4 January 1901 - 31 May 1989

“Property-owners are the most energetic flag-waggers and patriots in every country, but only so long as they enjoy their possessions: to safeguard those they desert God, King and Country in a twinkling.”

Cyril Lionel Robert James, or C.L.R. James for short, was a Trinidadian-born historian, Marxist, Pan-Africanist, and journalist. James was a prominent figure in the early twentieth century Pan-African Movement. Additionally, his works had a significant impact on social and theoretical contexts, particularly in the ideology of Marxism. James was a bright individual who was quick to pick up new skills and was enthusiastic about learning a wide variety of subjects.

Early Life

C.L.R. James was born on the 4th of January 1901, in a village called Caroni in Tunapuna, Trinidad. James was the firstborn to Robert Alexander James and Elizabeth James. His father, Robert, was a schoolteacher, a position of prominence in the Caribbean.

“Property-owners are the most energetic flag-waggers and patriots in every country, but only so long as they enjoy their possessions: to safeguard those they desert God, King and Country in a twinkling.”

C.L.R. James

In 1910, James was awarded a scholarship to attend the Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain. James became a cricketer at Queen's Royal College, playing for a club; he was also an athlete, holding the Trinidad high jump record from 1918 to 1922. He graduated from Queen's Royal College in 1918 and was immediately offered a position as a history teacher, which he accepted. Eric Williams, who would later become the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, was one of James' students. James was heavily involved in cricket to the point where he was denied three Cambridge and Oxford scholarships. His cricket career was relatively successful, as he played for the Maple cricket club in Trinidad's first division. While still a teacher, James co-founded the Beacon Group, an anti-colonialism group of writers who wrote for The Beacon Magazine.

Britain

James arrived in the United Kingdom in March 1932 and settled in London. In May, he relocated to Nelson, Lancashire, where he stayed with Learie Constantine, a Trinidadian friend who was also a brilliant cricketer. James accepted a position as a cricket correspondent at the Manchester Guardian and relocated to London in 1933. While in the United Kingdom, James gravitated toward politics and developed an interest in labor struggles, as well as West Indian and African independence. Along with his growing sense of Pan-Africanism, James was a Trotskyist (branch of Marxism) thinker, which led to the 1938 publication of the seminal The Black Jacobins, which provided a Trotskyist analysis of Haiti's 1791 slave revolution. James was a prominent figure in Pan-Africanism prior to the publication of the book and was appointed chair of the International African Friends of Abyssinia, which was renamed the International African Friends of Ethiopia (IAFE). The group was founded in 1935 to aid Ethiopia during its invasion by Italy. Two years later, James published his best non-fiction work, World Revolution, a history of the Communist International's rise and fall.

Tour to the United States

James traveled to the United States of America in late 1938 at the invitation of the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) to participate in a speaking tour in support of the cause of Black workers. He was appointed director of the party's National Negro Division in New York. While in the United States, James developed reservations about Trotskyism's analysis of the Soviet Union and argued for Marxism's liberation through a bottom-up emphasis. James eventually left the SWP and joined Max Shachtman's Workers' Party (WP). James co-founded the Johnson-Forest Tendency with Raya Dunayevskaya within the WP (the name coming from their pseudonyms of Johnson and Forest). In 1947, the Johnson-Forest Tendency broke away from the WP and joined the SWP, later rebranding itself as the Correspondence Publishing Committee after abandoning the Trotskyist movement.

James was imprisoned for four months on Ellis Island in 1952 by Immigration officials, in part due to an increase in political repression against communists.

Britain and Trinidad

James was forced to leave the United States in 1953 after his visa expired and his application for US citizenship was denied, resulting in his deportation to the United Kingdom. He returned to Britain for only five years before returning to Trinidad, where he immediately became involved in their politics and decolonization movement. They eventually achieved independence from Britain in 1962. 

James would spend the next few decades traveling the world, primarily between Britain, the Caribbean, and Africa. James did not stay long in Trinidad; in 1957, he traveled to Ghana, where he met another prominent Pan-Africanist, George Padmore, and they witnessed the country's transition to independence. James was a staunch supporter of the Ghanaian revolution, believing that it significantly aided the anticolonialist revolutionary struggle. In 1968, he returned to the United States and began lecturing widely and teaching at Federal City College for a couple of years before moving to the University of the District of Columbia, where he taught and wrote a series of works on culture, politics, radicalism, and revolution. He was also a supporter of Stokely Carmichael, a black power activist who led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). James relocated to London, where he died on May 19, 1989.

References

Blanc, P. (2017) The Marxism of C.L.R. James | MR Online, MR Online. Available at: https://mronline.org/2017/10/09/the-marxism-of-c-l-r-james/ (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

C.L.R. JAMES: A REVOLUTIONARY VISION FOR THE 20TH CENTURY (2021). Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

CLR James - Film & Knowledge Portal » Timeline (2021). Available at: http://www.clrjames.uk/timeline/ (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

C.L.R. James Quotes (Author of The Black Jacobins) (2021). Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5289666.C_L_R_James (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

C.L.R. James | West Indian-born writer and activist (2021). Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-L-R-James (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

The Legacy of CLR James - Red and Black Notes (2021). Available at: https://libcom.org/library/legacy-clr-james-red-black-notes (Accessed: 20 March 2021).

Turner, M. (2009) C.L.R. James (1901-1989) •, Blackpast.org. Available at: https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/james-c-l-r-1901-1989/ (Accessed: 20 March 2021).