Colonialism Revisited: The Notting Hill Race Riots in Jean Rhys' 'Let Them Call it Jazz' Mayumi HORIUCHI Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), possibly the best-known of Jean Rhys' (1890-1979) stories, reminds readers of the history of the British West Indies and the ongoing memory of slavery there. However, another story she wrote soon after her brief return to Dominica in 1936, the short story, 'Let Them Call it Jazz' (1962), has not been discussed so often. The story, set in the Notting Hill area of modern London, has a young 'coloured' woman from the West Indies as its heroine. This paper argues that 'Let Them Call it Jazz' should be considered as a kind of 'reportage' on the Notting Hill race riots that broke out in August 1958. After witnessing her home island moving towards decolonisation during her brief homecoming, Rhys embodied two principal ideas in her works written after the 1950s. On the one hand, in some of her short stories she boldly began to depict her dissatisfaction at the changes initiated in Dominica by the black islanders. On the other hand, in her novel Wide Sargasso Sea she accused British people of forgetting the existence of the white creoles born as a result of British colonisation. 'Let Them Call it Jazz', however, embodies another feeling. During the 1950s, people in the UK began to regard the influx of West Indian immigrants and the racial conflict that took place as 'a social issue', however, they did not know the historical background of such 'a social issue'. In the 1950s, only 25% of UK voters could distinguish the 'dominions' from the 'colonies' among Britain's imperial possessions. Having had to endure their cold attitude towards white creoles, Rhys did not keep silence once she knew the great difficulty that her 'black country people' faced. This paper examines contemporary newspaper reports of the Notting Hill race riots, and considers how Jean Rhys incorporated them into her story. Through the story, she encouraged 'people in the mother country' to rediscover the history of colonialism through the struggle of a West Indian woman in 'the Empire's capital', London.