The Race Relations Narrative in British Film

“West Indians and the Race Relations Narrative in British Film” revisits perhaps the three most famous middlebrow British “race relations” films of the 1950s and 60s and their star lead, Bermudan—not West Indian—actor Earl Cameron. Taken together, Pool of London, Sapphire, and Flame in the Streets demonstrate the evolving “race relations narrative” that refracted shifting popular attitudes to Caribbean settlers in the capitol. Equally important but less acknowledged in the cinematic histories is Cameron’s perceptive portrayal of “safe” West Indian characters to a mainstream British audience. This chapter’s second subject is the Jamaican actor, filmmaker, and settler Lloyd Reckord. As major feature films remained preoccupied with the impact of Commonwealth migration on white domestic life, Reckord expanded British film’s experience and knowledge of race through his short films Ten Bob in Winter and Dream A40.

London Calypso

“London Calypso” examines the burst of popular enthusiasm for Trinidadian calypso that coincided with the arrival of the first generation of postwar settlers to London from the Caribbean. To explain this phenomenon, Bidnall traces the calypso’s roots as a vehicle of unbridled social commentary and bawdy celebration. The reflections of calypsonians Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner, Lord Invader and others, captured on records from labels like Melodisc and Parlophone, were therefore a unique barometer of the rewards and frustrations of postwar migration for the West Indian community. “London Is The Place For Me” may be the most celebrated of this oeuvre, but the legacy of the London calypsonians is rawer and more unbridled.

Introduction

The history of West Indian (or Caribbean) migration to Great Britain and its impact on British national identity have been the subjects of growing scholarly interest, but they are often viewed in terms of racial tension and conflict—as a series of crisis moments marked by violence and growing anti-immigration sentiment. This Introduction states the author’s thesis that in the years after the Second World War, when the British Empire was reinventing itself as a “New” Commonwealth, and decolonization was on the horizon, a coterie of artists fused a catholic array of concerns in their work and found an echo in the British cultural establishment. They worked within British cultural institutions and trends and expressed a positive vision of national belonging that was multi-racial, anti-racist, and focused on Britain’s historic connection to its West Indian colonies. In doing so, these men and women were less symbols of a racial divide or national angst than they were a driving force behind a postwar cultural revolution. The chapter also reviews some of the essential primary and secondary literature in British cultural studies, the history of Black Britain, and contemporary sociological studies of English “race relations.”

West Indian Interventions at the BBC

“West Indian interventions at the BBC” examines the Corporation’s sponsorship of and collaborations with Trinidadian singer Edric Connor, Trinidadian talent agent Pearl Connor, and British Guianese actor and singer Cy Grant. Edric Connor used the BBC’s mandate to educate and uplift viewer and listeners to promote Caribbean culture, history and artists. Pearl Connor channelled the Corporation’s demand for colonial talent into the business of professionalizing and directing West Indian performers in London. She created opportunities for her clients by helping expand their niche and persuading producers to cast black actors in a wider range of roles. Cy Grant had the voice, looks, and charm to secure a long-running presence on the Tonight program. Their success highlights a moment when the BBC was open to a progressive vision of the nation’s future. Ultimately, however, the cultural priorities of these artists diverged from the Corporation, a fact that was strikingly apparent by the 1960s. Only then did the disillusionment so characteristic of later generations of ‘black British’ artists become pronounced.

Ronald Moody, from Primitive to Black British

“Ronald Moody, from Primitive to Black British” offers the first thorough, academic account of this British sculptor’s career, work, and evolving ideology as he negotiated more than fifty years in the British and European art worlds. This research suggests that although Moody’s sculpture was—like that of so many artists of this generation—influenced by the experience of world war, European modernism, and decolonization, his reception by critics was dictated by the racial and imperial politics of the day. Whether he was exoticized as an exponent of Jamaican primitivism, praised as a Commonwealth artist, or hailed as a pioneer of Black British visual art, Moody’s dedication to universalism ranked him among the modernists of British sculpture.

West Indies to London

“West Indies to London” tracks the migration process—its triumphs and challenges—for a generation of West Indians at the twilight of the British Empire. Their journey was facilitated by postwar economic growth and the 1948 British Nationality Act, which granted full citizenship to Commonwealth subjects who settled in Britain. Synthesizing both secondary and original research, including records of the London Council of Social Service, this chapter argues that whether they were colonial students, artists, or professionals in other fields, West Indian settlers in London shared powerful connections to British culture and society through bonds of language, education, and class.

Conclusion

This short concluding chapter both reviews the arguments and chapters of The West Indian Generation and offers a postscript, bookending the experiences of these artists with the 1962 introduction of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and continued immigration restriction in 1965 and after. If the Britain that artists like Edric Connor, Earl Cameron, Lord Kitchener and Barry Reckord evoked was multiracial, multicultural, and aware of its imperial (and later post-imperial) history and character, their tentative moment of multiculturalism was foreclosed by the mid-1960s. The 1965 foundation of the Caribbean Artists’ Movement, touched upon in this chapter, can be understood as a cultural counterpart to the sharpening political and social divisions that emerged around questions of race and belonging in London and a rapidly decolonizing British Empire.

Barry Reckord, the Race Relations Narrative, and the Royal Court Theatre

“Barry Reckord, the Race Relations Narrative, and the Royal Court Theatre” shifts its analysis of the race relations narrative to the forefront of postwar London drama. Jamaican playwright—and one of the quintessential “angry young men”—Barry Reckord was among the first to have a play selected by the English Stage Company for production at the reborn Royal Court Theatre. By examining Reckord’s first three plays, Flesh to a Tiger, You in Your Small Corner, and Skyvers, in the context of the Royal Court’s rise to cultural ascendancy, this chapter demonstrates how Reckord helped build the so-called cultural revolution that would write him out of its history.