1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913
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David Killingray
Abstract
In the three decades after 1880 racial discrimination increased within Britain, partly a result of the new ‘age of imperialism’. That was the direct experience of many Black people, an awareness shared by a small number of whites sympathetic to the cause of harmonious race relations. The initial opposition to caste, as it was then called, was primarily led by white Christians, particularly women, who built on Quaker networks and the expanding Brotherhood Movement. With Celestine Edwards they promoted Ida B. Wells’s campaigns in Britain to draw attention to lynching in the USA. New Black leaders emerged, imbued with similar ideas shaped by Christian idealism, and actively involved in various brotherhood groups. In 1897 the Black-led African Association initiated the Pan-African Conference, held in London in 1900, followed by the short-lived Pan-African Association. Thereafter, several unsuccessful attempts were made to establish Black-led organisations opposing racial discrimination. This chapter examines the relationships between Black and white opponents of racialism and highlights the role of Black people who campaigned to defend Black and African rights in Britain and the Empire, and whose actions have been largely overlooked. The chapter has several aims: to provide a more balanced account of anti-racism and early pan-African activity in the Black Atlantic world; to rescue from obscurity significant people whose voices have been ignored; and to suggest that a majority of those involved were active Christians and that these endeavours, although Black-led, rested on financial and moral support from white sympathisers.
Abstract
In the three decades after 1880 racial discrimination increased within Britain, partly a result of the new ‘age of imperialism’. That was the direct experience of many Black people, an awareness shared by a small number of whites sympathetic to the cause of harmonious race relations. The initial opposition to caste, as it was then called, was primarily led by white Christians, particularly women, who built on Quaker networks and the expanding Brotherhood Movement. With Celestine Edwards they promoted Ida B. Wells’s campaigns in Britain to draw attention to lynching in the USA. New Black leaders emerged, imbued with similar ideas shaped by Christian idealism, and actively involved in various brotherhood groups. In 1897 the Black-led African Association initiated the Pan-African Conference, held in London in 1900, followed by the short-lived Pan-African Association. Thereafter, several unsuccessful attempts were made to establish Black-led organisations opposing racial discrimination. This chapter examines the relationships between Black and white opponents of racialism and highlights the role of Black people who campaigned to defend Black and African rights in Britain and the Empire, and whose actions have been largely overlooked. The chapter has several aims: to provide a more balanced account of anti-racism and early pan-African activity in the Black Atlantic world; to rescue from obscurity significant people whose voices have been ignored; and to suggest that a majority of those involved were active Christians and that these endeavours, although Black-led, rested on financial and moral support from white sympathisers.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Series editors’ foreword vii
- List of abbreviations viii
- Introduction – Anti- racism in Britain 1
- I Domestic, imperial and global anti-racist alliances and encounters 23
- 1 Countering racial discrimination in Britain, 1880s–1913 25
- 2 From racist humanitarianism to colonial human rights 44
- 3 George Orwell, pan-Africanism and reconciling antiimperialism with ‘Britishness’ 64
- 4 British anti-racism in Australia 79
- II Anti- racism and the making of post imperial Britain 101
- 5 Celebrating African culture in the north- east of England, 1930s–40s 103
- 6 British Jews and the Race Relations Acts 124
- 7 South Asian political Blackness in Britain 143
- 8 ‘Unfinished activisms’ 164
- III Anti-racism, memory and identity 185
- 9 Memory, multiculturalism and anti- racism in east London, 1990–2006 187
- 10 Tartan inclusivity or workers’ internationalism? The St Andrew’s Day Anti-Racism March and Rally in Scotland 207
- 11 ‘Martin Luther King fought for a colour-blind society’ 228
- Afterword 247
- Index 254
