Colonial color bars denied even middle-class Black men war service

Evidence

James was underage but he attempted to volunteer for the war effort (but in the Merchants’ and Planters’ Contingent): “Young man after young man went in [to the volunteers’ office], and I was not obviously inferior to any of them in anything. The merchant talked to each, asked for references and arranged for further examination as the case might be. When my turn came I walked to his desk. He took one look at me, saw my dark skin and, shaking his head vigorously, motioned me violently away.” “What matters is that I was not unduly disturbed.” James, Beyond a Boundary, op. cit., p. 40. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2347

Categorization

• XREF: The direct experience of exclusion from imperial citizenship is a familiar trigger point in the radicalization arc of figures like James.