Black 1919 – Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain

During the 1919 port riots—in Glasgow, London, Liverpool, and Cardiff, among other cities—crowds of working-class whites targeted black workers, their families, their businesses, and their property. These riots were a manifestation of global unrest that affected Britain, parts of its empire, continental Europe, and North American during and after the wake of the economic struggles engendered by World War I. This volume reconsiders the economic and social causes of the riots and their impact on Britain’s relationship with its empire and its colonial subjects, especially the effects of repatriation and the longer-term consequences for the black British workers and their families.