John WHITE an adult negroe, Lancaster 10 Jun 1764
William TRASIER an adult negroe 21 Oct 1764
Molly an adult negroe 6 Nov 1764
William an adult negroe, Lancaster 3 Feb 1768 LEUTHWAITE
Stephen MILLERS an adult negroe mid May1768
Benjamin JOHNSON an adult negroe, Lancaster 28 May 1769
Jeremiah SKERTON a black man, an adult, Lancaster 17 Nov 1773
Benjamin KENTON a black man, in the service of Captain Copeland, Lancaster, 5 Mar 1774
John CHANCE a black, aged 22 years & upwards in the service of Mr Lindow 12 Sep 17..
Frances Elizabeth a black woman servant to Mr John Satterthwaite , an adult 2 Apr 1778 JOHNSON aged 27 years, Lancaster
Thomas BURROW a black, an adult, Lancaster 15 Feb 1779
Isaac RAWLINSON a negro & adult, Lancaster 3 Feb 1783
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Thomas an adult negro, aged 22 years 13 Oct 1785 ETHERINGTON
William DILWORTH an adult negro, Lancaster 6 Oct 1783
DEATHS of Black people in Lancaster parish
Molly an adult negro 1 Dec 1764
Sam POWERS a negro 10 Apr 1765
Source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rosdavies/DAVIES/lStMarys PR.htm#black
Refers to chapter one page:
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Appendix C. Equiano’s Letter to Queen Charlotte of England on March the 21st, 1788
To the QUEEN's most Excellent Majesty.
MADAM,
Your Majesty's well known benevolence and humanity emboldens me to approach your royal presence, trusting that the obscurity of my situation will not prevent your Majesty from attending to the sufferings for which I plead.
Yet I do not solicit your royal pity for my own distress; my sufferings, although numerous, are in a measure forgotten. I supplicate your Majesty's compassion for millions of my African countrymen, who groan under the lash of tyranny in the West Indies.
The oppression and cruelty exercised to the unhappy negroes there, have at length reached the British legislature, and they are now deliberating on its redress; even several persons of property in slaves in the West Indies, have petitioned parliament against its continuance, sensible that it is as impolitic as it is unjust—and what is inhuman must ever be unwise.
Your Majesty's reign has been hitherto distinguished by private acts of benevolence and bounty; surely the more extended the misery is, the greater claim it has to your Majesty's compassion, and the greater must be your Majesty's pleasure in administering to its relief.
I presume, therefore, gracious Queen, to implore your interposition with your royal consort, in favour of the wretched Africans; that, by your Majesty's benevolent influence, a period may now be put to their misery; and that they may be raised from the condition of brutes, to which they are at present degraded, to the rights and situation of freemen, and admitted to partake of the blessings of your Majesty's happy government; so shall your Majesty enjoy the heartfelt pleasure of procuring happiness to millions, and be rewarded in the grateful prayers of themselves, and of their posterity.
And may the all-bountiful Creator shower on your Majesty, and the Royal Family, every blessing that this world can afford, and every fulness of joy which divine revelation has promised us in the next.
I am your Majesty's most dutiful and devoted servant to command,
GUSTAVUS VASSA, The Oppressed Ethiopean.
No. 53, Baldwin's Gardens.
Source : Yuval Taylor, I was Born a Slave : An Anthropology of Classic Slave Narratives, Volume 1, ( Chicago Review Press, 1999), p. 169-170.
Refers to page:
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Appendix D. Enoch Powell - “Rivers of Blood” speech.
The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing. Hence, the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future. Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: ‘if only’, they love to think, ‘if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen’. Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical. At all events, the discussion of future grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician. Those who knowingly shirk it, deserve, and not infrequently receive, the curses of those who come after.
A week or two ago I fell into conversation with a constituent, a middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalized industries. After a sentence or two about the weather, he suddenly said: ‘If I had the money to go, I wouldn’t stay in this country’. I made some deprecatory reply, to the effect that even this government wouldn’t last for ever; but he took no notice, and continued: ‘I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan’t be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas. In this country in fifteen or twenty years time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.’
I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so. Here is a decent, ordinary fellow-Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that this country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history.
In fifteen or twenty years, on present trends, there will be in this country 3½ million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to Parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General’s office. There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000; but it must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London. Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by different sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.
As time goes on, the proportion of this total who are immigrant descendants, those born in England, who arrived here by exactly the same route as the rest of us, will rapidly increase. Already by 1985 those born here
141343 would constitute the majority. It is this fact above all which creates the extreme urgency of action now, of just that kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimized lie several parliaments ahead.
The natural and rational first question for a nation confronted by such a prospect is to ask: ‘how can its dimensions be reduced?’ Granted it be not wholly preventable, can it be limited, bearing in mind that numbers are of the essence. The significance and consequences of an alien element introduced into a country or population are profoundly different according to whether that element is one per cent or 10 per cent. The answers to the simple and rational question are equally simple and rational: by stopping, or virtually stopping, further inflow, and by promoting the maximum outflow. Both answers are part of the official policy of the Conservative Party.
It almost passes belief that at this moment 20 or 30 additional immigrant children are arriving from overseas in Wolverhampton alone every week – and that means 15 or 20 additional families a decade or two hence. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiances whom they have never seen. Let no one suppose that the flow of dependents will automatically tail off. On the contrary, even at the present admission rate of only 5,000 a year by voucher, there is sufficient for a further 25,000 dependents per annum ad infinitum, without taking into account the huge reservoir of existing relations in this country – and I am making no allowance at all for fraudulent entry. In these circumstances nothing will suffice but that the total inflow for settlement should be reduced at once to negligible proportions, and that the necessary legislative and administrative measures be taken without delay. I stress the words ‘for settlement’. This has nothing to do with the entry of Commonwealth citizens, any more than of aliens, into this country, for the purposes of study or of improving their qualifications, like (for instance) the Commonwealth doctors who, to the advantage of their own countries, have enabled our hospital service to be expanded faster than would otherwise have been possible. These are not, and never have been, immigrants.
I turn to re-emigration. If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected. This can only be tackled while a considerable proportion of the total still comprises persons who entered this country during the last ten years or so. Hence the urgency of implementing now the second element of the Conservative Party’s policy: the encouragement of re-emigration. Nobody can make an estimate of the numbers which, with generous grants and assistance would choose either to return to their countries of origin or go to other countries anxious to receive the manpower and the skills they represent. Nobody knows, because no such policy has yet been attempted. I can only say that, even at present, immigrants in my own constituency from time to time come to me, asking if I can find them assistance to return home. If such a policy were adopted and pursued with the determination which the gravity of the alternative justifies, the resultant outflow could appreciably alter the prospects for the future.
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It can be no part of any policy that existing families should be kept divided; but there are two directions in which families can be reunited, and if our former and present immigration laws have brought about the division of families, albeit voluntary or semi-voluntary, we ought to be prepared to arrange for them to be reunited in their countries of origin. In short, suspension of immigration and encouragement of re-emigration hang together, logically and humanly, as two aspects of the same approach.
The third element of the Conservative Party’s policy is that all who are in this country as citizens should be equal before the law and that there shall be no discrimination or difference made between them by public authority. As Mr. Heath has put it, we will have no ‘first-class citizens’ and ‘second-class citizens’. This does not mean that the immigrant and his descendants should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow- citizen and another or that he should be subjected to inquisition as to his reasons and motives for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another.
There could be no grosser misconception of the realities than is entertained by those who vociferously demand legislation as they call it ‘against discrimination’, whether they be leader-writers of the same kidney and sometimes on the same newspapers which year after year in the 1930s tried to blind this country to the rising peril which confronted it, or archbishops who live in palaces, faring delicately, with the bedclothes pulled right over their heads. They have got it exactly and diametrically wrong. The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming. This is why to enact legislation of the kind before Parliament at this moment is to risk throwing a match on to gunpowder. The kindest thing that can be said about those who propose and support it is that they know not what they do.
Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American negro. The negro population of the United States, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knew no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service. Whatever drawbacks attended the immigrants – and they were drawbacks which did not, and do not, make admission into Britain by hook or by crook appear less than desirable – arose not from the law or from public policy or from administration but from those personal circumstances and accidents which cause, and always will cause, the fortunes and experience of one man to be different from another’s.
But while to the immigrant entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to
114365 apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. On top of this, they now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by Act of Parliament: a law, which cannot, and is not intended, to operate to protect them or redress their grievances, is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions.
In the hundreds upon hundreds of letters I received when I last spoke on this subject two or three months ago, there was one striking feature which was largely new and which I find ominous. All Members of Parliament are used to the typical anonymous correspondent; but what surprised and alarmed me was the high proportion of ordinary, decent, sensible people, writing a rational and often well-educated letter, who believed that they had to omit their address because it was dangerous to have committed themselves to paper to a Member of Parliament agreeing with the views I had expressed, and that they would risk either penalties or reprisals if they were known to have done so. The sense of being a persecuted minority which is growing among ordinary English people in the areas of the country affected is something that those without direct experience can hardly imagine. I am going to allow just one of those hundreds of people to speak for me. She did give her name and address, which I have detached from the letter which I am about to read. She was writing from Northumberland about something which is happening at this moment in my own constituency.
‘Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a negro. Now, only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there. This is her story. She lost her husband and both her sons in the war. So she turned her seven-roomed house, her only asset, into a boarding house. She worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age. Then the immigrants moved in. With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over. The quiet street became a place of noise and confusion. Regretfully, her white tenants moved out.
The day after the last one left, she was awakened at 7 a.m. by two negroes who wanted to use her phone to contact their employer. When she refused, as she would have refused any stranger at such an hour, she was abused and feared she would have been attacked but for the chain on her door. Immigrant families have tried to rent rooms in her house, but she always refused. Her little store of money went, and after paying her rates, she has less than £2 per week. She went to apply for a rate reduction and was seen by a young girl, who on hearing she had a seven-roomed house, suggested she should let part of it. When she said the only people she could get were negroes, the girl said ‘racial prejudice won’t get you anywhere in this country’. So she went home.
The telephone is her lifeline. Her family pay the bill, and help her out as best they can. Immigrants have offered to buy her house – at a price which the prospective landlord would be able to recover from his tenants in weeks, or at most a few months. She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist’, they chant. When the new Race Relations Bill is passed, this woman is convinced she will go to prison. And is she so wrong? I begin to wonder.’
The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word ‘integration’. To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members. Now, at all times, where there are marked physical
114376 differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult, though over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction. But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one to boot.
We are on the verge of a change. Hitherto it has been force of circumstance and of background which has rendered the very idea of integration inaccessible to the greater part of the immigrant population – that they never conceived or intended such a thing, and that their numbers and physical concentration meant the pressures towards integration which normally bear upon any small minority did not operate. Now we are seeing the growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population. The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, that can so rapidly overcast the sky, has been visible recently in Wolverhampton and has shown signs of spreading quickly. The words I am about to use, verbatim as they appeared in the local press of 17th February [1968], are not mine, but those of a Labour Member of Parliament who is a Minister in the Government. ‘The Sikh community’s campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?), leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker; whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned.’ All credit to John Stonehouse for having had the insight to perceive that, and the courage to say it.
For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organize to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow-citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
Source: http://britishfreedomandindependence.blogspot.com/2011/04/enoch-powell- rivers-of-blood-speech.html
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1. Alasdair Palmer,“Multiculturalism has left Britain with a toxic legacy”, (The Telegraph, 12 Febrary 2012). At: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9075849/Multiculturalism- has-left-Britain-with-a-toxic-legacy.html. Accessed: 5 May 2013 2. BBC News, “Sir Trevor reads final bulletin”. Available at: http:// news. bbc.co. uk/2 /hi/ entertainment/4531122.stm. assessed : 03/01/2013
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17. Sobolewska,S., Religion and Politics among Ethnic Minorities in Britain, British Religion in Numbers, 2011. Available at: http:// www.brin. ac.uk/ news/ 2011/religion-and-politics-among-ethnic-minorities-in-britain/.Assessed: 30/05/2013. 18. Onyekachi Wambu, “Black British Literature since Windrush”, BBC History. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/literature_01.shtml. Assessed 12/05/2013
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Abstract The fact that Britain is nowadays a multi cultural and a multi racial society is an undisputable reality. This is mainly the outcome of successive waves of immigrants from the New Commonwealth countries. History has witnessed the extraordinary changes and development that black British people have undergone from slaves and mere ‘accessories’ and ‘chattel’ to full British citizens. Their extraordinary journey in Britain has been full of sufferings and hardship. Contrary to their alleged inferiority, their everlasting struggle against persisting white racism has been the proof of their courage and greatness. In addition to old settled communities of black people who came as a result of the slave trade, other Caribbean and African people came to Britain during the wars to help for the war effort and to fight for their mother country. They were joined by greater waves of immigrants after the war to help Britain reconstruct its economy and to fill the acute labour shortage that it was facing. All of them came hoping for better lives and recognition, yet all they found was huge racism and hatred. Their disillusionment had been great indeed. They were given low paid jobs with menial functions and night shifts that white people did not want. They faced daily discrimination in housing, education and work. They were frequently confronted to colour bars in public places and were harassed in the streets. At different occasions, they had been the target of the racist attack committed by white youths during various violent riots. Today, black people are an integrant part of the British society. They have completely changed the face of Britain changing it from an exclusively white society to a multiracial one. Over time, their communities have largely expanded. The successive waves of afro Caribbean people have brought about irreversible changes to the British culture, geography and society. Their presence has irreversibly altered the meaning of ‘Britishness’. Every aspect of British life, whether political, cultural or social, has been influenced by the black culture. In spite of the challenges they are still facing, great improvement has been made since the post war period. A number of them have managed to achieve great fame, success, but most importantly white people’s recognition. They are nowadays celebrated worldwide. Key words:
Black Caribbean Community In UK; British Multiculturalism; Immigration Policy In Britain; Race Immigration Acts; Black Adjustment; Black British; End Of Slavery; Black Participation In WWII; Socio Economic Situation Of Black People; Black British History; Britain’s Slave Trade.