Political activist, novelist, playwright, historian and renowned cricket writer C.L.R. James (1901-1989) will be commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at 12 noon on 8 October 2004 as part of the celebrations for Black History Month at the official reopening of Brixton Advice Centre, 165/7 Railton Road, London SE24. The Blue Plaque will be unveiled by journalist and political activist Darcus Howe, nephew of C.L.R. James.
From 1981 until his death on 31 May 1989, C.L.R. James lived at 165 Railton Road in Brixton. It was while living here that James enjoyed probably his greatest fame and had a wide influence as an elder statesman. His Channel 4 lectures in 1983 on Pan-Africanism, Shakespeare, Solidarnosc, American politics, the West Indies and cricket, are an indication of the eclectic range of subjects on which he was knowledgeable and held profound views.
Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in Trinidad on 4 January 1901, the son of a schoolteacher. As a boy growing up in a small colonial society, James immersed himself in its history and culture. In the 1920s, aside from his growing reputation as a cricket reporter, James had begun to write fiction and “La Divina Pastora” (1927) and “Triumph” (1929) established his potential as a novelist.
James moved to England in 1932 at the invitation of the great West Indian cricketer Learie Constantine, with whom he lived in Lancashire for a year. As he worked with Constantine on his memoirs, James formed a deep friendship with him, forging a strong political bond around the issue of independence for the West Indies. It was as a cricket writer that James became known to a wider audience, writing periodically for the “Manchester Guardian” between the 1930s and 1960s.
James’s move to London in 1933 marked the beginning of his career as a leading figure in the Trotskyist movement. In 1936 he produced the play “Toussaint L’Overture” about the San Domingo revolution, casting Paul Robeson in the title role. This was followed in 1938 by the publication of “The Black Jacobins”, James’s seminal work on the Haitian slave revolt, an early exemplar of social and black history writing.
From 1938 to 1952 James lived and worked in the United States, attempting, through pamphlets and lectures, to distil a form of Marxism relevant to the American situation and to rouse the black community to political consciousness. He met Leon Trotsky in 1939 but later went on to establish the foundations of his own independent Marxist position, tracing ideas directly from the work of Lenin. James’s 15 year stay in the United States produced some of his most important work which continues to be widely studied to this day.
In 1953, James returned to Trinidad, a constant advocate of de-colonialisation, to help the newly formed government. He edited “The Nation”, and led the campaign for Frank Worrell to be appointed the West Indies’ first black cricket captain. He advocated an alliance of independent West Indian states and later broke with Eric Williams, independent Trinidad’s first President. After campaigning against Williams in the elections of 1966 he was expelled following a brief spell of imprisonment. However this did not deter his desire to help national liberation movements, a cause he continued to pursue until his death.
In James’s autobiography “Beyond a Boundary” (1963), he recounts his upbringing in Trinidad and gives a social-historical appraisal of West Indian cricket, which becomes a metaphor for life. James sees cricket not only at the centre of West Indian cultural practices but also as the nexus of colonial rule and class antagonism that has constructed Trinidad’s national identity.
Assessing his career, James remarked that he had made two contributions, the first to “clarify and extend the heritage of Marx and Lenin”, the second “to expand the idea of what constitutes the new society.”
The C.L.R. James Institute in New York was set up in 1984 and is dedicated to collecting, documenting and disseminating information concerning C.L.R James.
