Race and Immigration Revision

Aliens Act 1919

immigrants must aqquire a work permit in before arrival register with the police and maintain lawful behaviour to avoid deportation.

Anti-Semitism towards Jews

Jews fleeing Nazi prosecution in the 1930’s - most violent act of hatred was the Battle of Cable Street.

Sense of superiority

Non-whites only portrayed from sotries or photographs and the press about the British Empire before the 1950’s - led to people having a sense of superiority over people of colour.

1920 and 1925 Special Restriction (Coloured Seamen Act)

forced coloured seamen to register as aliens - have to produce documentary proof of Britain citizenship; failure to do so = arrested and disembarked. As ‘aliens’ they must regularly check in with the police and risked deportation if they failed to do so.

WW1 = larger influx of coloured sailors

go to port cities e.g. Cardiff and Liverpool where they commonly received open racism

Indian Seamen’s Union 1926

Go on strike and are allowed to apply to Home Office to revoke their alien status

Race Riots 1919

Resentful unemployed men - 74,000 black and Asians attacked.

1919 - Charles Wotten

24 year old black sailor chased by a white mob into River Mersey where he was pelted with stones and lynched.

Council + League formed in 1931 to protect black + Asian people

Joint Council to promote the Understanding between White and Coloured People in Britain - middle class liberals who sought to fight individuals fight instances of racial discrimination and raise money for struggling Black and Asian families in Britain.

Shapurji Saklatavala

Indian communist elected for MP in North Battersea from 1924-29

figures 1918-25

• In Cardiff white violence led to three deaths, and over £3,000 property damage

• Wages a report presented in the House of Commons by MP Neil McClean 1919 shows that white chefs where paid £20 a month a Asian chefs on £5

• between 1934-35 League of Coloured People reported that 80% of Black and Asian men had been unemployed for a prolonged period - compared to 30% of white men

Education and Health

• 50 People from West Africa, 150 from Caribbean and similar no. from India were educated in Britain’s top universities during interwar period

• Br policy makers hoped people would come to Britain for an education and leave

Was WWII a turning point in immigration to Britain

YES

• W. Indian men had mode connections + links w/ Britain + sought to return

• Labour shortage - war caused damage to Br infrastructure + created job opportunities for W. Indians (skilled aspirational young men)

• Led to passing of the Br Nationality Act 1948

• People from Commonwealth experience ‘wider world’ and want more

NO

• US makes it more challenging to move there and so Br becomes a more viable option

• American racial issues as a deterrent - compared to Br portrayed as a more liberal/tolerant society

• Job opportunities because of post-war prosperity → NHS, transport, bus drivers etc + Br commitment to full employment

• Nationality Act is more far reaching than the war.

Working right

Interwar period - 1919 following demobilisation of Br Army - explosion of racist violence across Britain

In Cardiff, Newport, Glasgow, Salford, Hull and London.

• angry mobs attack Black and Asian people that they considered foreign and without the right to jobs

• Limehouse = four days of white rioting

• Cardiff = three deaths and 3000 in property damage

• ‘colour bar’ 1920’s and 30’s de facto - refused employment and service in hotels or restaurants etc.

• National unions fight for the rights of white workers to take the jobs of ‘coloured’ workers - e.g. National Union of Seamen

• 1919 Liverpool white workers on strike leads to sacking of 120 Black workers

• NUS campaigns lead to new laws that place all black and Asian people under threat of deportation (Alien Orders Act 1920 + Special restrictions act 1925)

Who was Harold Moody?

Jamaican civil rights activist

• unable to gain work as a physician becuase of his race

• set up his own practice in 1913

• 1931 = founder of the League of Coloured people - president until his death

• Fought for the lifting of the colour bar, fair wages

Immigration acts

1962,68 + 71

• Commonwealth immigration Act end large scale immigration - must have a job voucher to enter Br

• Commonwealth immigration act 68 - tighter restrictions

• Immigration act 1971 - partial and non-partial racial catagories

consequences

mass migration + radicalism

Race relations act 1965, 68 and 76

1965 - outlaws colour bar + establishes race relations board

1968 - outlaw discrimination in housing + unemployment + establishes Community Relations committee

1976 - Indirect discrimination outlawed + Commission for racial equality created

more trying to prove they are helping than enforcing it

Enoch Powell

Rivers of Blood Speech - 20 April 1968

mass migration and antiracist laws mean white people have less rights than Black and Asian people

74% agree

1,000 dock workers march carrying placards reading ‘don’t knock Enoch’

Sacked from Shadow cabinet by Heath

White violence

Black and Asian men who dated white woemn often subjected to beatings by white men

Black and Asian people more likely to be proesecuted for crimes

Colour Bar in 1950s

Unofficial colour bar period after second ww

businesses such as ford give 95% of jobs to white people + strikers in Wolverhampton strike because of breach of 5% rule

Notting Hill riots

1958 - most notorious attack against black people

over several nights mobs of 300 to 700 white men armed with iron bars, knives and heab=vy leather belts beat black residents of Notting Hill chanting ‘Keep Britain White!’

Police did little to stop attacks

Bristol Bus boycott

Omnibus companty refuse to hire any black or asian wokrers leads to 4 month boycott before ban is lifted