Blue Plaque to C L R James, 165 Railton Road, Brixton
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Blue Plaque to C L R James, 165 Railton Road, Brixton by A J Paxton as part of the Geograph project.
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Blue Plaque to C L R James, 165 Railton Road, Brixton
Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 31 May 2025
"C.L.R. JAMES 1901-1989 West Indian Writer and Political Activist lived and died here" This English Heritage plaque is attached to the wall of a house at the corner of Railton Road and Shakespeare Road, where Cyril Lionel Robert James spent the last years of his life in a flat above the offices of the journal Race Today. Born in Tunapuna, Trinidad, James first came to Britain in 1932 at the invitation of a fellow Trinidadian, the cricketer Learie Constantine. James reported on cricket for the Manchester Guardian and was later to write an outstanding memoir about the game, 'Beyond a Boundary'. In 1938 he published his most famous book, 'The Black Jacobins', a history of Toussaint L'ouverture and the successful slave revolt which led to the independence of Haïti. James lived for many years in the USA and Trinidad, where he was active in the independence movement, before settling in London. See the English Heritage site https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/c-l-r-james/ and Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._R._James .
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Image Location
Latitude
51.456635
Longitude
-0.105908