“If we’re going to have a fight against racism or fascism, these are the stories we need to talk about,” Rice said. What’s different about Bamber Bridge is the desire of local people to preserve this story and pass it on to others, said Alan Rice, co-director of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire. That was in stark contrast to the treatment Black soldiers received in the wartime Army, which was still segregated by law. “They deserved the respect of the uniform that they were wearing. “I think maybe it’s a sense of pride that there was no bigotry towards (the soldiers),” said Valerie Fell, who was just 2 in 1943 but whose family ran Ye Olde Hob Inn, the 400-year-old thatched-roof pub where the conflict started.
The community has chosen to focus on its stand against segregation as it commemorates the 80th anniversary of what’s now known as the Battle of Bamber Bridge and America reassesses its past treatment of Black men and women in the armed forces. When Crossland’s niece learned about the circumstances of her uncle’s death from an Associated Press reporter, she called for a new investigation to uncover exactly how he died. Ignoring pressure from British and American authorities, pubs welcomed the GIs, local women chatted and danced with them, and English soldiers drank alongside men they saw as allies in the war against fascism.īut simmering tensions between Black soldiers and white military police exploded on June 24, 1943, when a dispute outside a pub escalated into a night of gunfire and rebellion that left Private William Crossland dead and dozens of soldiers from the truck regiment facing court martial. When an all-Black truck regiment was stationed in the village, residents refused to accept the segregation ingrained in the U.S. BAMBER BRIDGE, England (AP) - The village of Bamber Bridge in northwestern England is proud of the blow it struck against racism in the U.S.
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