Calling "for the complete liberation and independence of all Negroes who are suffering from capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination", the NWA campaigned on both British and international issues, such as the cause of the Scottsboro Boys.
[2] It was affiliated to the British section of the League Against Imperialism and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers.
Several of its white members were close to the Communist Party, including Reginald Bridgeman, Hugo Rathbone, Ben Bradley and Nancy Cunard.
Its leading black activists were Arnold Ward and Peter Blackman from Barbados, and Desmond Buckle and Rowland Sawyer from West Africa.
[1] The former dockworker Chris Braithwaite, who ran the Colonial Seaman's Association, served on the NWA's executive committee.