Amelia King Explained

Amelia King
Birth Name:Amelia Elizabeth King
Birth Date:25 June 1917
Birth Place:Stepney, London
Death Place:Whitechapel, London
Nationality:British
Citizenship:British

Amelia King (1917 - 1995) was a British woman who was refused entry into the Women's Land Army, during World War II, because she was black. This example of racial segregation in the UK was debated in the House of Commons and was covered in newspapers internationally including The Chicago Defender. The decision would eventually be reversed.

King was born in Limehouse in London's East End in 1917.[1] [2] Her father, Henry King, born in Georgetown, British Guiana, worked as a stoker in the Merchant Navy, and her brother Fitzherbert King served in the Royal Navy.[3] She worked as a fancy box maker before World War II and volunteered to join the Women's Land Army in September 1943.[4] King was refused entry to the Land Army by its Essex County branch committee because it was believed it would be difficult to place her, as there would be objections due to her ethnicity.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] With support from the Holborn Trades Council, King presented the issue to her local representative, Walter Edwards MP, who raised the issue of racism within the Land Army at the House of Commons.[11] This, along with another racially-motivated incident that occurred within the same week in which cricketer Learie Constantine was denied accommodation at a London hotel, attracted widespread controversy and criticism and brought the 'Colour Bar' into focus.[12] [13] [14]

In an interview with George Padmore, published in The Chicago Defender, King reflected "I said to them, if I'm not good enough to work on the land, then I am not good enough to make munitions. No one has ever suggested that my father and brother were not good enough to fight for the freedom of England."

The refusal was reversed and King was able to formally join the Women's Land Army in October 1943.[15] [16] She worked at Frith Farm in Fareham, Hampshire until 1944.

King died at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel in 1995, aged 78.

Notes and References

  1. Book: Bourne, Stephen. The Motherland Calls: Britain's Black Servicemen & Women 1939-45. 1 September 2012. The History Press. 978-0-75249-071-7. Amelia King & The Women's Land Army. Stephen_Bourne_(writer).
  2. Book: Romain, Gemma. Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: The Biography of Patrick Nelson, 1916-1963. 7 September 2017. Bloomsbury Publishing. 978-1-47258-864-7. 108.
  3. Book: Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. Peter Fryer. 1 January 1984. University of Alberta. Google Books. 978-0-86104-749-9.
  4. Book: Rush, Anne Spry. Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization. 9 June 2011. OUP Oxford. Google Books. 978-0-19-958855-8.
  5. Book: Ginn. Peter. Goodman. Ruth. Langlands. Alex. Wartime Farm. 24 September 2012. 978-1-84533-740-7. London. 893653084.
  6. Web site: Latherow. Tamisan. 18 August 2020. Breaking the Colour Bar - The little-known and extraordinary story of one particular land girl. 30 November 2020. Museum of English Rural Life.
  7. Web site: Diaspora. 30 November 2020. Understanding Slavery Initiative.
  8. Web site: Blacks and the blitz: Britain's best kept wartime secret. 2013-10-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131101103031/http://www.chronicleworld.org/tomsite/archive2/01_HI_FD/11_93hom.htm . 2013-11-01 . dead . Chronicle World.
  9. Book: Hayes, Floyd Windom. A Turbulent Voyage: Readings in African American Studies. 1 January 2000. Rowman & Littlefield. Google Books. 978-0-939693-52-8.
  10. Lindsey. Lydia. Wilson. Carlton E.. 1 January 1994. Spurring a Dialogue to Place the African European Experience Within the Context of an Afrocentric Philosophy. Journal of Black Studies. 25. 1. 41–61. 10.1177/002193479402500103. 2784413. 144321312.
  11. Web site: 1943. Londoners' Protest Meeting Against Racial Discrimination. 30 November 2020. Warwick Digital Collections.
  12. Book: Werran, Kate. An American uprising in Second World War England : mutiny in the duchy. 19 July 2020. 978-1-5267-5955-9. Yorkshire. 1147973551.
  13. Book: Smith, Harold L.. Britain in the Second World War: A Social History. 15 June 1996. Manchester University Press. Google Books. 978-0-7190-4493-9.
  14. Book: Kushner, Antony Robin Jeremy. We Europeans?: Mass-observation, 'race' and British Identity in the Twentieth Century. 1 January 2004. Ashgate. 978-0-7546-0206-4. Google Books.
  15. Web site: Women's Land Army . 30 November 2020. 12 October 1943. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).
  16. Smith. Graham A.. Jim Crow on the home front (1942–1945). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 30 June 2010. 8. 3. 317–328. 10.1080/1369183X.1980.9975641.

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