Creating Black Places in Imperial London: The League of Coloured Peoples and Aggrey House, 1931-1943.

London in the 1930s was an imperial city marked by overt and covert racial discrimination. However, within this context, some black Londoners attempted to challenge the racialization of London's urban space and to forge hospitable places in which they could dwell, dine, dance, and debate. This paper provides a detailed history of the involvement of the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP), and in particular its founder Dr Harold Moody, in a Colonial Office-funded project to establish a hostel for colonial students, particularly African and African diasporic students, in London. It asserts that prior scholarship on Aggrey House has neglected the agency of the LCP in this project, and contributes to broader attempts to highlight the role of Africans and African diasporic subjects in altering the urban geography of London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]