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accounts of West Indian and black British literary and intellectual histories of the first half of the twentieth century is mention of Una Marson, a black Jamaican woman whose experiences and achievements provided a link to all these major movements and figures. It is perhaps not surprising that Marson’s identity as an intellectual is not straightforward. As an educated, middle-class daughter of a Baptist
Caribbean migration to Britain brought many new things—new music, new foods, new styles. It brought new ways of thinking too. This book explores the intellectual ideas that the West Indians brought with them to Britain. It shows that, for more than a century, West Indians living in Britain developed a dazzling intellectual critique of the codes of Imperial Britain. Chapters discuss the influence of, amongst others, C. L. R. James, Una Marson, George Lamming, Jean Rhys, Claude McKay and V. S. Naipaul. The contributors draw from many different disciplines to bring alive the thought and personalities of the figures they discuss, providing a picture of intellectual developments in Britain from which we can still learn much. The introduction argues that the recovery of this Caribbean past, on the home territory of Britain itself, reveals much about the prospects of multiracial Britain.
examines the author and activist Una Marson, who, arriving from Jamaica as an already published poet, journalist and editor in London in 1932, expected to find a welcoming intellectual culture. Instead she encountered an excluding and bewildering racism operating administratively as the colour bar, but which informally permeated social, political and literary London, where writers and socialites watched ‘exotic’ black dancers and musicians performing in racy West End clubs, and where even progressive organisations and intellectuals were prone to patronising and pro
myopic authority of colonial culture could be active among those of privilege and influence within the imperial centre. The programme that evolved into Caribbean Voices was initially conceived by the Jamaican journalist and poet, Una Marson. 4 In March 1943 Marson had organised a feature programme for the BBC overseas service entitled Calling the West Indies
The finding of a ‘safe haven’ in groups of the same gender or colour, as did Dorothy Pilley and Una Marson, can be seen in the participation strategies of minority ethnic groups. 2 The orchestration of friendly collaboration between different groups to achieve the same end can be seen in the informal and formal friendship and networking strategies of Alison Settle, Edith Shackleton and Leah Manning. 3 The pursuit of access through alternative or informal channels, as adopted by Francesca Wilson in her efforts to be accepted on Quaker humanitarian missions, has
, even as the tumultuous 1930s unfolded around them. However, it also aroused the contempt of middle-class nationalists, including taboobreaking feminist, poet and playwright Una Marson. Marson attacked the beauty competition and, as her anticolonial position developed, began to interrogate the politics of feminine beauty brought to light by the mood of resistance to British colonialism and the advance of American consumerism in the island. Through an analysis of de Lisser’s dedicated construction of idealised white femininity and Marson’s and her contemporary Amy
Sylvia Panlchurst. Nancy Cunard, whose unorthodox lifestyle and transgression of inter-racial taboos was inseparable from her identification with the black cause, may also be included in this category. In addition to these white female activists there were also a handful of black women activists resident in Britain in the 1930s, the most notable being Una Marson, Eslanda Goode Robeson and
Two, as the empire called out to its colonial peoples to 3658 Paving the empire road:Layout 1 30/6/11 08:45 Page 17 Radio, race, and the Television Service 17 assist in the good fight, and what Webster called the ‘people’s war’. Communities, supposedly bound by duty, helped to reinforce the imperial presence in most intertextual manner, as West Indians Una Marson, Sir Learie Constantine, and Ulric Cross broadcast messages of involvement and commitment over BBC radio and newsreels.2 While race and subsequent social relations were never a principle
Abyssinia, and in imagining a revivified Pan-Africanism. Yet anger at the abandonment of Abyssinia by the democratic nations was not just the prerogative of militant marxists, however heterodox. It was above all a colonial issue – perhaps the colonial issue – and it entered the souls of all those who had been touched by colonial politics. Thus from a very different stance from James or Padmore, Una Marson
. Images of West Indians were surely not foreign to White British audiences. Newsreels such as The Empire Marches (1941), War comes to Africa (1942), and Defenders of India (1941) had already featured AfricanCaribbeans and other soldiers of colour during World War Two, urging their allegiance to Mother England in her time of need. The film West Indies Calling (1943), also sponsored by the Ministry of Information (MOI), featured a discussion of the war effort by radio producer Una Marson, cricketer-turned-statesman Learie Constantine, and RAF officer Ulric Cross. Shown