CLR James

CLR James (1901-1989) was born today in 1901. His book, 'The Black Jacobins', remains one of the great monuments in the history of radical history. Illustration depicting combat between French and Haitian troops during the Haitian Revolution.

325 years ago, an African King was killed in the forests of northern Brazil. He remains one of the great symbols of black liberation in the Atlantic World. Portrait of Zumbi dos Palmares by Pedro Celso Cruz de Souza (Source: Wikimedia Commons).

Today is the anniversary of the Merthyr Rising in South Wales, an all too familiar story of an oppressed people who’d simply had enough. Merthyr Tydfil by French artist Alphonse Dousseau (between 1830 and 1869).

When the scandal broke a few months ago and we discovered the Home Office was hounding long established members of the British Afro-Caribbean community, telling them they had to leave, countless people came to their defence.