Battle of Bamber Bridge 80th Anniversary Commemoration Event

Image: Professor Alan Rice meets with key stakeholders for the 80^th Anniversary event (left to right: Prof Rice, IBAR, UCLAN; Jemma Rodgers, Producer, The Return of the Railway Children; Aaron Snipe, Senior Foreign Service Officer, Embassy Spokesperson, US Embassy; and Clinton Smith, Chair, Preston Black History Group. Photo Credit: Tony Maiden/ Preston Black History Group.)

This international symposium at UCLan on 23 June 2023 is part of a commemorative weekend celebrating the 80th anniversary of the June 1943 Battle of Bamber Bridge. In June 1943, African American troops based at Bamber Bridge mutinied against the Jim Crow segregation conditions imposed in the European theatre. They found support from local residents.

This symposium stems from a project honouring their joint fight against racism in collaboration with the Embassy of the United States, Ministry of Defence, the US Defense Department, South Ribble Borough Council, Studio Canal and Preston Black History Group.

On the afternoon of 23 June, the Spokesperson of the Embassy will open the symposium. The event will feature discussions of historical racism in the US military, collusion by the British Government and responses by locals and the troops themselves.

The Guardian journalist, author and academic Professor Gary Younge (University of Manchester) will be our keynote speaker and guest of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR).

Thanks to a week-long visiting fellowship funded by UCLan’s Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX), the African American film-maker Gregory Cooke will show his 2023 film Invisible Warriors, which documents the struggles of African American women workers in WWII and take part in a Q&A session led by Professor Alan Rice, co-director of IBAR and director of MIDEX.

To register for free, please click here.

Please find the symposium programme here.