The death of Queen Elizabeth II earlier this month prompted a spate of tributes – but not all. In Britain’s black community, many asked: what had she ever done for us?

The question gave her eldest son and successor, Charles III, an early taste of what he must face as king, with feelings still simmering about the toxic legacy of Britain’s colonial past.

At her death, the Queen was head of state for 14 countries outside Britain, including nations in the Caribbean exploited by the slave trade.

Charles immediately succeeded his mother as distant head of state, but the question of how long will be increasingly debated as Republican movements gather momentum.

Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at the University of Birmingham, wrote the day after the Queen’s death on September 8 that he did not share the country’s loss.

“For the children of the British Empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the Commonwealth, the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy.

“She may have been viewed as an institution, but to us she was the manifestation of the institutional racism we must face on a daily basis,” he wrote on Politico’s website.

Many black Britons are no longer willing to hide the racism they see ingrained in many British institutions.

The issue came to the fore during the Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests, which have called for the demolition of statues of historical figures linked to slavery.

During the national period of mourning, which ended with the Queen’s funeral on September 19, protests took place over the death of Chris Kaba, an unarmed black man who was shot dead by police in London.

The monarchy itself had previously been drawn into the debate when Charles’ youngest son, Prince Harry, and his multiracial wife Meghan accused the royal family of racism.

Upon making this claim, the Queen promised to investigate but led to an outright denial from Harry’s brother William. “We’re not a racist family,” he told reporters.

Harry and Meghan ended royal life in early 2020 and relocated to California, where they won many fans among younger people and in the black community for taking on the British establishment.

Unresolved issues of race and colonialism are all the more significant as Charles will succeed his mother as head of the 56-nation Commonwealth group of nations.

Many members are former British colonies, while most of the body’s 2.6 billion people are illiterate and most are under the age of 30.

David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten History, said there had been a “mass awakening to the realities and legacies of imperialism and slavery” in the Commonwealth.

But the British historian wrote in The Guardian that Buckingham Palace failed to recognize or understand the “shift in consciousness”.

He highlighted William and his wife Catherine’s Caribbean tour earlier this year, which was widely criticized as colonialist.

William was also asked to apologize for slavery and to demand that the monarchy pay reparations.

“Historians might look back on this tour as the first harbinger of the age we’re in now: the post-Elizabethan age,” Olusoga said.

Since then, William has praised the “immense contribution” of the “Windrush” generation of Caribbean migrants who came to Britain after World War II to help the country rebuild.

Although they entered the country legally, many were later unjustly detained and even deported due to the government’s harsh immigration policies.

Ashok Viswanathan, deputy director of Operation Black Vote, said Charles’ record through his charity Prince’s Trust of working with disadvantaged young people and the black community “speaks for itself”.

But he said in order to win over black Brits, and young people in particular, “he has to nurture that relationship in his new role”.

Charles is said to have worked behind the scenes against discrimination.

In early September, before he became king, he was invited as guest editor for The Voice, a newspaper serving the African-Caribbean community.

But not all readers were happy amid the continuing lack of apologies for slavery, including from the royal family, said the monthly’s editor, Lester Holloway.

He told the BBC: “We have agreed to work with the Prince of Wales after looking at his work on racial equality 40 years from now and the parallels with our campaigns in the same period.”