June 1943 - African American Soldiers Mutiny

[RedAnarchist]

Bamber Bridge is my home village in Lancashire. I've got some information about African-American soldiers mutinied agasint rascist white american soldiers in June 1942 in Bamber Bridge.

The United States Army experienced similar situations that led them on a path of desegregation. In June 1943, the United States Army Eighth Air Force, stationed in Bamber Bridge, England, experienced a racial incident that forced commanders of the Eighth Air Force to re-evaluate the role of the black soldier in the Eighth Air Force. Two white military policemen accosted a number of black soldiers for not wearing proper uniforms in a Bamber Bridge pub. The confrontation led to rock and bottle throwing, which, in turn, led to gunfire that subsequently wounded two black soldiers. When word of the incident spread, black soldiers reacted by blatantly disobeying their superior officers. Black non-commissioned officers armed themselves and rode into Bamber Bridge, discharging their weapons at military personnel and vehicles.
(http://www.msba.org/departments/commpubl/publications/bar_bult/2003/feb03/crow.htm)

People in Bamber Bridge at the time were told to allow people of one race only to enter pubs and shops - so they put up signs saying "blacks only"! :lol:

This story shows that rascism was becoming less acceptable in Europe, but America still lagged behind.

People in Lancashire didint help the South in the American Civil War - they went hungry rather than spin redneck cotton.


(http://www.americancivilwar.org.uk/meet_reps/meet_11_03.htm)

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2004, 03:43 AM
This story shows that rascism was becoming less acceptable in Europe, but America still lagged behind.
As Orwell pointed out at the time, Brits (and French, etc.) overseas could be just as racist as Americans...the difference in attitude was simply because race wasn't an internal issue in Britain. It is now, and the European imperialist powers have, today, no reason to brag about their superiority over U.S. imperialism on this score.

An interesting bit of history about resistance by Black soldiers, though, and thanks for it. In many ways, the civil rights movement emerged from WWII and continued through the 50s before peaking in the 60s. The experiences of Black soldiers and of Black workers who got into industry thanks to the wartime labor shortage, the March on Washington Movement and other struggles during the war, the blatant hypocrisy of a war supposedly against fascism waged by an openly racist army and a government which denied Black people basic democratic rights, etc.


People in Lancashire didint help the South in the American Civil War - they went hungry rather than spin redneck cotton.

The Confederacy wasn't run by rednecks. On the contrary, hill country areas populated by poor white farmers mostly voted against secession - see Marx and Engels on the U.S. for some stats - and in West Virginia "rednecks" actually seceded from the Confederacy to join the Union. In some other poor white areas there were rebellions against the Confederacy which were put down -the "Free State of Winston" in north Alabama for example.

[Cal]

Excellent use of a Lancashire town,

I'm making it my mission in life (well tomorrow) to find some further examples in Cumbria