The Brown in Black Power: Militant South Asian Organizing in Post-War Britain

Inspired by its rise in the US, immigrants in Britain adopted the slogan “Black Power” to unite people of colour against this racism. Black Power in the US and other parts of the world was defined as the assertion of black identity for people of African descent, historically oppressed through slavery, colonization and anti-black racism, in order to fight colonialism and racial discrimination. Black Power groups spread the cultural message of pride and resistance for black people. A black consciousness in Britain, however, was imagined more broadly, defining “blackness” as a political identity for people who shared a history of oppression under Western imperialism and who were now being treated as second class citizens in Britain. But this formulation was not about effacing the substantial differences between immigrant communities; rather it assumed that the only way to confront their common oppression by white Britain was by coming together. “Black”, for them, was a political identity, one to unite African and Caribbean immigrants with South Asians in order to wage a united front of resistance.

South Asians who arrived in the UK carried with them the consciousness and legacy of anti-colonial struggles in the Indian subcontinent. Many brought their anti-imperialist politics with them and saw the struggle against racism in the metropole as a continuation of their struggles in the colonies. They were confronting one and the same colonial project.

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