On this day 1943: Black US soldiers had to defend themselves from white US soldiers on British soil

[invalid]

Thanks OP for the drop. I don't know how I missed this thread. Didn't know about this.

If I was a single black soldier there I would have never come back to amerikkka

While some black women frivolously talk about "divesting", these were the original divesters. And I don't blame them one bit. More black men need to think about "divesting" to preserve our own mental health.

Na I'm saying the narrative that black soldiers were treated better here is bs. For the following reasons

A. Bamber is in one of dem derelict places North of England. Compare it to like idaho or nebraska.

B. There was signs up saying no Blacks no Irish no dogs way until the 60s.

C. From the racial abuse my grandparents got being in London of all places. I know these soldiers would have never received a warm welcome.

I'm just wary of this Liberal Pro British propaganda they add in there.

Yeah, but there was a difference between American blacks and immigrants from the West Indies, Jamaica, and Africa.

It's well documented that American blacks historically were treated different than West Indian and African immigrants in Europe. Black Americans enjoyed popularity, especially during that time, because of our music (Jazz/Blues), our literature (Baldwin), our artist (Delaney), and our efforts in the war. And I still see it when I travel today.

Europeans typically viewed black Americans the same way Americans try to view Nigerians here, like a model minority, whereas West Africans in Europe took on all the negative stereotypes that we have in America.

White people everywhere are twisted for sure but from all accounts that I've read and of personal accounts of family members who served in Europe, Black Americans were not facing much discrimination even in remote places like Northern England. They were viewed as "cool."

 

[Maddmike]

Damn that's crazy. I happen to be in Bristol this weekend. I'm going to find out more about this

 

[WaveGang]

Thanks OP for the drop. I don't know how I missed this thread. Didn't know about this.



While some black women frivolously talk about "divesting", these were the original divesters. And I don't blame them one bit. More black men need to think about "divesting" to preserve our own mental health.



Yeah, but there was a difference between American blacks and immigrants from the West Indies, Jamaica, and Africa.

It's well documented that American blacks historically were treated different than West Indian and African immigrants in Europe. Black Americans enjoyed popularity, especially during that time, because of our music (Jazz/Blues), our literature (Baldwin), our artist (Delaney), and our efforts in the war. And I still see it when I travel today.

Europeans typically viewed black Americans the same way Americans try to view Nigerians here, like a model minority, whereas West Africans in Europe took on all the negative stereotypes that we have in America.

White people everywhere are twisted for sure but from all accounts that I've read and of personal accounts of family members who served in Europe, Black Americans were not facing much discrimination even in remote places like Northern England. They were viewed as "cool."

I live in England bro. I've been to Preston I know whats there, I know the culture.

My point is that narrative of hosts being welcoming is false. As a black British person I know first hand through my parents generation and through research how things were for black people in England during the time.

 

[invalid]

I live in England bro. I've been to Preston I know whats there, I know the culture.

My point is that narrative of hosts being welcoming is false. As a black British person I know first hand through my parents generation and through research how things were for black people in England during the time.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you and your families experience may have been different from that of an Americans.

 

[WaveGang]

Damn that's crazy. I happen to be in Bristol this weekend. I'm going to find out more about this

Yeah look it up. I got people's out dem sides. I remember hearing about how mad it was over there.

If a white woman got attacked etc. A mob of like 300 white men would come to the black neighbourhoods and just run up in houses attacking people. There was no proper police service these times.

And this was just after the war when all the sailors etc were stationed out in Bristol, Cardiff. For that reason the whole narrative of warm hosts just sounds like some super bs.

But true say coz were actually English we can fact check this and provide rationale.

 

[WaveGang]

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you and your families experience may have been different from that of an Americans.

To be honest you was talking about AAs in Europe as a whole. I'm talking specifically where this story is set.

I don't know where your from.

But this is like me trying to tell you the history of racism in your country/city while I'm 5600 miles away and never been there. so no I'm not wrong on this.

These false narratives makes black people believe that racism is lesser overseas. When in reality from my post above you can see there were lynch mobs in these towns during that time

 

[WaveGang]

White people are pure evil..

Bruh. And the fact they tried to switch the narrative making white British people look welcoming.


It's like they're admitting they're fukked up but lying to make it look like they're still good white people.

I'm like hellllll no. I know the history of race relations in the UK and I've lived here all my life. That shyt is simply not true. That's my only issue with the article. Don't try make out like white people in the UK were some ebony n ivory folk. No way

 

[invalid]

To be honest you was talking about AAs in Europe as a whole. I'm talking specifically where this story is set.

I don't know where your from.

But this is like me trying to tell you the history of racism in your country/city while I'm 5600 miles away and never been there. so no I'm not wrong on this.

These false narratives makes black people believe that racism is lesser overseas. When in reality from my post above you can see there were lynch mobs in these towns during that time

I lived for a spell in Fulham, thanks. And as someone that holds membership in a private members club here in America, and having access to reciprocal clubs in London, like the Carlton, Lansdowne, and the Reform, I saw firsthand the treatment I received compared to black from London.

You need to come with receipts.

And then I'll post firsthand accounts of black soldiers who served in England.

 

[3rdWorld]

Bruh. And the fact they tried to switch the narrative making white British people look welcoming.


It's like they're admitting they're fukked up but lying to make it look like they're still good white people.

I'm like hellllll no. I know the history of race relations in the UK and I've lived here all my life. That shyt is simply not true. That's my only issue with the article. Don't try make out like white people in the UK were some ebony n ivory folk. No way

The British colonisers are somehow so loving and welcoming of Black men in Britain

 

[WaveGang]

I lived for a spell in Fulham, thanks. And as someone that holds membership in a private members club here in America, and having access to reciprocal clubs in London, like the Carlton, Lansdowne, and the Reform, I saw firsthand the treatment I received compared to black from London.

You need to come with receipts.

And then I'll post firsthand accounts of black soldiers who served in England.

I had to Google these clubs, were definitely not cut from the same cloth. And in general black Americans are not getting treated differently here in modern day, nobody gives a shyt about Americans most people find the accent annoying (in the black community).

Like I said you ain't from England, you don't know the history of race relations over here outside of text on a screen. I've lived it through my own experiences and my families.

All of a sudden were defending white devil narrative

 

[WaveGang]

The British colonisers are somehow so loving and welcoming of Black men in Britain

Its like one min we are on the same page that white supremacy is global and then the next it's "but the source said..."

I'm convinced some of these guys itt are white.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I knew hints of this but hadn't heard all these details. Great post OP.

 

[invalid]

But true say coz were actually English we can fact check this

You haven't fact checked anything. You haven't posted any sources that prove that the locals treated black american soldiers otherwise.

My point is that narrative of hosts being welcoming is false.

For that reason the whole narrative of warm hosts just sounds like some super bs.

That shyt is simply not true.

Like I said you ain't from England, you don't know the history of race relations over here outside of text on a screen.

These false narratives makes black people believe that racism is lesser overseas.

Racism was lesser overseas for black Americans. That's a fact.

These are the accounts of black Americans soldiers stationed in England.

Spoiler

“A spark of light” ….Arthur Guest, black GI, sergeant with the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion.

"kind of humanity and brief equality"

"It was a surprise for many African Americans to be treated as equals.

"That for many of them was an amazing experience and one which was going to remain with them for the rest of their lives."

"first decent experience of white people I'd ever had"

“My time in England was the first time I had really felt free in my life”

“we had open wars, especially in the dance halls and various places of entertainment, with the local Whites as back up on our side…we got along very well indeed.”

City's role in US civil rights fight

If black Americana didn't receive a warm reception by the locals, explain these pictures:

^^This would have never happened in America^^

I'm not negating you and your families experience. I agree that black immigrants faced an insurmountable amount of racism in England.

But it doesn't make you an authority on the black American experience. Especially when we have first hand accounts and records from OUR own soldiers.

Explain this 1988 article in the New York Times regarding the black soldiers time in England:

Spoiler

BLACKS IN BRITAIN, 1942

WHEN JIM CROW MET JOHN BULL Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain. By Graham Smith. 265 pp. New York: St. Martin's Press. $24.95.

From the vantage point of nearly half a century, it is hard to remember that in World War II, the United States military was almost as segregated as the American South, whence came a disproportionate share of its leaders. Although blacks' involvement in wars and uprisings dated back to the Boston Massacre, their participation was limited.

For the most part, blacks were kept in so-called service units; they were diggers of holes, servers of food, hewers of wood and drawers of water. To be sure, there were a small number of black fighting units that had distinguished themselves, but their combat records were considered by the generals and most white politicians to be at best a fluke and at worst overrated.

Beginning in 1942, as plans were being made to bomb and then invade Hitler's Fortress Europe, American soldiers arrived in strength in Britain. The early arrivals in Britain would be, in large number, black troops whose first tasks were to build barracks and mess halls, airstrips and hangars. It is the story of these black soldiers' impact on Britain and Britain's impact on them that Graham Smith, a British researcher and historian, tells in ''When Jim Crow Met John Bull,'' an informative and important book.

Mr. Smith cites studies by the British Government and the BBC to the effect that large numbers of Britons were unaware of the realities of American race relations in 1942 - a naivete that was erased in a short time. The British Government's attitude, moreover, was that the alliance with America would take priority over any qualms of social conscience.

And if the British did not seek concessions in United States racial policies, certainly none were given by the Americans. As Mr. Smith notes, aside from a few highly placed black advocates (Eleanor Roosevelt most notably), the official American view was that maintaining the mili-tary and social status quo was necessary for the more immediate problem of winning the war.

The result of this marriage of prejudice and expediency was nasty. The United States military, backed by most of the British civil powers, was concerned that British hospitality toward black soldiers would make postwar segregation difficult. In Mr. Smith's words, ''the liberties enjoyed by the black GI in Britain, including to some extent the freedom to associate with white women,'' was seen by blacks as a ''challenge, [ while ] for many whites it was a threat.''

Indeed, the British Government appeared keenly aware of this political problem. Mr. Smith quotes James Grigg, the Secretary for War, as stating in 1942 that the ''coloured troops themselves probably expect to be treated in this country as in the United States, and a markedly different treatment might well cause political difficulties at the end of the war.''

The Americans thus continued segregation and rough-and-ready justice among a population that increasingly resented it. As British protests increased against severe punishments meted out to black soldiers for even relatively minor infractions of regulations, hazing by the military police and some de facto segregation in British villages, American determination to crack down increased along with it.

That approach worked as well as it usually works, and attitudes hardened. The British grew more impatient with white Americans, and black resentment boiled over into racial incidents, including the 1943 full-scale race riot in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, which undoubtedly was influenced by the Detroit race riots of a few days earlier.

Mr. Smith has meticulously researched this sad chapter in United States history, and his book is gracefully written. He inevitably comes to two conclusions. First, he writes, ''The cold war with Russia made the segregated American Army too easy a propaganda target, and Harry Truman was determined to end this. By the middle of 1948 he pronounced that there should be equality of treatment and opportunity in the forces.'' By the next war, in Korea, there was integration in Army units.

In Britain, however, the experience with American blacks, which should have prepared the nation for its postwar influx from former colonies and Commonwealth countries, was all but forgotten, and the rage of Bamber Bridge still echoes in the cities of England.

BLACKS IN BRITAIN, 1942

The article atates:

"In Britain, however, the experience with American blacks, which should have prepared the nation for its postwar influx from former colonies and Commonwealth countries, was all but forgotten, and the rage of Bamber Bridge still echoes in the cities of England."

Which means, black Americans enjoyed a warm enough reception, that wasn't extended to postwar immigrants coming in from British territories, who presently echo the rage those black GIs felt against their own white compatriots at Bamber Bridge.

So you are right about you and your people's experiences, but those experiences weren't uniform across the board.

I also stated that I have my own families experiences. One of which I forgot was of my 4th Great Grandfather who proclaimed in his autobiography "I was protected by the British lion, so that there was no fear of my being taken from his watchful eyes and powerful claws" - as he escaped as a slave into British North American territory.

This is the account of his visit to England in 1891.

Spoiler

In 1891, Reverend Hawkins traveled to England on a speaking tour to solicit donations to help fugitives establish new lives in Ontario and to speak for Temperance.

When newspaper reporters asked him about his first impressions of England, he said, " When we
arrived in Liverpool we seemed to be in a fresh atmosphere, everything appeared so bright to us, and every hour since it has been growing brighter. Last night," he added, with a laugh, " I had to shake hands with so many kind friends that when I got to the hotel, I was obliged to have my right arm rubbed with an embrocation."

Reverend Hawkins spoke at the annual meeting of the British Temperance League at Exeter Hall, presided over by the Lord Bishop of London. He also spoke at Grosvenor House, the London residence of Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminister, at the fourth anniversary of the United Committee for the Prevention of the Demoralisation of Native Races by the Liquor Traffic. Baronets, divines, a colonial governor, Hindoos, Negroes, and crowd of ladies and gentlemen and the Duke himself presided over the meeting.

Besides expressing his pleasure at speaking at the meeting and gently teased the Duke of Westminster, Chairman of the meeting. He said:
"My Lord Duke, I find myself where I never expected to find myself. I can hardly realise it when I go back in my own mind to my past condition; and when I stand here to-day, and witness and listen to what I have seen and heard, I am almost ready to say it is a dream. My soul is filled beyond any way of expressing my feelings. Why, the word 'My Lord Duke,' I did not know the meaning of it. (Laughter.) I could not tell whether it was a man or what it was. (Loud laughter, in which the Chairman heartily joined.) I don't know what to say. It affords me great pleasure, and is an honour beyond description, to be present at this grand meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could say what I want to say, but there is something that springs up in my throat and chokes me, so that I can hardly speak. When I received an invitation to come here, I said to my wife: 'I don't think it is true'. I read something here--'second resolution'-- 'presided over by His Grace the Duke'; but it is so, I find it is true. “

The Bishop went on to detail the Temperance efforts of his denomination in Canada to “drive the drink out of the land.”

S.J. Celestine Edwards, the Bishop’s biographer, noted that the Duchess of Westminster who sat in front of the platform gazed at the Bishop’s face and beamed as he spoke. The Bishop’s oratory style featured keen wit, biting sarcasm, quaint sayings and meaningful personal experience.

On another day, the Bishop delivered a lecture he called “Escape from Slavery”, so full of humour, pathos, and irony that people alternately laughed and cried, clapped and sat silently. After he told his stark tale of slave life, he closed with a song that he wrote called, “I’m bound for Canada.”

His friends reported that Bishop Hawkins tended to be reticent, but agreeable in private and told splendid stories with encouragement. He had a hearty laugh, and he sang remarkably well for his age. His biographer S.J. Celestine Edwards wrote that “If he had lived in the reign of Charles I, we think he would have been a Royalist, such is his intense reverence for our sovereign.”

Biographer Edwards wrote that “Bishop Hawkins has made many friends in England, and we sincerely hope that the object for which he came will be fully realised. He has done his race good both in Canada and in England; and, although we have not long known the grand old saint, we feel, as well as wish, it were in our power to do more than put this sketch of his long and eventful life together. We trust that his sanctity, firmness, good temper, and patience (which have won laurels for him in his persevering efforts for the spiritual and moral elevation of his race) will influence the younger generation of the sons of Africa wherever his life is read.” *

Many black Americans received a warm reception in England while England was simultaneously not extending that hospitality to black subjects of its former colonies. Both of us can be right.

 

[Robo Squirrel]

In.

 

[BaggerofTea]

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you and your families experience may have been different from that of an Americans.

You realized that only showed black americans respect because they were warfighters that had to free their asses