Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

I am presenting the lecture with the help of a number of extracts from that wonderful film ‘Dream to Change the
World’, a film which links John La Rose’s early life and political activism in Trinidad & Tobago with his political
and cultural activism here in the UK throughout the rest of his life. At this point, let me acknowledge my sincere
thanks to Horace Ove for that excellent film and for allowing us to use it in telling the story of 50 Years of New
Beacon Books.
A couple weeks ago, at the George Padmore Institute, we also celebrated 50 Years of CAM, the Caribbean
Artists Movement. We are gathered here today in the 10th year of the death of John La Rose, the inspiration
behind the founding of both institutions, institutions that constitute historic political interventions in the ongoing
and troubled process of ‘Changing Britannia’.
So, today is a day for celebration, celebration with pride and treasured memory. Celebration of 50 Years of
New Beacon, 50 Years of CAM and 40 years of John La Rose with both New Beacon Books is one of the most
important and influential institutions in post-war Britain. For the last 50 years it has operated on the axis of culture
and politics, epitomising the symbiotic relationship between the two; on the axis of communities’ struggles
for self-determination and for fundamental rights and entitlements and on the axis of struggles for racial equality
and social justice in a nation that has failed and stubbornly continues to fail to acknowledge the political and
policy imperative that the legacy of empire and of its colonial past has placed upon it.
New Beacon Books was founded by John La Rose in 1966 and became the first African heritage publishers and
booksellers in the UK. La Rose had had a ‘life experience with Britain’ in his native Trinidad & Tobago prior to
continuing to chart a life experience with Britain right here, in a nation seeking to redefine and reconstruct itself
after two devastating world wars in less than a quarter of a century.
John La Rose had not only been engaged in radical and revolutionary politics, he was immersed in the literary
tradition of Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean generally. When La Rose was still a toddler, CLR James started
the ‘Beacon’ group which was dedicated to writing and promoting literature that dealt with ‘ordinary life’ in
Trinidad. Between 1931 and 1939, they published the ‘Beacon’ journal which carried short stories about ordinary
folk and their lives in their communities, as well as novels based on the struggles of workers and peasants that
were framed within the politics and dynamics of race and class in colonial Trinidad. As a teenage activist, therefore,
La Rose was nurtured within that tradition and was inspired by the creative writing and political commentaries
of a vibrant generation of writers and political theorists.
By the time John left the Caribbean to come to Britain, therefore, he had formed a view of the world. He had
seen evidence of imperialist plunder and exploitation, of the relationship between labour and capital accumulation,
evidence of people’s struggle for economic and cultural emancipation, evidence of the strength of a united
labour movement and of the lengths to which the oppressive state would go to subdue the people and crush
their will as they struggled for self-determination and for bread, freedom and justice.
John was nurtured as a young activist, not just by Caribbean intellectuals, but by the lessons of the courageous
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