Reading CLR James in Trinidad
From former (and still much beloved) AK Press collective member, Jayden Donahue:
I decided to read You Don’t Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of CLR James while planning my trip to Trinidad and it just so happens that I was still reading it while we were there. I felt that it was important, especially as a white person, to have some basis of analysis around colonialism and resistance in the Caribbean while visiting. I found the lectures particularly suited to this study because James also explores culture and literature, specifically addressing Trinidad, so I learned about some authors that I never would have otherwise. I found that the lectures brought up many questions for me around the the larger Caribbean diaspora and the current economic state of Trinidad (which unlike other Caribbean nations does not rely on tourism, but rather oil production, as the basis of its economy) as well as the colonial legacy which still seems very alive and well in Trinidad’s government and education systems.
His grave, located in an overgrown and otherwise unremarkable cemetery in Port of Spain, reads:
Cyril Lionel Robert James, 1901-1989, Man of Letters
“Times would pass. Old empires would fall and new ones take their place. The relations of countries and the relations of classes had to change before I discovered that it is not the quality of goods and utility which matter, but movement. Not where you are or what you have but where you have come from, where you are going and the rate at which you are getting there.” —from his book Beyond a Boundary