Across three Saturdays in June, 1977, the New York Amsterdam News ran an extended interview with CLR James. At the time, James was seventy-six years old and teaching at the University of the District of Columbia. The interview, conducted by Amsterdam News feature writer Dawad Wayne Phillip, covered the question of Caribbean Federation, the importance […]
Tag Archives: CLR James
Black Struggle and the New Society: An interview with C.L.R. James
Revolutions and Revisions: An Interview with Charles Forsdick and Christian Høgsbjerg
In Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions (Pluto) Charles Forsdick and Christian Høgsbjerg have produced what is arguably the most important biography of Louverture since CLR James’ magisterial Black Jacobins was first published in 1938. Kicking against the contemporary anti-Black and anti-radical revisionism that downplays the historical importance of the revolution while […]
Haiti: The Black Jacobins
CLR James’ The Black Jacobins, first published in 1938, was a forbidden book in South Africa until the recent dismantling of apartheid. It’s not hard to see why. Scott McLemmee, “CLR James: A Biographical Introduction,” American Visions (April/May 1996) First of all, James cast doubt on the assumption that the revolution would take place first […]
Haiti: Robeson
Yes, and a French general named Le Clerc was also sent against Ho Chi Minh, but like the blacks of Haiti, the plantation workers of Indo-China have also proved unconquerable. Paul Robeson, “Ho Chi Minh is Toussaint L’Ouverture of Indo-China,” Freedom (March 1954) Paul Robeson was keen to make a film, but wanted one which […]