When Jim Crow Met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain

by Graham Smith

An important chapter in the history of World War II is here explored for the first-time -- how the arrival of the black troops strained war-time Anglo-American relations, upset elements of the British political and military establishments and brought Britons face to face with social and sexual issues they had never raced before. This book, drawing on previously unpublished new material, covers an important but neglected dimension of diplomatic relations in World War II. As well as providing critical insights into the thinking of many leading political and military figures of the period, it paints an original and invaluable portrait of wartime Britain and its confrontation with the issue of race. It is a tale rich in human dignity -- and in instances of tragicomic hypocrisy.

265 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1987

Reviews

[Brendan Newport · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was read for research purposes. Normally that means such books, particularly academic ones, are a little dry and dull. Not When Jim Crow Met John Bull; Graham Smith wrote in a very assured style, and although packed with references and a thorough bibliography, it doesn't read as a normal academic history. Yet there's no assertions made that are thoroughly backed-up with evidence. The readability goes hand-in-hand with accuracy.

This book was a bit of an eye-opener for me. Though I was aware of the US segregation of the 20th century, and the jim crow laws, I don't think I ever rightly appreciated just how embedded they were in US society, particularly in the southern States.

The US entered WWII as a combatant on December 8th 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Second World War had two nations engaged who practised racial segregation - one was Nazi Germany, the other, the United States.

The problem for the US was that, though it was the southern, Democrat Party-controlled States that exercised racial segregation/jim crow, if you were a Black serviceman from a norther, Republican Party State, you served in a racially-segregated environment; the USAAF, US Army, US Navy & Marines were segregated and operated jim crow.

For someone born in Britain, or probably from anywhere else in the western world other than the US, America's commitment to racial segregation is a bit incomprehensible. No other nation practised it (other than Nazi Germany, against the Jews). Yet racial segregation is a key element in the political and social make-up of US society, culture & politics. Democratic Party US President Biden was opposed to desegregation in 1975 and supported a school anti-busing amendment to a Federal bill. The amendment was proposed by Democratic Party Senator Jesse Helms (North Carolina) an arch segregationist and regarded by most as a racist. Biden had also supported another anti-busing amendment by Democratic Party Senator Robert Byrd (West Virginia) who had been a recruiter for the KKK and risen to the rank of 'kleagle' and 'exalted cyclops' of his local chapter. Biden had also worked with Democratic Party Senator and leading racial segregationist James Eastland (Mississippi) who regarded African Americans as "an inferior race" and was referred-to as the "Voice of the White South".

Although Biden's history might seem shocking to those outside the US, it isn't really that out-of-step with US political and cultural history. The Democratic Party still encourages segregationists (Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu for instance) and many US universities maintain segregationist policies. If anything segregationists are winning these days, though they often use the term 'affinity groups' to try to get under-the-radar. Alabama Governor George Wallace, famous for his "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" inaugural speech in January 1963 typified Democratic Party opposition to integration and the civil rights movement.

That might seem shocking to some, but jim crow and segregation are melded into US history as much as its slave-owning past. That though is the US. The problem occured when US forces were sent to Allied countries. And in doing so, the US went to battle as jim crow, segregated services. When Jim Crow Met John Bull investigates what the impact of that was on Great Britain.

Graham Smith begins with a brief summary of what happened when US Black soldiers (as labourers mostly, though some artillery officers) in The Great War. Bypassing Britain altogether, those troops were sent to France with the US government and senor military desperate to persuade the French to regard Blacks as inferior (the then US President - Woodrow Wilson was a Democratic Party member) driven by a fear that would return to the US with a desire to challenge segregation/jim crow. The effort failed utterly, typified by this quote (page 11);

Despite the vehemence of American instructions, and their regularity, the French populace ignored the white American view and afforded the black soldier and equality he had not known before. W.E.B. Du Bois, the black academic, argued in The Crisis, the journal of the nascent NAACP, that in a 'thousand delicate ways the French expressed their silent disapprobation...A new, radical Negro spirit had been born in France, which leaves us older radicals far behind. Thousands of young black men have offered their lives for the Lillies of France and they return ready to offer them again for the Sun-flower of Afro-America.

So was the US black civil-rights movement born from the return of US Black servicemen from France in 1918? Smith suggests so.

Yet the pro-segregationist arguments that were to be employed in WWII were first seen in The Great War. White segregationists spread their fears of their overriding dread of sex relations between black men and white women, of venereal disease, of fears that white women would be raped.

Despite the fears that the returning soldiers would cause dissent and revolution, the US remained firmly wedded to jim crow in the inter-War years (page 15);

'Lynchings continued: of the 454 who died in the USA in this way between 1918 and 1927, 416 (including three pregnant women) were black. In addition the anti-Semitic, anti-black Ku-Klux-Klan grew apace and jim-crow legislation remained.

With the entry of the US into WWII, the initial suggestion was that the problems encountered in The Great War would be best addressed by not sending Black serviceman to foreign shores. The NAACP though has challenged this in 1940. Although initially suggesting that segregation/jim crow would be rescinded, Democratic Party US President Franklin D Roosevelt was minded to maintain it, and US services went to war segregated.

Straightaway this caused issues, beginning with the leasing of Commonwealth Caribbean bases to the US in return for Lend-Lease. With white and Black US servicemen now engaging with the local populations, the nature of segregation and the always-present racism of white southern-state servicemen resulted in violence and prejudice.

That should have been a warning for the wartime British Government, but it wasn't heeded. As segregated Black servicemen entered Great Britain, initially through Northern Ireland and then directly into counties and boroughs, rather than make it clear to the US government that jim crow was not going to be adopted in Britain, the Churchill government did something shocking; it did adopt jim crow.

This is Graham Smith's key finding, and it's backed with the relevant sources and Cabinet papers. Despite huge reservations and objections, Churchill (as Prime Minister) oversaw the exercising of jim crow in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Individual towns were identified as being 'whites-only', or 'blacks-only'. Some venue, such as pubs and cinemas in towns like Yeovil and Diss, actually enabled segregation.

Yet the general public wasn't provided any guidance to suggest that jim crow was to be followed, and although the likes of Nye and Aneurin Bevan prominently ignored the segregation of Black servicemen in Britain, there were plenty of dissenting voices to ensure that Churchill's government was never officially seen to be endorsing jim crow.

For all those efforts though, the predominantly white British public embraced the Black G.I.'s in a similar fashion to the French in The Great War (though the French government at-the-time had also made their opposition clear). WIth the brilliance of 'Mass Observation' and the establishing of The Home Office Intelligence Unit, the government was able to garner the impressions and opinions the public had on a range of subjects. From pages 118 & 119;

...All this evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the blacks were warmly welcomed to Britain, and the action of the white Americans in furthering a color bar was roundly condemned. Stories about black Americans, which probably had their origins in truth, assumed the status of popular myths. Everywhere, it was reported, pubs were displaying signs reading, 'For British people and coloured Americans only'. Similarly bus conductresses in all parts of the country were said to be telling the blacks not to give up their seats to whites as 'they were in England' now. Probably the most popular story came from a West Country farmer. When asked about the visitors he replied: 'I love the Americans but I don't like these white ones they've brought with them'.

That goodwill took a bit of a dent as the War went on, not least because of the efforts of racist white US servicemen and officers who tried to sow discontent and distain for the Black G.I.'s. Churchill's Government though remained firmly behind segregation and through its concerns about 'brown babies' even the jim crow anti-interracial marriage laws practised by the southern States. Throughout the War the UK Government played fast-and-loose with the traditions of British social justice of-the-time, whilst the public themselves, and the typical British 'Tommie' ignored that tendency to the fullest. Never before had the inclinations of the British public been so at odds with those of the government.

I have only touched on some of the history presented by Graham Smith. There's a wonderful section on how the 'brown babies' were treated by the British authorities and public, particularly after Democratic Party Senator John Rankin of Mississippi, known for his particular brand of Americanism encompassed white supremacy, anti-Semitism, union-baiting and hatred of all things foreign made his opposition to the idea that they could be adopted in the US clear.

Despite the issues encountered, including outbreaks of violence in English towns and cities are varied as Leicester, Chipping Norton, Bristol, Newbury and Bamber Bridge, the USA finished WWII still with segregated armed services, practising the jim crow laws. Even though Black combat units had been formed (and served with distinction) in the last year of the War in Europe, and the US had defeated a regime that had practised inherent racism (Nazi Germany) there were plenty of Democratic Party senators opposed to any effort to desegregate (page 225).

The very notion that the Army might be contemplating some measure of integration was too much for one aspiring young politician, Robert C. Byrd from West Virginia, a Ku-Klux-Klan member in his youth, and much later the Democratic leader in the Senate, expressed his grave concern. He urged Theodore Bilbo, the (Democratic Party) extremist senator for Mississippi to exert any influence he could over General Eisenhower:

I hope that our Army 'bigwigs' will not attempt to use the military as an instrument for experimenting with the race problem. Integration of the Negro into White regiments is the very thing for which the Negro intelligentsia is striving and such a move would serve only to lower the efficiency of the fighting units and the morale of the average white service man as well.

Current President Biden would of course late collaborate with Senator Robert C. Byrd, continuing a long political tradition. In the autumn of 1946 there was evidence of increased Ku-Klux-Klan activity in southern States.

It took a Republican Party US President to kill US armed forces segregation and its use of jim crow laws.

Harry Truman, the 33rd US President, who followed Roosevelt after his death, enacted Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948 which 'abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin' in the United States Armed Forces' and the Federal government. He issued this in response to an attack on the Black American soldier and World War II veteran Isaac Woodard just hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army. He was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind.

President Truman went on to make a historic speech to the NAACP and the nation in June 1947 in which he described civil rights as a moral priority. He proposed a civil rights bill, but the segregationist/jim crow/KuKluxKlan-dominated Democratic Party in The Senate refused his call. 16 years later that cabal was still operating, filibusting JFK's effort to get the Civil Rights Act through The Senate. After JFK's assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson (like JFK a liberal Democratic Party President) pushed the bill forward. The House of Representatives passed the bill on February 10, 1964, and after a 72-day filibuster, once again by Democratic Party senators, the Bill passed in US law. The last jim crow-era State law was finally removed off the Oregon State statute book (established by the Democratic Party administration in the 1930s) in 2019.

Who though was/is Graham Smith?

In the inside cover of When Jim Crow met John Bull there’s a brief note Graham Smith is a British researcher and historian. He has broadcast extensively on Black Studies in both Britain and the United States.

The book’s publisher was taken-over by Bloomsbury, who doesn’t maintain a biography of Smith. A Google search reveals numerous candidate “Graham Smith’s’ but I can’t find the ‘one’.

So, five-stars from me. It's a fabulous history book, not least because it reveals a history of my nation I knew nothing about. The British public, pretty much unwavering in their support for the Black G.I.'s provide a positive view of 'The Greatest Generation'. Churchill, and his coalition wartime Government? Eh, well, you likely won't be left with a good view. And the views expressed and sometimes enabled into practise by that Government and some members of the armed services likely impacted negatively on future British history and social policy, particularly when Britain's chronic labour shortage was being addressed by the Windrush generation. Churchill played a dangerous game with US racial segregation and it could easily have blown-up in his face (and benefited Nazi Germany & Japan) if black Commonwealth servicemen & women had found out about it.

[Jean Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

President Harry Truman desegregated the American armed forces in 1948; but during World War Two the military was very much a segregated institution. The famous exploits of such groups as the Tuskegee Airmen often obscure the fact that, by and large, Black servicemen were relegated to behind-the-lines support jobs such as truck drivers, ammunition loaders, cooks and stewards, and the like—deemed more appropriate for them than for White enlisted men. Theirs were often the most dangerous jobs, and when accidents happened such as the Port Chicago ammunition-ship explosion in 1944, Black workers suffered the brunt of the casualties.

Graham Smith’s book discusses the complex dynamics governing the treatment of American Blacks stationed in Britain between 1942 and 1945. The British were not unused to the presence of Black people in their midst; although not numerous, they reflected the large numbers of citizens of color in the wide-ranging possessions of the British Empire in Africa and elsewhere (Ghana, Nigeria, British Somaliland, Barbados, Jamaica, elsewhere in the Caribbean, etc.), and widespread discrimination and/or segregation were unknown; slavery had been abolished in the Empire in the 1830’s.

However, when thousands of Black American servicemen began to flood into Britain along with their White counterparts in 1942 and especially later in the buildup to D-Day, the British were faced with a dilemma: as they observed the U.S. command’s efforts to continue segregation in an overseas setting, were they to respect the American desire for British citizens to also avoid associating with the Black soldiers (in contrast to their own cultural traditions and practices), or allow their people—especially women—to mingle freely with the dark-skinned soldiers and risk angering their American allies who were the key to their own survival?

This volume outlines how the attitudes and policies on both sides changed over time—in ways sometimes planned, but just as often arbitrary or capricious—and details the events influencing these changes. The American command never ceased trying to implement segregationist policies such as separate living and recreational facilities for Black soldiers; restricting Black attendance at pubs and theaters only to certain nights or hours in order to minimize contact with Whites; and discouraging any contact with the British populace. British officials, for their part, gave lip service—at best lukewarm—to these policies but in reality did little to persuade their citizens to avoid the Black Americans; they did not understand the “need” for segregation and by and large found it morally reprehensible.

What caused the greatest uneasiness on both sides were the “brown babies” born to Black Americans and British mothers—around 2000, according to the most reliable estimates. Thousands of women of course fraternized with White soldiers and there was no way to prevent similar contact with Black servicemen—the women saw no difference and many of them liked the Blacks better, seeing them as more courteous and gentlemanly. Of the examples of children born to these unions whose later history is detailed, most were raised in orphanages and some were adopted—but all found eventual acceptance in British society and went on to have families of their own. None migrated to America in search of their fathers; for integration into American society of the 1940’s would for them have been an almost insurmountable task.
In the final analysis, John Bull exhaled a great sigh of relief when Jim Crow returned home. There was little mutual understanding and a lingering awkwardness which pervaded relations between Americans and British over the presence of the Blacks, despite all efforts to the contrary. The overall British impression of America as a country was not helped by the knowledge that when the Black soldiers returned home they would face the very sort of discrimination and ostracism that the war was being fought to end. Perhaps this helps to explain the efforts made to integrate the “brown babies”—blameless innocents caught in the middle—into British society. This, at least, spread a bit of sunshine into what was otherwise a rather dark and depressing scenario.

***** review by Chuck Graham *****

[Local Colour · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the first and most important books on the subject of the Black GIs in WW II Britain, and a great read. Graham Smith's very well researched account of how British people dealt with the US and its segregated Army coming to town is really gripping and astonishing.

Uprisings against this racist segregation broke out in towns like Bristol and Leicester with fighting on the street between the black and white GIs. British people quickly sided with the black GIs who were often more polite and better behaved. They had to be because back in the Southern States
even looking at a white girl could get you lynched.

Graham Smith was well ahead of the curve in writing about this important Black British history in the 80s. The black population in Britain before the war was only around 8,000 to 10,000 people so this was Britains first big influx of people of colour.

Many had relationships with British women and approximately 2,000 'brown babies' were born in Britain during the war. Graham closes the book with a remarkably prescient warning to the future that anticipates The Windrush Scandal.

[Valerie]

This book is a little too ahistorical for my tastes. WWII may have been the first time African Americans traveled to Europe in such numbers, but it was scarcely the first contact between Europeans and English-speaking African Americans.

The British response to the arrival of many American soldiers in units that were still almost completely segregated by 'race' was far from simple. But it was also hardly unique. There were many African Americans, mostly in tank and engineering battalions, sent to Europe, and while most were based in Britain, they were scattered throughout Europe. It was often 'negro' battalions who liberated the concentration camps.

The description of the African-American troops as 'oversexed' is not particularly surprising. They were probably also too prone to drinking alcohol. They averaged about nineteen years old, and were often separated from very restrictive families and communities for the first time.

The same, of course, applies to the European-American soldiers. The point where stresses came about most severely were not between the ordinary people. There were doubtless stresses on the local level--there always are when combat soldiers are quartered in or near population centers. The main problem the book analyzes is between representatives of the Jim Crow segregated US societies and the British government. The British blamed the Americans for not keeping their soldiers immured on bases. The Americans blamed the British for not having a 'racially' segregated society. There were adjustments on both sides, but the real problem was not that the African Americans were more rambunctious than their European-American counterparts.

The real problem, as in WWI, was the refrain of the old song "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on The Farm/After they've seen Paree?" The farmer boys (and most Americans were farmers before the twentieth century) were mostly badly educated, poor, and very young,and even before the beginning of the twentieth century, they were rapidly becoming redundant. The situation was inherently unstable, and anybody with a modicum of foresight knew it. The impact that the exposure to different societies had on these adolescent farmboys did not create the problems--but it did present them in a different light to people who had thought that their problems were universal. Travel may broaden the mind, after all.

[Austen to Zafón]

WHY: Here is a facet of British WWII history I've not come across: The issues around bringing black American soldiers to Britain, which did not have Jim Crow segregation. White American soldiers and their leaders demanded that segregation be enforced in Britain during their stay. The results were apparently varied and not successful. I'm interested in reading this because I'm currently reading a novel about the experience of Jamaicans in Britain during and after WWII (Small Island). The author had listed this book in her bibliography of research resources.