COLOURED VISITOR

Evening Star, Issue 20310, 19 October 1929, Page 15

COLOURED VISITOR

NEGRO MILLIONAIRE BARRED Complaints made by Robert Abbott, the millionaire American negro, who owns the ‘Chicago Defender,’' the largest coloured newspaper in the United States, against his treatment by London hotel proprietors on the ground of his colour, have drawn public—indeed official —attention to the colour bar feeling growing in London and elsewhere throughout Great Britain. Abbott, who is married to a white woman, declares that ho was refused admission to thirty London hotels, compelled to leave on© hotel at hall an hour’s notice, and requested to leave another after having booked rooms for a fortnight. Abbott declared that if he tried to enter an hotel in New" Orleans he would be lynched, but be expected better treatment in England “ which has millions of coloured people under its flag,” and contrasted his treatment with that accorded to him on the Continent where he was welcomed everywhere.

That London people are changing their attitude regarding the colour bar in confirmed by statements made by ihe Society of Friends at the Conference of British Missionary Societies, who state they have constant difficult',' in getting accommodation ior yellow and brown as well as black visitors. This is probably due to the increasing number of coloured people arriving in. London, complaints about their relations with white women and the influence of visitors from overseas dominions and the United States.

Mr George Lausbury, First Commissioner of Works, declares that he cannot intervene in the matter, but expressed bis strong disapprobation of any such colour discrimination by a London hotel. . , • Investigations made •by Mr James Marley, the Socialist member for North St Pancras, into Abbott’s complaint, show that several London hotels have definitely adopted a policy refusing to admit coloured, persons, while at several others various . excuses are made for getting , .rid ot _ such visitors as soon as they, appear in the hotels.