LEFT OF KARL MARX by DR. CAROLE BOYCE-DAVIES

ARTICLES, REVIEWS  and PDF REVIEWS

McDuffie-Sojourners

Publisher

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Dr. Carole Boyce-Davies

PRESS RELEASES

KELSO COCHRANE HONOURED

WITH A BLUE LAQUE

50 years to the day, after the violent murder of North Kensington resident Kelso Cochrane, the Nubian Jak Community Trust is to install a Blue Plaque at the Grove Inn Restaurant & Bar, on the corner of Golborne Road and Southam Street, W10.

The commemorative plaque will be unveiled on Sunday 17th May at 3pm by His Excellency Dr Karl Roberts, High Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda, the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Councillor The Hon Joanna Gardner, and Jak Beula, Chair of the Nubian Jak Community Trust.

The unveiling is part of a year long program to remember the 1958 riots by the 1958-9 Remembered Steering Group and to celebrate the community achievements since.

The 1958 Notting Hill riots were recently highlighted in the popular British soap series EastEnders, in an historic episode in March 2009, which for the first time featured an all-black cast.

Kelso Cochrane moved to London from Antigua in 1954, where he settled in Notting Hill and worked as a carpenter. He planned to study law and was saving money earned from his work to pay for his tuition fees. One evening after fracturing his thumb in an accident at work, he went along to the A&E department of Paddington General Hospital for treatment. It was while walking home from there that he was set upon by a group of white racists. One of the men stabbed Kelso through the heart with a stiletto knife; three other men came to his aid prompting his attackers to flee. Those three men took Kelso to hospital, where he died soon afterwards. His funeral was attended by more than 1,200 people.

Oswald Mosley’s British Union Movement was active in Notting Hill and North Kensington at the time.  A Union Movement member, Peter Dawson, later claimed in an interview with the Sunday People that it had been a group member who was responsible for the murder. Indeed not long afterwards Mosley held a public meeting on the spot where Kelso Cochrane had been murdered.  No one was ever convicted.

Kelso Cochrane’s death led to the British Government setting up an investigation into race relations, chaired by Amy Ashwood Garvey. It would result in improved community relations, and better understanding between the diverse communities living in the North Kensington area. 

Quotes:

1. Jak Beula, Chair of the Nubian Jak Community Trust said: ‘The death of Kelso Cochrane and the subsequent outrage it caused made worldwide news in 1959. Like Stephen Lawrence, his passing led to a reassessment of race relations in Britain , and ultimately influenced the government to pass the first race regulations act in Britain .

2. Councillor Pat Mason, 1958 Remembered said: “Kelso’s shocking murder led to the defeat of Oswald Mosley in the 1959 election and his fascist forces chased out of North Kensington”

3. HISTORYtalk Director Pat Fuller said: 'This plaque is a signficant step in the lasting commemoration of Kelso Cochrane, and a reminder that all communities need to stand together now and in the future.'

4. Colin Prescod, Chair of HISTORYtalk said: ‘Our local history is global history.’

Notes to Editors

1. The unveiling will be attended by His Excellency Dr Karl Roberts, High Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda, The Hon Joanna Gardner, Jak Beula Chair of the Nubian Jak Community Trust, Manpreet Dillon - Managing Director of Kensington Housing Trust, Colin Prescod - HISTORYtalk, Alex Pascal - Broadcaster, North Kensington MP, and Karen Buck, Golborne Councillor Emma Dent Coad. Also attending are 80 year old Velma Davis, and 83 year old Lucky Gordon, both residents of North Kensington since the mid 1950s.

2. The Nubian Jak Community Trust Plaque Scheme is the only national BME plaque scheme in the UK . For more information contact: 0800 093 0400 or email info@nubianjak.com

-Ends-

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

 Images for Article: Covers of Both Books, postage stamp

Postage stamp jpeg: www.nottinghilldiary.com/images/claudia-jones-stamp.jpg

 Fifty Years Ago: London’s First Carnival

I. Claudia Jones

By Ray Funk

This four part series looks back a half century at a seminal event, the first Trinidad styled Carnival ever held in London on January 30, 1959. It was these annual carnival dances that  paved the way for the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest public event in Europe each year. The first article is about the instigator of the Carnival, Claudia Jones. The second reviewed the career of its choreographer Stanley Jack and this third one considers the Carnival event itself and the last looks at the rest of the Jones carnival dances.

Fifty years ago this Friday, a unique event happened at Saint Pancreas Hall in central London - the first real Trinidad Carnival occurred in England.

This unique event was the vision of Claudia Jones (1915-1964) who in the wake of the Notting Hill Riots wanted to put on display for British culture that unique Caribbean explosion of joy and culture, Carnival. She and her newspaper sponsored the Carnival each year until she died. >Indeed, while based on the Trinidad Carnival and with a large number of Trinidadians, Jones in her vision of this Carnival wanted it to be like the West Indies cricket team really a pan-Caribbean Carnival as she wrote in the souvenir booklet for the Carnival:

evoked the wholehearted response from the peoples from the Islands of the Caribbean in the new West Indies Federation, this is itself testament to the role of the arts in bringing people together for common aims, and to its fusing of the cultural, spiritual, as well as political and economic interests of West Indians in the UK and at home.

While little remembered for many years, Claudia Jones is starting to take her place as a unique Caribbean woman who faced jail and exile for her political beliefs in the United States. She went on to create the first weekly Black newspaper in England, the West Indian Gazette, as well as become the mother of Carnival in England. Last year saw a fascinating second book about her published, Carole Boyce Davies Left of Karl Marx: Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. England also issued a postage stamp to her and two plaques were put up at Portobello Road and Powis Square in London calling her “the mother of Notting Hill Carnival”.

The plaques were unveiled in August before last year’s Notting Hill Carnival. The High Commission for the Republic Trinidad and Tobago noted at the time, "We are pleased to be associated with this commemorative event to celebrate the life of Claudia Jones. A true daughter of the soil, Ms. Jones’ efforts to promote our culture and bring recognition to the early Caribbean diaspora and thereby create history in the United Kingdom must be heralded."

Only recently has her pivotal role been accepted. That started with a 1996 symposium organized by historian Marika Sherwood at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies London in an attempt to preserve oral memories of this remarkable woman by those who knew her. This resulted in a book, Claudia Jones A Life in Exile (Lawrence & Wishart). More recently, Carole Boyce Davies’ award winning Left of Marx has explored Jones’ philosophy in detail, looking at her writings and speeches going back to when she was active in the American Communist Party. It offers a detailed look at her life in the United States and her struggles for women’s rights and worker’s rights while facind incarceration and deportation but still had energy for poetry and journalism. Professor Davies is currently editing a collection of Jones’ writings. Taken together, it appears there is a Claudia Jones renaissance going on.

Born in Trinidad, Jones’s family moved to Harlem when she was eight. As she grew up, she became very politicized about working conditions for the poor in the United States. This led her to joining first the Young Communist League of the Communist Party of the USA where she became a writer for the party and later editor for their publications. She became a leading speaker for the party and was unique in presenting the perspective of a Black working woman on issues of labor and discrimination. In the McCarthy era, she was arrested and sent to jail four different times and served months in jail. In 1955, she was deported to England. She soon founded a newspaper to serve the Caribbean immigrant community. Called the West Indian Gazette, it was the most important media for the Caribbean community in England.

After horrible race riots occurred in Notting Hill, Jones organized a meeting to discuss what could be done. Donald Hinds, a writer for the Gazette, recently recalled what happened next:

Claudia asked for suggestions which would wash the taste of Notting Hill and Nottingham out of our mouths. It was then that someone, most likely a Trinidadian, suggested that we should have a carnival - in winter? It was December of 1958. Everybody laughed, and then Claudia called us to order. 'Why not?' she asked. 'Could it not be held in a hall, somewhere?'

Thus, was born the first Carnival which continued every year until her death. Dead before her 50th birthday, the newspaper soon folded and her Carnival stopped only to be revived in a different form as the Notting Hill Carnival.

In 1959, when she wanted to create a British version of Carnival she went to two leading Trinidadian artists to put the show together. She chose as director Edric Connor, already a leading actor and performer at the time who was having great success in feature films and had just been the first actor to appear in a Royal Shakespeare company production in Stratford on Avon. For choreographer of the show, she chose a talent Trinidadian dancer who had moved to England, only months before, Stanley Jack. He is not so well remembered these days. But read more about him tomorrow.

Ray Funk (rfunk@ptialasaka.net)  is a fellow of the Academy at UTT and a criminal trial judge in Alaska where he is suffering through a bitter cold winter and cannot wait to head down for Carnival in Trinidad in a few days.

*******

Trinidad Express, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Fifty Years Ago: London ’s First Carnival

II. Stanley Jack

By Ray Funk

This four part series looks back a half century at a seminal event, the first Trinidad styled Carnival ever held in London on January 30, 1959. It was these annual carnival dances that paved the way for the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest public event in Europe each year. The first article was about the instigator of the Carnival, Claudia Jones. This second reviews the career of its choreographer Stanley Jack and this third one considers the Carnival event itself and the last looks at the rest of the Jones carnival dances.

Fifty years ago at St. Pancreas Hall in London , the British West Indian community came together in a show choreographed by Trinidadian Stanley Jack. Though not a familiar name today, Jack was a distinguished dancer and producer in Trinidad and the Caribbean before moving to England where he continued to dance and tour the world.

Growing up in Woodbrook, Stanley Jack attended Richmond Street Secondary School . He had early on focused on music and dance. And while he worked as a chef at the Colonial Hospital , he became a member of choral groups with the Royal Victorian Institute of Music and the Philharmonic Society. He studied piano and voice during this period, taking private lessons.  He formed his own school of dance in Nelson Street upstairs at Samaritan Hall. His group did several performances at the Royal Victoria Institute. He also worked with Olive Walke and appeared regularly with her, singing folk material on a Radio Trinidad show called “Musicians in the Making”.

He also determined on his own to study traditional folk dance and folk songs.  He did field work in Trinidad, the Grenadines, and St. Vincent. He also accepted a six month scholarship from the legendary Lavina Williams to her Haitian Institute of Folklore and Classic Dance. In his interest in folk culture, Jack became very interested in the belair and in shango.

His greatest interest was in Caribbean performance of spirituals. This led to a show he created called In the Great Gittin Up Morning at the Roxie Theatre with Ken Oxley’s Argonaught Male Voice Choir with his friend Dr. Eric Williams writing and recording the narration for the show to be broadcast.  He formed a dance troupe called the Caribbean Entertainment Group featuring himself and several other local dancers: Irma Kirton, Cynthia Yulie, Harold Edinborough, Gloria Thorne and Mike Quashie with drummer Francois Innis. Kirton, Edinborough and Quashie all would go on to have international fameas dancers for many years outside of Trinidad.

With them, Jack took a memorable trip to Grenada , Barbados , St. Lucia , Monserrat, Antigua and Jamaica . In Jamaica, he worked with local impresario Stephen Hill in an Carnival in Trinidad show with a cast of 60 featured a Trinidad steelband and calypsonians Dictator and Panther besides Jamaican performers including Louise Bennett, Frats Quintette, and the Mapletoft Poulle Orchestra.  The show featured calypso dancing, mambo, limbo, interpretive dances to spirituals, shango and a climactic Carnival Bacchanale.  Jack and his dancers stayed for several weeks performing in Kingston and at the North Coast resorts. The show the first time that there had ever been such an elaborate effort to stage Trinidad carnival in Jamaica and it proved very popular.

The troupe returned to Trinidad and continued to do shows locally and around Trinidad. Then in 1958 he went to London to seek his fortune, coming over to give a lecture on West Indian culture. It was at that first event that he met Patricia Fleming, who was dancing at the same event. She was born in Trinidad but raised in Grenada . The started performing together and quickly got involved with the West Indian artist community.

Pearl Connor acted as Jack’s agent and he soon got work acting, as an extra in films, and performing cabaret. He appeared in Errol John’s Moon on a Rainbow Shawl in the Manchester appearance and later in the British television version. He became active politically in a committee to allow Paul Robson to travel outside the US . His committee work brought him in touch with leading activists like Claudia Jones and Amy Ashwood Garvey.

Stanley Jack and his wife Patsy Fleming who had been part of Allister Bain’s troupe of Grenadian folk dancers teamed up. She quickly became one of the leading female limbo dancers in England .As the Islanders, they started what was one of the longest running Caribbean cabaret acts performing throughout Great Britain and Europe in night clubs and hotels well into the Seventies.  They were well known for years in the annual Christmas pantomime Robinson Crusoe at the Birmingham Theatre. They toured England for the holiday camps in the summers. Besides their cabaret work, the formed another business from Tricia Jack’s unique ability to create designs for crocheted dresses that were very popular with beauty contests.  The Islanders retired first to Trinidad and then the United States.

It was this uniquely experienced Trinidad performer that Claudia Jones sought out to produce the first three years of Carnival in London . But read full details of that tomorrow and the next day.

Ray Funk (rfunk@ptialasaka.net)  is a fellow of the Academy at UTT and a criminal trial judge in Alaska where he is suffering through a bitter cold winter and cannot wait to head down for Carnival in Trinidad in a few days.

 

Trinidad Express, Friday, January 30, 2009

Fifty Years Ago: London ’s First Carnival

III. Festivities at St. Pancreas Hall 1959

By Ray Funk

This four part series looks back a half century at a seminal event, the first Trinidad styled Carnival ever held in London on January 30, 1959. It was these annual carnival dancesthat paved the way for the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest public event in Europe each year. The first article was about the instigator of the Carnival, Claudia Jones. The second reviewed the career of its choreographer Stanley Jack and this third one considers the Carnival event itself and the last looks at the rest of the Jones carnival dances.

Fifty years ago today, Trinidadians in London brought their Carnival to St Pancreas Town Hall where they had a packed event, a fabulous time and part of the show was even televised on the BBC. Sponsored by Claudia Jones and her West Indian Gazette, the show was directed by Edric Connor who, before the event occurred, noted to the Jamaica Gleaner, “We want to make it as much like the Port of Spain one as possible.” The décor crew worked from midnight to seven am the night before to transform the hall to a West Indian setting. The turn out was overwhelming, moiré than any one expected and the hall proved inadequate to the demand as over 1,000 people showed up to dance and party.  

Edric Connor had arranged for the BBC to broadcast live a half hour televised glimpse of the Carnival from 10:45 pm to 11:15 pm. It featured the crowning of the Carnival Queen and the cabaret portion of the show.

The primary event was the beauty contest. There were twelve contestants, six from Jamaica , four from Trinidad and one each from Guyana and St. Vincent. The winner got a free round trip to Trinidad for Carnival. Corine Skinner-Carter was blunt at the 1996 symposium in stating the importance of this. “[Claudia Jones] also started … a Black beauty contest. And this was before the Black power days. This was before we all knew that we were beautiful. We might not have known it but she knew that we were beautiful and she started this beauty contest.”

The first winner Fay Sparkes (later Faye Craig) was from Trinidad. She later was appeared in two obscure British film called Jungle Street Girls (1961) and The Informer (1963). She also performed with Boscoe Holder in various scopitone short films and other settings.

There was much dancing by everyone who attended but there was also a cabaret performance with a number of artists. The reporter for the Jamaica Gleaner noted:

Despite the cramped conditions, the show went on with a bang. Songs from Edric Connor, The Southlanders and the Sepia Serenaders [with soloist Pearl Prescod] and dances from David Berahzer’s Malimba Dancers were enthusiastically received. Trinidad calypsonian – The Mighty Terror – sang the number he had specially composed for the occasion, and the evening was enlivened by Errol Phillips and the Trinidad Hummingbirds steelband, with solos by Venice Villarion.

Also featured in the cabaret were Boscoe Holder and his troupe performing “Carnival Fantasia”. There were exhibitions of limbo dancing, tamboo bamboo, and bongo. Fitzroy Coleman performed on his guitar and the young jazz singer Cleo Laine performed with Guyanese pianist Mike McKenzie and his trio.

Stanley Jack remembers they also did a jump up around the building and back in the hall. They had no problem with the police who were too stunned and amused to see any problem. The Southlanders were a quartet of Jamaicans who were protégés of Edric Connor that he took under his wing in the early Fifties and used as back up on his albums. On their own, the Southlanders became a very popular quartet having top ten hits in England and Europe. They always credited their success to the assistance of Edric Connor who first trained them and used them as backup singers on his recordings. “Sneggs” Villarion was a leading pannist from Tacarigua who had come to London in 1958. He performed pan across Europe and beyond until his untimely death in 1991. His career is discussed in detail in Kenrick Thomas’s book Panriga.

Taking everything into account, Claudia Jones’ 1959 Carnival was an unqualified success, which led to it being annual affair.But read more on the other Claudia Jones Carnivals tomorrow.

Ray Funk (rfunk@ptialasaka.net) is a fellow of the Academy at UTT and a criminal trial judge in Alaska where he is suffering through a bitter cold winter and cannot wait to head down for Carnival in Trinidad in a few days.

Trinidad Express, Saturday, January 31, 2009

Fifty Years Ago: London ’s First Carnival

III. London Carnival 1960 - 1964

By Ray Funk

This four part series looks back a half century at a seminal event, the first Trinidad styled Carnival ever held in London on January 30, 1959. It was these annual carnival dancesthat paved the way for the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest public event in Europe each year. The first article was about the instigator of the Carnival, Claudia Jones. The second reviewed the career of its choreographer Stanley Jack and the third one considered the Carnival event itself. This last one looks at the rest of the Jones carnival dances.

In the souvenir program for the 1959 Carnival that occurred fifty years ago, Claudia Jones wrote: “It would be unfair for me not to tell you that we have still another determination, that is, to make the [West Indian Gazette] Caribbean Carnival an annual event.” Her determination became a reality and for the next five years the West Indian Gazette sponsored highly successful carnivals each year.

For 1960, the Carnival was switched to the bigger Seymour Hall and over two thousand people turned out, though they still had to turn people away. A portion was again broadcast on the BBC again. Edric Conner, Stanley Jack remembered, had hoped to make a film of these carnival dances but was not able to put that together. It was a fast paced cabaret program of the best as the Jamaica Gleaner reporter noted:

It began with a fire dance, followed by [Trinidadian] Rupert Nurse and his orchestra, the Russ Henderson Trinidadian Steel Band, the Tropicana steelband, Grenadian Allister Bain and his dancers. Then came the soloists, British Guiana’s Cy Grant, Jamaican Elaine Delmar, and Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Kitchener, Trinidadian dancer Patsy Fleming [the late Mrs. Stanley Jack] performing a spirited limbo dance.

Jeff Henry also performed that year as did Corine Skinner-Carter. Delmar was then a young singer who grew up in show business as the daughter of the great jazz trumpeter Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson and has had a long career as a jazz singer and in theatre.

Allister Bain came to England in 1958 after teaching Dorothy Dandridge to limbo for the movie Island in the Sun. Born and raised in Grenada, he led a struggling troupe there but decided to go on to reach fame and fortune in England. He parleyed contacts he made during the filming of Island in the Sun to the world of film, TV and theatre in England . Bain led a group of Grenadians who had been part of – some who came before him and some after in performances around England but it was impossible to keep the group going.

The first carnival Bain couldn’t get in the door it was so crowded and he didn’t know anybody. By the second, he was performing and continued as part of with these Carnivals.  He danced and had a troupe for several years but later was more active as an actor in British television. Just in the last few years, he has had two plays produced in London at Oval House, Effie May in 2005 and his latest Catalysta this last fall.

The 1961 Carnival held in the Lyceum. A Jamaican nurse won the queen contest.The cabaret featured Elaine Detmar again and the Ray Ellington orchestra which for many years featured Laudric Caton, Trinidad ’s great electric jazz guitarist. Stanley Jack was again in charge and the show featured his limbo dancers.  Stanley Jack remembers that he invited lots of British theatre and film people who came and supported these carnivals.

The 1962 Carnival was held again at Seymour Hall again on March 16, 1962.This was a particularly momentous one because Jones and her committee arranged for the Mighty Sparrow, by then the most celebrated calypsonian in Trinidad to come for the Carnival.The 1962 Carnival also featured Curtis Pierre and his Dixieland Steelband, was produced by Pat Castagne who had come over to work for the Trinidad High Commission and this year the cabaret was directed by Boscoe Holder.

While Sparrow had been to the United States as early as the late 50s, this was his first trip to England . Also, for the first time, the Carnival went on tour to Birmingham , Nottingham and Manchester . Lord Kitchener was living in Manchester at the time and the show there featured a memorable meeting. Sparrow convinced Kitch to return to Trinidad which occurred later that year. There was a busload of participants who went on that trip from London to Manchester , a memorable trip.

In 1963, the London Carnival got away from the beauty queen contest and replaced it with a Carnival masquerade costume competition. It was won by a Trinidadian playing King Sailor. Highlights of the cabaret featured the great Trinidadian actor Horace James who had come to England to go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1960. The Gleaner noted:

Trinidadian comedian Horace James compered with his usual brilliance, excelling himself with a skit on various British television shows as he thinks they will be presented on television in Jamaica and Trinidad. Later he teamed up with Charles Hyatt to do a song on why the Federation broke up. It was a parody of “Lets Call the Whole Thing Off.”

In 1964, again had a costume contest which was won by two men portraying jab jabs. Dixieland steelband was back and Gene Lawrence’s combo provided music.The cabaret show featured Horace James, Alaister Bain, and Corine Skinner-Carter, who has gone on to have a long career in British television.

The six years that the Claudia Jones Carnivals were held they were remarkable in bringing together the West Indian community to celebrate their culture. Indeed, a great many of the leading figures in many aspects of culture were involved. Judges for the beauty and costume competitions included writers like George Lamming, Jan Carew and Andrew Salkey, actors like Cy Grant, Pearl Prescod, Nadia Catouse and Lloyd Reckord, the great Edric and Pearl Connor and Amy Ashwood Garvey as well as prominent business people and politicians.

Both the newspaper and the Carnival stopped after Jones’s death in early 1965 but with the creation of Notting Hill Carnival, what Claudia Jones started has become bigger than she could ever imagine!

Ray Funk (rfunk@ptialasaka.net) is a fellow of the Academy at UTT and a criminal trial judge in Alaska where he is suffering through a bitter cold winter and cannot wait to head down for Carnival in Trinidad in a few days.

 ©2009 Carole Boyce-Davies

©2009 Carole Boyce-Davies