Thinking Black in the Blitz: Harold Moody, the League of Coloured Peoples and its shift of Pan-African ideas in Second World War London

Abstract

London, as the capital of the British Empire, was the centre for imperial structures and networks in the middle of the 20th century. The city enabled and regulated the transport of people, ideas and wealth. Similarly, it offered space for the development of ideas and became a venue for the critique of colonialism. This article examines how the London-based Black pressure group League of Coloured Peoples shifted its political vision from moderate reforms for equal rights for all inhabitants of the British Empire towards Pan-African forms of independence beyond the concept of independent nation states for British Colonies in Africa and the West Indies during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath.

Keywords

• London
• Pan-Africanism
• League of Coloured Peoples