Charles Arundel Moody

Charles Arundel "Joe" Moody (15 April, 1917, London – 11 January 2009, West Palm Beach, Florida) was a Black British soldier who was the first commanding officer (Lt. Col.) of the 3rd Battalion Regiment of the Jamaica Regiment.[1]

Charles Moody in uniform, taken in approximately 1943

He was the son of Harold Moody and his wife Olive. Harold was a medical doctor and the political activist who founded the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP). He attended Alleyn's School, Dulwich.

Military career

Moody was 22 when the Second World War started in 1939. Under the impression he was eligible to become an officer in the British Army, he went to Whitehall for an interview, where he was dismayed to learn that only those of pure European descent could be commissioned as officers.[2] However his father mobilised the LCP, the International African Service Bureau and the West African Students Union to campaign against this colour bar.[2]

Biography at the Dover Society

References
  1. Syracuse Post Standard. "Charles Arundel "Joe" Moody". Legacy.com. Verizon Media. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  2. Bourne, Stephen (2012). The Motherland Calls: Britain's Black Servicemen and Women 1939-45. Stroud: The History Press.
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