Colour Bar (3 page)

‘Yes, there are penalties if one has a coloured skin, and hardly a day goes by without one being reminded of them,' observed Learie Constantine, the legendary cricketer from Trinidad, who had moved to Britain in 1929 and who had been employed as a welfare officer to care for West Indians arriving for work. In 1944, Constantine had sued Imperial Hotels in London for refusing him accommodation,
and successfully established a case of discrimination.
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‘Is there a Colour Bar?' asked the illustrated British weekly,
Picture Post
. The answer to this question, it argued, was a resounding
yes
. It reported the case of a man in Liverpool who had lived in five European countries and had been a British prisoner-of-war in Germany, but who knew of no European country where the ‘coloured' man was treated with more unofficial contempt than in Britain, from restaurant-keepers and landladies, employers and employees, even from the man in the street.
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The issue of the colour bar had been spotlighted by the arrival in Britain of American servicemen. By the end of 1942 there were about 170,000 American men, of whom about 12,000 were black and rigidly segregated. White American troops became angry if they found black soldiers in places of entertainment, especially if they were with white women. Under pressure from American command, the British Secretary of State for War asked the Cabinet to approve a policy of educating the army to adopt the attitude of the US authorities towards black American troops. But some members of the Cabinet strongly resisted this plan. It was agreed that personnel should respect the American attitude, but not adopt it – that there could be no question of segregation in Britain.
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Within the British services, the colour bar became less oppressive during the years of war. The army changed its rules so that men who were ‘not of pure European descent' were allowed to hold commissions as officers.
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There was also a sense that everyone was fighting the same enemy, which created a feeling of camaraderie between blacks and whites. But this did not transfer to civilian life once peace had been restored.
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Men had come from every part of the Empire to fight for the Allies in Europe and the Far East. Among them were 10,000 men from Seretse's own country, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, who had served in the African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps.
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Seretse watched the victory parade in London in 1946, when some of the Bechuanaland veterans marched down the city streets.
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They were loudly cheered by the British spectators, but instantly forgotten. Seretse thought it was odd that British people, who were so proud of their Empire, appeared never to have heard of Bechuanaland and were unaware of its contribution to
the war.
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He was angry that men who had been seen as equal in war and death, were no longer seen as equal in the postwar political and economic life of the colonies. This feeling was shared in British colonies across Africa and was a contributing factor in the outbreak of the riots that rocked the cities of the Gold Coast in February 1948 and in the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the early 1950s.
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One of the Protectorate veterans who spoke to Seretse at the victory parade noticed that he ‘did not seem taken up with the English. He said to me: “The English like to show you their nice side but they hide their poverty and slums.”'
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What could not be hidden, though, was the austerity of daily life and the rationing of food and clothes – even bread rationing was introduced for the first time by the Ministry of Food in July 1946.
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‘I am still feeling awfully homesick,' wrote Seretse to his uncle. ‘Perhaps that is one reason beside [the] food shortage that I am losing weight so rapidly.'
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Some people in England tried to be friendly, including members of the London Missionary Society, the Congregationalist organization which dominated the religious life of the Bangwato Reserve. Dr Roger Pilkington, one of the LMS directors, who had a doctorate in genetics from Magdalene College, Cambridge, took a special interest in Seretse and invited him on several occasions to stay with himself and his wife. But Seretse was lonely.

In his second term at Balliol, Seretse started to feel happier. He struck up a friendship with John Zimmerman, another Balliol student who, like Seretse, was an outsider, because he was Jewish.
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Seretse also found acceptance on the sports field. He was an outstanding sportsman and a strong team player, characteristics which had distinguished his school and university career in South Africa and earned him such nicknames on the soccer field as ‘Small Hops', ‘Machine Gun', ‘Flexible Six Forty-Five' and ‘C to C' (Cape to Cairo).
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Now these gifts made him an asset to his Oxford College. ‘For some reason,' he wrote years later, ‘somebody asked me if I played rugby in South Africa, and I said yes. I was picked to practise. I then played for my college; then I boxed for my college.'
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He was ‘an unstoppable wing three quarter' for the college rugby XV, commented a rugby enthusiast at Balliol.
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Seretse was now starting to fit into College life. ‘We liked him as a person,' observed the Master of the College – ‘he was a very acceptable member of the College, and he worked well.'
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While studying at Oxford, Seretse enrolled in the Inner Temple in London, as part of his plan to study for the Bar.
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He was determined to become a barrister – Bechuanaland did not have a single law professional and badly needed lawyers. His uncle Tshekedi relied on a white advocate in Cape Town, Douglas Buchanan. Tshekedi himself had been studying law at Fort Hare when he was recalled to Bechuanaland in 1926 to take up the role of Regent. But Seretse's plans came up against an unexpected obstacle in the spring of 1946. Just before the end of his first year at Oxford, he was informed that he was not eligible to sit the law examinations, because he had not qualified in Latin. Before coming to Oxford, he had been assured that a course he had taken at Wits in Roman-Dutch Law was an adequate substitute. But now he was told that the exemption was only valid if he had done military service. He was compelled to give up Law, which meant that he could only be examined in Politics and Economics. He now attached more importance to his studies for the Bar. ‘I know that Oxford has got a very big name,' he acknowledged to his uncle. But this name would not help him, he objected with some vigour, ‘if I cannot do what I have come here for – to study adequately'.
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Seretse spent the summer of 1946 in Northumberland, working as a volunteer on a dairy farm. This healed some of his homesickness: land and animals were at the centre of Bechuanaland life. Seretse was the heir to many thousands of cattle and he was keen to learn about different methods of farming. ‘He is getting up at five and works hard,' noted Pilkington with approval.
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After the summer, Seretse went back to Balliol. But by the spring of 1947 he was feeling frustrated by the obstacles put in his way by the university. He decided to leave Oxford and to focus his energies instead on the Bar exams at the Inner Temple. Pressure was put on him to stay by members of the University. ‘There are social and intellectual advantages in college life at Oxford,' maintained Sir Reginald Coupland, ‘which cannot be obtained in the scattered world of London.'
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But he had come to England to study law, argued Seretse, not simply for the adventure of being an Oxford undergraduate. By now, he had now completed five terms at Oxford – nearly two years.
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It was time to go to London.

*

Seretse's new home in London was Nutford House, a hostel for colonial students run by the Colonial Office, not far from Marble Arch in the West End.
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A squat grey brick building, it had none of the splendour of his Oxford College – its little urban garden was the size of a handkerchief in comparison with the Balliol gardens. But after Oxford, Nutford House was a haven. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he met other young men from Africa and from colonies all over the Empire. These included Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, later the first Prime Minister of the Federation of Nigeria; Veerasamy Ringadoo, the first President of Mauritius; Forbes Burnham, later the President of Guyana; and Milton Cato, the first Prime Minister of St Vincent.
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One of the residents of Nutford House was his old friend Charles Njonjo, a Kenyan who had been with him at Fort Hare and who was now enrolled as a student at the Middle Temple. The two young men had rooms next to each other and spent their spare time together. Twice a week they cooked for themselves, with two young men from India, which gave Seretse a lifelong taste for curry. Tshekedi was not very generous with Seretse's allowance, but when money did arrive from Bechuanaland, the four men promptly went out to an Indian restaurant.
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Seretse and Charles were often invited to the north London home of John Zimmerman, Seretse's friend from Balliol. John's mother cooked hearty meals for them and her motherly warmth was a welcome contrast with the cold stares of people on the street.
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Another close friend at Nutford House was Harry Nkumbula from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), a ‘thickset, very forceful'
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man who was studying Economics at the London School of Economics and was later to play an important role in his country's politics. Seretse also got to know people from the colonies who were not students, such as Dr Hastings Banda from Nyasaland (Malawi), who was practising medicine in Willesden in London and was later to become the first President of his country.
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Banda and Nkumbula worked together in 1949 to produce an important document criticizing the plan of the Attlee government to create a Federation of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. This plan was bitterly opposed by the African populations because it would extend the inequalities and colour bar of Southern Rhodesia throughout the region.
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The Inner Temple was an elite institution reminiscent of Oxford,
but it was in the heart of London and just moments from the lively, metropolitan atmosphere of Fleet Street. Seretse often relaxed with fellow students at a pub called ‘The Feathers' and was popular with everyone.
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He felt less of an alien here than at Oxford: a quarter of the African students in the UK were studying Law and many were at the Inns of Court in London.
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A number of them would take a leading role in the politics of their own countries in future years, including Charles Njonjo, who would later become the first Attorney General in independent Kenya. Joe Appiah, who was a student at the Middle Temple, was a member of a family of Ashanti Kings from the Gold Coast (Ghana) and had already begun a long career as a political activist. A short, slight man with thick spectacles, he had a sharp legal mind and a gregarious personality
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and he and Seretse very quickly struck up a friendship.

Appiah had been offered a place at Cambridge University, but he chose not to go because he felt ‘magnetized' by the excitement of African political activities in London.
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As far back as the mid-1930s, noted the Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James, there had been a collection of notable black people in London – Paul Robeson, the American actor and singer; Jomo Kenyatta, the Kenyan activist who spent sixteen years in Britain and was to become the first President of independent Kenya; George Padmore, a Trinidadian who was a key figure in the African nationalist movement; and Amy Garvey, an African American activist who was the widow of Marcus Garvey. ‘Some of us,' wrote C. L. R. James, ‘were becoming active politically, but not on the question of race – on the question of independence for the colonies.'
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There were a number of students from West Africa in the UK between the wars, who in 1925 set up the West African Students Union at Camden Square in North London. In 1935, the patron of WASU was Paul Robeson. WASU provided hostel amenities for students and was a lively centre for discussions about the future of Africa.
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In 1942, WASU demanded immediate internal self-government for Britain's West African colonies and complete independence in five years.
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Joe Appiah was an active member, becoming Vice-President and then President in the late 1940s.
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The issue of self-government seemed even more pressing after the Second World War. ‘We have fought against fascism, the enemy of
mankind,' wrote a soldier from the Gold Coast who had fought in Burma, ‘so that all people, white or black, civilised or uncivilised, free or in bondage, may have the right to enjoy the privileges and bounties of nature.'
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There was widespread faith in the Atlantic Charter signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941, which had referred to the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they would live. The independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 seemed to be consistent with these developments. For the generation that had fought the war – in Britain and her Empire – there was a sense of hope that it really was possible to make the world a better place.

Britain after the war was directly responsible for fourteen African states, with a total population of 56 million. For African students in London, at the political heart of the Empire, the idea that it was now time for change was reinforced by the election of the Labour Party in July 1945. Key members of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, who had made clear their sympathy with colonial aspirations, were now in power.
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But WASU and other organizations of African students were quickly disappointed by the failure of the Labour government to deliver on its promises. ‘I am not prepared to sacrifice the British Empire,' announced Aneurin Bevan to the House of Commons in February 1946, ‘because I know that if the British Empire fell it would mean the standard of life of our own constituents would fall considerably.'
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