Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial
Britain
The riot at the Broomielaw was the first of nine around British seaports shortly after the First World
War. It came against a backdrop of job shortages when sailors’ unions tried to preserve jobs for white
locals by imposing a ‘colour’ bar, a policy that was soon applied to black African and Caribbean
colonial Britons. The riot was tied up with wider industrial unrest on Clydeside and took place only
a few days before the notorious ‘Battle of George Square’.