Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

minority rights in Poland and the Baltic states, the issue of Irish self-determination, Zionism
and Palestine, the independence of colonial states, and segregation and racial
equality in the USA. It is shocking how many of these issues still plague us in the present day.
Our next chapter comes from Dr.Jaqueline Jenkinson’s study of the 1919 Race Riots. As we learn,
in this year Britain increasingly feared a Russian inspired Bolshevik revolution, and bought out
troops to quell worker’s gatherings. The main victims of this global and internal instability were
Britain’s black and asian communities. Many of the former black soldiers who had fought for Britain
during World War 1 now faced hostility both from the white working class and an indifferent state.
Many were deported, and the linking of Black immigration as a problem with the idea that British
nationality was something for whites only lasted for many years, perhaps even into the present.
The period between 1919 and 1945 is an important period in the history for Black and Asian people
in this country, yet there is surprisingly little written about this period in Black British history.
It is during this period that we see people from across the colonies discussing political ideas, developing
organisations and coalitions, the British state moving away from that of Imperial ruler,
increased use of state surveillance and legislation against dissenters, debates around human rights
and citizenship, all set against the background of the two world wars and communism in the East.
In Britain, the black and asian population, consisting of former soldiers, students, artists,
activists, and migrants from all parts of the colonies, lived in the same vicinity, they were
brought into contact with one another, African, Asian, Chinese, Caribbean’s, Americans,
others from throughout the empire, and Britons from across the socio-economic spectrum
were able to talk and discuss about ideas in a way that hadn’t really occurred before. “Only
in England,” C. L. R. James recalled, “did I learn to break through the inherited constraints
of my environment….” (CLR James, Beyond a Boundary (Duke University Press 1993) p80.
As a result, it was during this time that Black and Asian associations grew and became homes
away from home. Centres of cultural and intellectual exchange sprung up in London, Manchester,
Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh and other places, and these gave rise to new means
of voicing social commentary and political dissent. Through them, black and asian intellectuals
influenced the political imagination of British colonial officials, politicians, and others interested
in the colonies, contributing to the debates during the final decades of imperial rule. We can
see this through the lives many of the individuals who returned to Africa, Asia and and the
Caribbean in the years after World War II to become leaders of anti-colonial movements and
prominent postcolonial politicians, such as Krishna Menon, Jomo Kenyatta, and Kwame Nkrumah.
Some of these organisations during this time included the African Progress
Union led by Dr John Alcindor in the 20s, Union for Students of African Descent,
Gold Coast Students Association, West African Students Union (WASU),
founded by Ladipo Solanke in 1925, the International African Service Bureau (IASB),
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