Chris Braithwaite, also known as Chris Jones (1885 – 9 September 1944), was a black Barbadian who was leader of the

Colonial Seamen's Association Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 aut ...

in the 1930s.

Life

Born in

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate ...

, Braithwaite went to sea with the

British merchant navy The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom and comprises the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguar ...

as a teenager and travelled the world as a sailor. He then settled in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and founded a family, before rejoining the Merchant Navy during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

.Christian Høgsbjerg
"The inspiring fight of socialist seafarer Chris Braithwaite"
''

Socialist Worker ''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since ...

'', 25 February 2014. After

he lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

for a while, before moving to settle in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, working for the Shipping Federation. He married a white woman, Edna, from

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

in London's

East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

, and they lived in Stepney.Christian Høgsbjerg
"Chris Braithwaite"
''Encyclopedia of Afro-European Studies''. Braithwaite became a member of the

National Union of Seamen The National Union of Seamen (NUS) was the principal trade union of merchant seafarers in the United Kingdom from the late 1880s to 1990. In 1990, the union amalgamated with the National Union of Railwaymen to form the National Union of Rai ...

, and in 1930 joined the Seamen's Minority Movement, a rank-and-file group organised by the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

(CPGB). Taking the pseudonym "Chris Jones" to avoid victimisation by his employer, Braithwaite had joined the CPGB by 1931. He helped distribute the ''Negro Worker'', and with

Arnold Ward Arnold Sandwith Ward (1876–1950) was an English journalist and Conservative Party politician. He served as the MP for the constituency of Watford between 1910 and 1918. Ward was the son of Humphry "Thomas" Ward, a fellow and tutor of Brase ...

helped launch the Negro Welfare Association, publicising the case of the Scottsboro Boys. In 1933 he followed

George Padmore George Padmore (28 June 1903 – 23 September 1959), born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author. He left his native Trinidad in 1924 to study medicine in the United States, where he also joined the Co ...

in resigning from the CPGB in protest at the implicit shift away from anti-imperialism involved with the emerging "

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalitio ...

" strategy. In 1935, opposing the new

British Shipping (Assistance) Act 1935 The British Shipping (Assistance) Act 1935 was an Act of Parliament which subsidized the British shipping industry during the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the ...

, Braithwaite founded the

- which included Asian seamen alongside other black colonial seamen. He became organising secretary of the International African Service Bureau (IASB), established in May 1937, whose members included Padmore,

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are ...

Jomo Kenyatta Jomo Kenyatta (22 August 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first indigeno ...

Amy Ashwood Garvey Amy Ashwood Garvey (''née'' Ashwood; 10 January 1897 – 3 May 1969) was a Jamaican Pan-Africanist activist. She was a director of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation, and along with her former husband Marcus Garvey she founded the '' N ...

and I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson. Braithwaite wrote a monthly column, "Seamen's Notes", for the IASB journal, ''International African Opinion''. Braithwaite, Padmore and James continued to oppose the CPGB, turning up together to heckle CPGB meetings. Braithwaite and Padmore worked with the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse worki ...

(ILP) and with ILP intellectuals like

Reginald Reynolds Reginald Arthur Reynolds (1905 – 16 December 1958) was a British left wing writer, poet, a Quaker and an anti-colonial activist who collaborated with M.K. Gandhi and Horace Alexander. A Quaker, he was General Secretary of the No More War M ...

and Ethel Mannin. He died from pneumonia on 9 September 1944, survived by his wife and six children.George Padmore
"Chris Jones: Fighter for the Oppressed"
'' New Leader'', September 1944.

Life

References

Further reading / external links