Abstract

The book dissects the uncomfortable and sometimes painful history of events during 1919 after the race riots, through records of personal stories in government colonial archives for the West Indies, West Africa, and Britain.

The immediate post war period was the most troubled period of peace that the world had hitherto seen, prompting the author to argue that the aftermaths of war need to be given more attention as a distinctly defined period of post-conflict adjustment, in which individual minority voices should be highlighted.

This study represents the first systematic attempt to analyse records of people of Afro-Caribbean origin who appealed against repatriation during the aftermaths of World War One in Britain. As such, the book registers what Stuart Hall has called ‘history as a minority event – the speaking of a past which previously had no language’.

What was the human environment, what were the dilemmas and the racist compulsions that made post-riot experiences during the window of 1919 so poignant? Analysing correspondence by and reports of appellants against repatriation as well as statements of hardship and requests for financial help, the emphasis is on the needs of people directly affected, and on their expressions of identity, as written and very humane, moving, literary communications.