Black History Month

John Cryer Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I will be brief, because I have not got much choice. Following that last speech, I would just point out that the early MPs whom the hon. Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) mentioned served in here decades before the Labour party even existed. It would have been a bit tricky for us to get any MPs elected, white or non-white, before we even existed. The Labour party was created in its present structure in 1918 and it was only four years later that the first Labour Indian MP was elected, Shapurji Saklatvala, who was the MP for Battersea.

I would like to talk today about a very specific area of Black History Month and that is the black curriculum, with specific reference to the Caribbean and the struggle for independence. On the 60th anniversary of Jamaican independence—eight years ago—I attended a ceremony in Waltham Forest town hall marking that anniversary. Even then, eight years ago, the generation who fought for independence and to throw off the shackles of colonialism was slipping from memory, into history, and that period of the late 1950s and early 1960s is now slipping from memory into history even more. That is a dangerous situation, where we might lose that collective memory.

I would like to pay tribute to my friend Bernie Grant, who, as has been mentioned, came in here in 1987. Unusually among British politicians, Bernie moved to Britain as an adult. He grew up in Guyana and came here when he was 19 years old, in 1963. He took part in the struggle for independence and he continued to do that, as a trade unionist and a councillor, when he came here. He came here just after Jamaican independence and just before his own country, Guyana, gained independence in the mid-1960s.

The loss of the generation who were instrumental in gaining independence and self-government was further brought home to me in the summer with the death of Everton Weekes, the great West Indian cricketer. He was one of the few remaining links between our era and the post-war era in the Caribbean, where such strides were made politically and in sport. The Caribbean became the dominant force in the world in cricket, which has been the one force that has driven unity in the Caribbean. There was a dream—Michael Manley’s dream—that the Caribbean would have some sort of unity. The Federation of the West Indies was created around 1960 but, partly because of the opportunism of rivals, it lasted only four years and then collapsed.

Sporting endeavour has been a unifying link between the islands of the West Indies. In the West Indies, sport and politics are more closely linked than they are probably anywhere else on the planet, and I suspect that Jamaica is the only country that could produce a Prime Minister such as Michael Manley. Not only was he a great leader and a great advocate of emancipation, but he wrote the magisterial volume “A History of West Indies Cricket”. It is a great big doorstop of a book, but it is a real page-turner and a superb history book. He was a scholar and a giant among mid-20th century politicians around the world.

It seems extraordinary now, but it is well within living memory that there was a great controversy in the West Indies over the appointment of the first black player as the captain of its cricket team—an appointment that was made only after a long campaign led by C.L.R James, the great writer, historian and journalist. It was a big deal in the Caribbean at the time, and it was seen as one of the great stepping stones to throwing off the shackles of colonialism and imperialism. The beneficiary of that appointment was the great Frank Worrell; whenever I mention him, I want to call him the immortal Frank Worrell, but if he had been immortal, I suppose he would not have gone and died. He can lay claim to being one of the greatest leaders that any sport has produced, and he is a great example for future generations.

C.L.R James, who lived in Brixton in his later years, began the campaign for independence in the Caribbean in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was hardly talked about in this country. He came to Britain in 1932 with Learie Constantine, who was a great cricketer, a politician and a barrister. A few years before David Pitt—he was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq)—went to the House of Lords, Learie Constantine became the first non-white peer.

My central point is this: all the people I have talked about—C.L.R. James, Frank Worrell, Bernie Grant and the great Jamaican writer and journalist Una Marson—have gone. They are no longer with us, so the links with the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, which saw emancipation and independence in the Caribbean, are withering. I would hate to see a generation come up—particularly the children and grandchildren of migrants—who do not have that collective memory to inherit, and who do not know about the struggles for independence. The best way of honouring those who led the struggle for independence is by incorporating that history into the curriculum today.