Postwar demobilization in Britain ousted black workers and triggered 1919 race riots.
Evidence
When the war ended the black community in Britain was quite large, perhaps as numerous as 20,000 souls, and with the closing down of war factories they flocked to dockside areas, particularly Cardiff and Liverpool. During the war, black sailors had earned good money in the merchant navy, but with the demobilization of white sailors who had been serving in the Royal Navy, the blacks fell on hard times as they were discarded to make way for the demobilized whites. Blacks were expelled from jobs they had held for years just to make places for white men. … Resentment at blacks competing for jobs with white workers, and reaction to black men marrying white women, finally erupted into racial violence in 1919. Race riots swept such British cities and towns as Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester, London, Hull, Barry, and Newport, Mon. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2379
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
Related
- World War I demobilization triggered 1919 anti-Black race riots across British cities. (similarity 0.94)
- Postwar Northern unions expelled Black workers from skilled trades (similarity 0.80)
- 1919 British labor leaders saw working-class education as fueling revolt against authority (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Foundational workers’ histories erased Black presence from the English working class
#expands(0.45) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1546