Found 3 collections related to James, C. L. R. (Cyril Lionel Robert), 1901-1989

Historian and Marxist intellectual of many talents, Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1901, and died in London, England, in 1989. James was prominent in the Pan-African and anticolonial movements of the mid-twentieth century; he is well known for historical studies of the Black struggle for independence. In the book The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, generally regarded as his masterwork, he analyzes the socioeconomic roots and leading personalities of the Haitian revolution of 1791-1804, the first and only slave revolt to achieve political independence in world history. According to an interview, C.L.R. James had dramatized The Black Jacobins in 1936 in England, before he wrote the book, and Paul Robeson played the leading part in 1936. In 1967, when the colonial struggles for emancipation had developed, he rewrote it. The play was staged in Nigeria, in New York, on the BBC in London, and in Jamaica. Hand-corrected typescript, with additions and corrections by the author; with author's autograph. less

The David Levering Lewis "Voices from the Renaissance" Collection consists of forty-three summary transcripts of interviews Lewis conducted with individuals who were either active during the Harlem Renaissance period or who knew people who were Harlem Renaissance figures. The interviews were done for Lewis's book, When Harlem Was in Vogue (1981). less

C. L. R. James was a West Indian scholar, political activist, and writer. Born in Trinidad in 1901, James began his career as a writer and sports journalist. He migrated to Great Britain in 1932, where he published his first major work, The Black Jacobins, in 1938. He became acquainted with Marxism and Trotskyism in 1934, meeting with Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1938. In New York during the 1940s, he led a small faction of left-wing Communists opposed to the policies of the Communist Party-USA, as well as to some of the main tenets of Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism. Following his expulsion from the United States in 1953, during the Cold War, James relocated to London, residing at times in Trinidad, where he launched an opposition party against the government of Eric Williams, and in the United States, where he lectured periodically. James died in 1989. The C. L. R. James letters consist mainly of letters written by James to his former wife and political associate, Constance Webb. James's letters discuss a wide variety of subjects including love, politics (especially Marxism), art, history, sports, literature, and popular culture. Also included are miscellaneous letters and organizational materials documenting James's political activities in the United States, 1938-1953; and letters written to Webb, regarding her writings on Richard Wright, from Arna Bontemps, Lawrence Reddick, and Ellen Wright. Numerous letters also discuss the Johnson-Forest Tendency, a faction led by C. L. R. James, under the pseudonym of J. R. Johnson, and Raya Dunayevskaya (also known as Freddie Forest) within the Socialist Workers Party, which later evolved into the group Facing Reality. The letters are voluminous, averaging 20 pages on loose leaf paper; handwritten; undated; and either signed with a majuscule N (first letter of his nickname and political pseudonym Nello) or unsigned. They were transcribed and annotated by Webb. less