South Wales Association for the Welfare of Coloured People

In 1935, when the British Shipping (Assistance) Act was passed, many racialized minority seamen who were waiting to leave Cardiff were left without employment. In turn, the League of Coloured Peoples, founded by Harold Moody, sent a team from London to Cardiff to investigate the possibility of opening a branch in the city to support destitute seamen. However, the outsider status of those running the new branch meant it soon folded.

The South Wales Association for the Welfare of Coloured People (SWAWCP) was founded soon after, by local Quakers and members of the Christian Fellowship of Reconciliation. Other civic and church organizations in Cardiff supported the SWAWCP’s efforts in securing jobs for racialized minority seamen. Supporting organizations included the Colonial Defence Association, which was founded in Cardiff in 1927 by Communist leadership and advocated for the rights of racialized minority seamen.

According to J. G. St Clair Drake, an African American anthropologist from the University of Chicago who spent two years in Tiger Bay conducting field work for his doctoral thesis, the SWAWCP’s function changed after the Second World War when Britain was experiencing near full employment. Rather than supporting seamen in finding jobs, the SWAWCP focused on community welfare, particularly in 1945 when the Cardiff municipal government and Colonial Office announced the creation of thirty-six new houses and a youth centre for racialized minority people, which stoked tensions among white locals. The SWAWCP ceased operations in 1947.