Channel 4 has been branded a “disgrace” for a new documentary suggesting Winston Churchill oversaw a “secret apartheid” system in Britain.
Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid aired on Saturday night and explores the lives of American soldiers in the UK during World War II.
In the documentary, novelist Nadifa Mohamed delves into the lives of black soldiers stationed in the United Kingdom and the conundrum ministers faced about how to deal with the US military’s segregation rules that accompanied them.
Historians have since criticized the programme, stating that its title shows a “disregard for historical accuracy” due to the implication that the wartime Prime Minister oversaw a system of segregation.
Baron Roberts of Belgravia, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny, told the Telegraph: ‘It is a total shame to give a headline to a program that directly contradicts the facts.
Novelist Nadifa Mohamed presents Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid. Pictured with Nancy Adkins, whose uncle died during the violence in Lancashire during the war.
‘The person who chose the headline knew it (it was false) and was being deliberately dishonest, or he didn’t know it and just assumed that Churchill must have been racist in this matter because that’s what the liberal zeitgeist says he would have been. .
“That Channel 4 has chosen a novelist rather than a historian to present the program is just another example of its mocking disregard for historical accuracy.”
Mr Roberts noted that Churchill, in a 1942 war cabinet meeting, had concluded that the US military would not be helped to “enforce a policy of segregation”.
He added on
“It was clear that, with regard to admission to dining rooms, taverns, theaters, cinemas, etc., there would be and should be no restriction on the facilities hitherto granted to colored people as a result of the arrival of the United States. American troops in this country.”
“That is to say, Churchill took exactly the opposite stance to that implied by Channel 4, which chose a novelist to present the program rather than a historian.”
Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men, consults historians throughout the show as she travels the country to “uncover a secret history about Britain and race.”
The show itself, produced by Red Bicycle, explores the lives of black American soldiers during their time in the United Kingdom, with little reference to Churchill himself.
It is not the first case of Churchill that has been controversially linked to colonialism, racism and slavery.
African-American soldiers were stationed in Britain during the war and the show tells their story
Historians have since criticized the show, stating that its title shows a “disregard for historical accuracy.”
Andrew Roberts, historian and writer, poses during the 2021 Cliveden Literary Festival at Cliveden House
Mohamed says, in an introduction to the programme: ‘There was a side to our ally that is uncomfortable to remember. The Nazis believed in white supremacy. And so did many Americans.
He adds: “Now, in 1942, along with chewing gymnastics, nylon stockings and jitterbug, the US military was bringing its Jim Crow racial policy to Britain, whether we liked it or not.”
During the programme, he delves into the personal stories of black soldiers, including Private William Crossland, who was shot at Bamber Bridge in Lancashire, and another who was shot in the back at Tiger Bay in Cardiff.
Since the rise to prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the former prime minister has been controversially linked to colonialism, racism and slavery.
In August, it was revealed that a portrait of Churchill would be hung alongside context of his links to “racism, slavery and colonialism” after a review of the artwork by Hertfordshire County Council, led by the conservatives.
The wartime prime minister’s depiction, painted in 1967 as a replica of a 1943 engraving, will remain on view at County Hall, Hertford, pending a proper explanation of the links, the Telegraph reported.
The National Trust faced a backlash in 2021 when an audit of his properties resulted in information displays at Chartwell, his former home in Kent, noting that the politician served as Colonial Secretary in the 1920s and had opposed the independence of India.
Mohamed consults historians throughout the show, as he travels the country to “uncover a secret history about Britain and race.”
The statue of Churchill in Parliament Square, which has been vandalized on multiple occasions
Churchill’s reputation has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, particularly since the rise in prominence of Black Lives Matter.
Although Churchill is considered one of the best prime ministers of the United Kingdom for his Second World War triumph, many opinions and actions that would now be considered racist have drawn criticism, especially since Black lives matter The movement became more prominent in 2020.
Before World War II, in 1937, he said he had no sympathy for Native Americans or black Australians, who were enslaved and succeeded by white colonizers.
Churchill said: “I do not admit that any harm has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a race of higher grade, a wiser race, so to speak, has come in and taken their place.” ‘
He took little action in 1943, when a famine in India, then still part of the British empire, killed three million people. The prime minister of the time even appeared to blame the Indians for the food shortage, stating that they “breed like rabbits.”
The famine was caused by the Japanese occupation of Burma a year earlier, which affected the rice supply.
Early in his political career, Churchill advocated the use of chemical weapons against “uncivilized” Kurds and Afghans.
In a 1919 war memorandum he wrote: ‘I cannot understand this misgiving towards the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of the use of poison gas against uncivilized tribes.’
FEMAIL has contacted Channel 4 and Red Bicycle for comment.
