Channel 4 branded a ‘disgrace’ over new documentary suggesting Winston Churchill oversaw a ‘secret apartheid’ in Britain
Channel 4 has been branded a ‘disgrace’ over a new documentary suggesting Winston Churchill oversaw a ‘secret apartheid system’ in Britain.
Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid aired on Saturday evening and explored the lives of American soldiers in Britain during World War II.
In the documentary, novelist Nadifa Mohamed delves into the lives of black GI soldiers stationed in Britain – and the conundrum ministers face over how to deal with the US military’s segregation rules that came with it.
Historians have since dismissed the show, claiming the title shows a “disregard for historical accuracy” due to its 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 is directly contrary to the facts.
Novelist Nadifa Mohamed presents Churchill: Britain’s Secret Apartheid. Pictured with Nancy Adkins, whose uncle was killed in violence in Lancashire during the war
‘The person who chose the headline knew that too [it was false] and was deliberately dishonest, or didn’t and just assumed that Churchill must have been racist on this issue 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 show is just one example of their mocking disregard for historical accuracy.’
Mr. Roberts noted that Churchill had concluded at a cabinet meeting in 1942 that the U.S. military would not be assisted in “enforcing a policy of segregation.”
He added on enforcing a policy of segregation.
‘It was clear that, as regards access to canteens, cafes, theatres, cinemas, etc., there would and should be no restriction on the facilities hitherto granted to colored persons as a result of the arrival of United States troops in this country.”
‘That is to say, Churchill took exactly the opposite position as suggested by Channel 4, who chose a novelist to present the program rather than a historian.’
Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men, consults historians throughout the program as she travels the country to “uncover a secret history of Britain and race.”
The show itself, produced by Red Bicycle, explores the lives of black American soldiers during their time in Britain, with few references to Churchill himself.
It is not the first case in which Churchill has been controversially linked to colonialism, racism and slavery
During the war, black American GIs were stationed in Britain – and the program tells their story
Historians have since dismissed the show, claiming the title shows “a disregard for historical accuracy.”
Andrew Roberts, historian and writer, poses during Cliveden Literary Festival 2021 at Cliveden House
Mohamed says in an introduction to the program: ‘There was a side to our ally that we don’t like to remember. The Nazis believed in white supremacy. Many Americans did that too.’
She adds: ‘Now, in 1942, the US military, along with chewing gym, nylons and the jitterbug, brought its Jim Crow racial policies to Britain, whether we liked it or not.’
During the show she delves into the personal stories of black GIs, 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 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 next to the context of his links with ‘racism, slavery and colonialism’, following an art review by the Tory-led Hertfordshire County Council.
The image of the wartime prime minister – painted in 1967 as a replica of a 1943 print – will go on display at County Hall in Hertford, pending an appropriate declaration of the tapes, the Telegraph reported.
The National Trust faced a backlash in 2021 when an audit of their properties resulted in information displays at Chartwell, his former home in Kent, noting that the politician was Colonial Secretary in the 1920s and had opposed Indian independence resists.
Mohamed consults historians throughout the program as she travels the country to ‘discover a secret history of Britain and race’
The statue of Churchill in Parliament Square, which has been vandalized several times
Churchill’s reputation has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, especially since the rise of Black Lives Matter.
Although, because of him, Churchill is considered one of Britain’s greatest ever Prime Ministers World War II triumph, many views and actions that would now be considered racist have come under criticism, especially since the Black lives matter movement became more prominent in 2020.
Before World War II, in 1937, he said he had no sympathy for Indians or black people in Australia, who were enslaved and succeeded by white settlers.
Churchill said: ‘I do not admit that an injustice has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a race of higher rank, a more worldly-wise race, so to speak, has come in and taken their place. ‘
He took little action in 1943 when a famine in India, then part of the British Empire, killed three million people. The then Prime Minister even appeared to blame Indians for the food shortage, claiming that they are ‘breeding like rabbits’.
The famine was sparked by the Japanese occupation of Burma a year earlier, which affected rice supplies.
Earlier in his political career, Churchill advocated the use of chemical weapons against “uncivilized” Kurds and Afghans.
In a 1919 war memo he wrote: ‘I cannot understand this prudishness about the use of gas. I am a firm believer in the use of poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.”
FEMAIL has contacted Channel 4 and Red Bicycle for comment.