Black British History Scandal on the way to British Musuem....

The British Museum

One day in 1932, C. L. R. James was on his way to the British Museum, in Bloomsbury, when he saw the ‘magnificent figure’ of Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and scholar, walking towards him. They stopped to talk. James regarded Robeson as ‘a man not only of great gentleness but of great command: he was never upset about anything’. On this day, however, clearly bothered, he asked James whether he had heard the gossip 'about a coloured singer and a member of the British Royal Family’. 'It's not me, James', Robeson declared passionately. 'It's not me.' To Robeson's indignation, his friend laughed: 'What is there to laugh at? I don't see anything to laugh at.' James explained that, as a Negro from the United States' living in England, there was no disgrace in being linked to a member of the British Royal Family'. Hence his reaction: I laugh because you seem so upset about it. That is very funny.' Robeson was unmoved. 'They got the wrong Nigger in the woodpile, this time James', he protested. 'It's not me - Hutch (Leslie 'Hutch' Hutchinson) maybe - but not me!'

Donald J. Robeson Agonistes. In: Lusty N, Murphet J, eds. Modernism and Masculinity. Cambridge University Press; 2014:141-158.

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The royal gigolo: Edwina Mountbatten sued over claims of an affair with black singer Paul Robeson. But the truth was even more outrageous…

https://dizwhite.com/downton-abbeys-jazz-singer-inspired-by-scandal/

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A Personal Moment at the Imperial War Museum

Yesterday I visited the Imperial War Museum London to research its entry for my Guide to Black London. I didn’t expect to find something that felt quite so personal.

In the Second World War Galleries, in the Witnesses to War section, I came across Thomas Andi.

Thomas was a Nigerian seaman in the British Merchant Navy — a civilian working on ships transporting commercial goods during wartime. On 18 December 1940, German raiders attacked his ship in the Atlantic. He was captured and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

Displayed in the gallery is his thermos flask and a log book filled with photographs of fellow prisoners — small, human fragments of endurance and solidarity. The caption explains that 5,720 merchant seamen were captured during the war. Thomas was one of them.

Standing there, I felt an unexpected jolt of connection.

Michael N. Ohajuru (1924-1995)
Pier Head Liverpool

My father - Michael N. Ohajuru - was also a merchant seaman during the war. I still have his National Union of Seamen membership contribution card. He enrolled on 29 September 1943, in the Catering Department. He told me stories of being part of convoys across the Atlantic, just like Thomas but Dad's ships were never attacked and he survived the War.

Michael N. Ohajuru : National Union of Seaman Card

Seeing Thomas Andi’s story in the museum — publicly acknowledged, carefully preserved — reminded me how wide and varied the Black presence in Britain’s wartime history truly was. These were not marginal figures. They were part of the machinery, the risk, the sacrifice.

For me, the display wasn’t just historical research.

It was family.