Before the ‘Windrush’: Race Relations in 20th-Century Liverpool has been written by John Belchem, Athenaeum proprietor and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Liverpool. The volume was published by Liverpool University Press in 2014. Liverpool’s cosmopolitan society of transients and settlers from various locations date back several centuries. This book concentrates on the twentieth century and black Liverpudlians. It considers the racial discrimination that they faced, despite pioneers initiatives in race and community relations. Many blacks continued to regard themselves as marginalised and disadvantaged throughout the twentieth century. A variety of source material is used in the book to establish the historical context and the debates about ‘empire’, as well as to investigate Liverpool’s own situation.
Janet Hollinshead