Anna Boyne
Racism in Britain was never as bad as the US or South Africa. At least we never had segregation.
Well, British segregation was never institutionalised.
In the 1950s and 60s “racial discrimination was spoken of as something that only ‘rough’ or disrespectable people would do openly” Rob Waters (2023), p. 58.
Instead, the colour bar was an informal type of racial discrimination that excluded non-white people from social spaces, employment and accommodation. It was never legalised but nonetheless had detrimental impacts on the everyday lives of immigrants.
An international problem
For the most part, UoN student journalists reported on the colour bar as an international problem- one that didn’t really exist in Britain.
The Gongster was UoN’s original student newspaper established in 1939. It covered South Africa’s apartheid extensively- as did Bias (rebranded in 1978) and Impact from 1985.
Racial segregation was not legalised in South Africa until 1948, yet Gongster writers were already discussing it in 1946. The double page spread had been sparked by a recent film ‘Men of Two Worlds’ which brought to light South African segregation.
The Gongster 13 December 1946
One writer’s solution exposed his underlying racism: “We must learn to appreciate the black man’s attitude, as well as teaching him to read and write.”
He also suggested inequalities in Britain should be given priority: “Finally, lest we get unduly excited about the conditions under which our black brothers live, we can see how our white brothers live in luxury by taking a gentle stroll along Sneiton Road.”
For a Gongster writer in 1946, South Africa concerned the British because it had been a colonial territory.
“I prefer to leave the colour question in the USA on one side. It is none of our business.” R. G. (1946)
Nonetheless, US segregation took centre stage in other student articles.
One student reviewed his recent trip to Virginia and the Carolina’s which were “unfortunately the strongholds of the colour bar, and the negroes are to be seen everywhere performing manual labour to the virtual exclusion of the white man. All waiting rooms, cafes and buses have separate portions for whites and coloureds, and segregation is still practised extensively in social and educational spheres.”
Nottingham housing
The colour bar first came to the Gongster’s attention in 1949 thanks to some investigative journalism by student Arthur S. M. Clarke.
The Gongster 20 May 1949
He called out discrimination which gave domestic students priority over internationals in being allocated on-campus halls of accommodation. Clarke suggested black students faced greater discrimination than international students from other countries.
“Out of some fifteen African students in the University (nine of whom are freshmen) only one is resident in Hall. This proportion compares unfavourably with that accorded to overseas students from other parts.”
“As coloured students face peculiar difficulties in obtaining accommodation and in getting used to the conditions here, they should have priority over all other applicants during their first year in this country. After that they should be treated on exactly the same basis as English students.”
Outside of a university setting, only the year prior, a group of Jamaicans were attacked by fellow hostel residents in Castle Donnington. The hostel had provided accommodation for WWII and postwar reconstruction workers.
Bringing to light this incident, historian Kevin Searle argues the hostilities towards the Jamaicans had actually been provoked by resentment of them approaching white women in social spaces. Searle also pointed out that the proposed solutions included transferring the Jamaicans elsewhere and setting a quota for a maximum of three West Indians per hostel.
Quota setting was a commonplace method of framing immigration as a ‘problem’ which justified control. This was often based on deductive and dehumanising language of numbers.
Gongster writer Clarke also picked up on the prolific quantification of immigration: “the number of places allocated to overseas students- European as well as non-European- is strictly limited on a quota basis.”
In 1951, UoN student Mr de Leon unsuccessfully suggested boycotting landladies who discriminated against black students at the Student Union AGM.
The Gongster reported: “Mr de Leon’s motion aroused a good deal of disagreement; it is generally felt that although the problem existed Mr de Leon’s method would not solve it.”
“Mr Shine then complained of an emotional attitude towards racial discrimination which he found as distasteful as discrimination; we could not boycott landladies as lodgings were hard enough to obtain as it was.”
The housing colour bar persisted for decades and was often discussed at national student union meetings. However, its significance was usually downplayed.
In 1955, the Gongster reported that “Although the conference touched on all the problems of the overseas student- choice of college and course, finance, accommodation, health, settling down, colour prejudice- the keynote was undoubtedly struck by Miss Trevelyan when she asserted that overseas students have no wish to be embarrassed by special treatment… Thus the colour bar was touched on only very briefly.”
Over a decade later, the 1969 conference found that: “Many students are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain accommodation. This particularly affects the coloured student. But the NUS quite properly showed great concern for all those seeking housing. The Conference condemned the acute housing problems existing in many cities.”
The colour bar also operated beyond campuses. A sociologist in 1987 found that “black people tend to wait longer for housing, are more likely to be allocated poorer property and more frequently end up on less desirable estates.” Building societies sometimes refused to loan money and estate refused to sell houses to black people.
Employment
The Gongster 23 November 1967
In his 1951 housing boycott proposal, UoN student Mr de Leon referenced previous boycotts against discriminatory student employers.
An article in 1967 also discussed racial bias in employment. The Gongster reported: “Out of 30 job applications, the survey found 27 cases of discrimination against the coloured applicants, only 13 against the (Hungarian) white non-English applicants; again, 45 cases of discrimination against coloured applicants for houses out of 60 tries.”
They also noted job advertisements were often accompanied with signs saying ‘English only’ and ‘No coloureds need apply.’
South Africa as the British benchmark
South Africa continued to function as a reference point for British racism throughout the mid 20th century.
One Gongster article deplored the colour bar in pubs, using the headline ‘Nottingham and the new ‘Apartheid’ Bill.’
“It was thought that a pub in St Ann’s practised a colour bar. A group that formed itself into the Anti-Colour Bar Campaign went to test these allegations. The Whites were served and the Blacks were not. When a White brought a beer for a Black, the drink was snatched back and poured away by a barman. Here was a clear case of discrimination within the meaning of the [Race Relations] act.”
The fight against South African apartheid also played out on Nottinghamshire sports pitches. With a long history of protest, residents seized the occasion when South African touring teams played in Nottingham.
A 1966 Gongster opinion piece pointed out: “The attitude of the South African government towards all sporting events is well known. Not only will it not compete against coloured teams, but it will not allow coloured South Africans to be members of any kind of representative team.”
“The British position over this is difficult to understand. We abhor a franchise which is based on coloured discrimination, why do we tolerate it in sport?”
In 1967, the student sports union voted to forbid members from playing against racially segregated teams.
And in 1970, student joined locals to protest a cricket match at Trent Bridge against the South Africans.
Non-white immigrants undoubtedly faced access barriers, especially in jobs, social spaces and housing. Reporting by UoN’s Gongster upsets the idea that Britain warmly welcomed its Windrush immigrants, and that it could condemn segregation as a foreign problem (albeit a consequence of British colonialism).
It was perhaps not so much a bar but a colour wall.
Anna Boyne
This article is part of a series examining how UoN print media fit or contradicted the Windrush narrative. To read the other articles, please click the tag ‘Windrush Project’ below.
Best efforts have been made to contact the original authors who retain copyright. If they come forward and would like articles to be removed, then they will be taken down.
Other articles in this series…
- How Impact Told the Windrush Story
- Out, Out, Disembowel Enoch Powel!
- Roots in Boots, Blaxploitation and the Marcus Garvey
- The Colour of Justice: Stephen Lawrence
Bibliography
Primary sources
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 13/12/1946 pp. 20-21.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 20/05/1949 p. 4.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 6/05/1955, Joe Watson’s America View.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 15/11/1951 Poor Attendance at Annual General Meeting.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 6/05/1955 WUS Exeter Conferences.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 10/02/1966 p. 7.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 19/10/1967 p. 3.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 23/11/1967 p. 6.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 4/12/1969 ‘Bloody Students’ at Margate.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 14/05/1970 p. 3.
University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham Collection; os.X.Periodicals Not 5.G14.8 .F48, The Gongster 25/02/1971 p. 3.
Secondary sources
Brunsdon, C., (ed.), Writings on Media: History of the Present (London, 2021).
Searle, K., “Mixing of the unmixables’: the 1949 Causeway Green ‘riots’ in Birmingham’, Race & Class 54/3 (2013), pp. 44-64.
Thomas, H., Race and Planning: The UK Experience (London, 2000).
Waters, R., Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire (Oxford, 2023).
