I am wary of any suggestion that all examples of a certain pub name spring from the same source unless the name is of somebody immediately identifiable e.g pubs called the lord Nelson or the Duke of Wellington - and even in specific case they could be named after any of the subsequent naval ships called the Lord Nelson, or a subsequent Duke of Wellington, for example). I haven't researched the historical accuracy of the association of Black Boy with Charles II, but assuming it's trues, it may well be a link. That said, if one takes the pub's own website history literally ("The Black Boy Inn has been a landmark in Reading for over 500 years.") then our particular Black Boy dates back to around 1500 or earlier. Given Charles II wasn't born until 1630, that would rather rule him out of being the reason for the pub name over a century before his mother was even born! (Of course, the pub may have been called something else for the first 150 years or so claimed in the history, but it doesn't explicitly address that issue.
At least one pub called The Black Boy is accepted to be called such because the local landed gentry at around the time it was built was called Blackboy.
In other places there are suggestions it may well have been a reference to people working in local coal mines or foundries. I imagine it could also have been used for charcoal burners. More plausibly locally, if there were people excavating clay, particularly darker than usual clay, it may have been a reference to them.
And let's not avoid the fact that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the name was extremely common for coffee-houses as well as inns and taverns, the reference was very possibly to the personal servant of a rich person, and most definitely referred to somebody of sub-Saharan ethnicity. (Apparently it was quite "fashionable" in some circles to have one or more on your staff in contrast to white staff - presumably it marked you out as urbane or familiar with the wider world. I don't seek to judge such mores, merely note their existence). I imagine that a pub name which effectively notes (and some might say "celebrates" or "commemorates") black servitude could be considered offensive to some, especially if the pub signage seems to depict that servitude as rather more chic or pleasant than it actually was.
So, without knowing the actual origin of this particular pub's name, it's impossible to say if there are any race-based undertones to it. Even then, I don't think it's necessarily racist. If it sets out to glorify or revel in the enforced subservience of a particular race at that time,I suggest that it would be racist. Were it to actually point out some of the appalling conditions of the slave trade and remind us of the inequalities and aberrations of times of yore, I would suggest not. Given it's a pub rather than a museum or anything else, I imagine they would want to keep whatever they did relatively low profile, and as such I can sympathise with the idea of a name change for an easy life, even if I'd rather it didn't happen. But without some sort of more definitive story on how the pub got its name, I can see it might be difficult.
Statistics: Posted by Pooneil — 19 Jan 2017 00:29