Chris Searle (born 1 January 1944) is a British educator, poet, anti-racist activist, and socialist. He has written widely on cricket, language, jazz, race, and social justice, and has taught in Canada, England,

Tobago Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger islan ...

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

, and

Grenada Grenada is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The southernmost of the Windward Islands, Grenada is directly south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and about north of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and the So ...

. He has been associated with the Institute of Race Relations since the 1970s, and is on the editorial board of ''

Race & Class ''Race & Class'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on contemporary racism and imperialism. It is published quarterly by SAGE Publications on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations and is interdisciplinary, publishing material across the huma ...

''. He writes a weekly column on jazz for the left-wing newspaper '' Morning Star''.

Life

Chris Searle was born in Romford, Essex, in 1944. He was a young cricketer for England, and graduated in 1966 from the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. That year he went to

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a 2021 Canadian census, population of 569,353 (2021), and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which encompasses ...

, Canada, where in 1967 he completed an M.A. in English Literature at

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood, Ontario, Ainslie Wood and Westdale, Ontario, Westd ...

, which included a thesis on the East End of London poet Isaac Rosenberg. He became a schoolteacher in Canada, and then in 1968–69 taught English at a secondary school in

, in the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

. His 1972 work ''The Forsaken Lover: White Words and Black People'', which won the Martin Luther King Prize, is based on his experience in Tobago.

Stepney School strike

On returning to England in 1970, Searle taught in the East End, and was involved in the Stepney School strike of 1971 in the borough of Tower Hamlets. He was dismissed from the John Cass Foundation and Red Coat School when he published ''Stepney Words'', a collection of his pupils' poems; however, he was reinstated after his pupils went on strike in protest.

Later life

He spent 1977 and 1978 working in

Nampula Nampula is the capital city of Nampula Province in Northern Mozambique. With a population of 743,125 (2017 census), it is the third-largest city in Mozambique after Maputo and Matola. The city is located in the interior of Nampula Province, appro ...

Secondary School in northern Mozambique during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

there. His book ''We're Building the New School! Diary of a Teacher in Mozambique, published in 1981, presents his experiences in diary form. Searle spent time in the early 1980s in

, and wrote and edited several books about that

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

island, including, in 1981, ''Grenada: Education Is a Must!'' with Grenada's Prime Minister

Maurice Bishop Maurice Rupert Bishop (29 May 1944 – 19 October 1983) was a Grenada, Grenadian revolutionary and the leader of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) – a Marxist–Leninist party that sought to prioritise socio-economic development, education and bla ...

. Bishop had been involved in March 1979 with a coup by the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

New Jewel Movement The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation, or New JEWEL Movement (NJM), was a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party in the Caribbean island nation of Grenada that was led by Maurice Bishop. Established in 1973, the NJM issued ...

, which suspended the country's constitution, and established a

People's Revolutionary Government The People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) was proclaimed on 13 March 1979 after the Marxist–Leninist New Jewel Movement overthrew the government of Grenada in a revolution, making Grenada the only socialist state within Commonwealth of Nati ...

. Searle also edited ''In Nobody's Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s speeches 1979–1983''. He taught at the Earl Marshal School in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

between 1990 and 1995. Later he was a lecturer in education at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...

, London. In 2007, Searle was a visiting social sciences professor at York University, Toronto. According to

John Berger John Peter Berger ( ; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to t ...

: "At his best Searle's compassion, anger and sense of historical morality as a storyteller are reminiscent of the early Gorki. I can see no other writer in Britain with whom to compare him."Profile of Searle
at Inpress publishers.

Bibliography

*''Stepney Words'' (editor), 1971 *''Firewords'' (editor), 1971 – a national anthology of children's poetry *''Poilu: a novel'', 1971 *''Elders: a collection of poems by elder citizens'' (editor), 1972 *''The Forsaken Lover: White Words and Black People'', Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972 (Penguin Books, 1973) *''This New Season: Our Class, Our Schools, Our World'', 1973 *''Mainland'', 1973 – poems *''Ferndale Fires: a children's story'', 1974 *''Classrooms of Resistance'', Writers and Readers, 1975 *''The Black Man of Shadwell: four stories'', 1976 *''The World in a Classroom'', 1977 *''Beyond the Skin: How Mozambique is defeating racism'', 1979 *''Grenada: "Let those who labour hold the reins"'', 1979 – interview with

Bernard Coard Winston Bernard Coard (born 10 August 1944) is a Grenadian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister in the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) of the New Jewel Movement. In 1983, Coard launched a coup within the PRG and briefly too ...

*''Red Earth: Poems'', 1980 *''Tales of Mozambique'' (with Chaz Davies and Ruhi Hamid), 1980 *''Bricklight: Poems from the Labour Movement in East London'' (editor), 1980 *''Grenada: Education Is a Must!'' (with

), 1981 *Is Freedom We Making': The New Democracy in Grenada'' (editor), 1981 *''We're Building the New School! Diary of a Teacher in Mozambique'',

Zed Books Zed Books is a non-fiction publishing company based in London, UK. It was founded in 1977 under the name Zed Press by Roger van Zwanenberg. Zed publishes books for an international audience of both general and academic readers, covering areas ...

, 1981 *''Sunflower of Hope: Poems from the Mozambican Revolution'' (editor), Allison and Busby, 1982 *''Grenada Is Not Alone'' (editor), 1982 *''In the Spirit of Butler: trade unionism in free Grenada'' (editor), 1982 *''In the Mainstream of the Revolution'' (editor), 1982 *''To Construct From Morning: making the people’s budget in Grenada'' (editor), 1982 *''Common Ground'', 1983 *''Grenada: The Struggle against Destabilization'', 1983 *''Wheel Around the World'' (editor), 1983 *''Words Unchained: Language and Revolution in Grenada'', Zed Books, 1984 *''In Nobody’s Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s speeches 1979–1983'' (editor), Zed Books, 1984 *''Calalloo: Stories from Grenada'' (editor), 1984 *''Our City'' (editor), 1984 *''All Our Words'', 1986 *''Poems for Peace by Sheffield Schoolchildren'' (editor), 1987 *''Children of Steel: A Sheffield Anthology'' (editor), 1988 *''Racism and the Press in Thatcher's Britain'' (with Nancy Murray), Institute of Race Relations, 1989 *''Your Daily Dose: Racism and the Sun'', 1989 *''Grenada Morning: A Memoir of the "Revo"'', Karia Press, 1989 *''One for Blair'' (editor), 1989 – tribute to Blair Peach *''Remember Hillsborough: a memorial anthology'' (co-editor, with Steve Chew), 1990 *''Freedom Children: a tribute in poetry to the children of South Africa from the children of Sheffield'' (editor), 1990 *
A Blindfold Removed: Ethiopia's Struggle for Literacy
', Karia Press, 1991 *''Outcast England: How schools exclude black children'' (with Jenny Bourne and Lee Bridges), 1994 *''Living Community, Living School: Essays on education in British inner cities'', 1997 *''Changing Literacies'' (with Colin Lankshear, James Paul Gee and Michele Knobel), 1997 *''None But Our Words: Critical Literacy in Classroom and Community'', 1998 *''Pitch of Life: Writings on Cricket'', Parrs Wood Press, 2001 *''An Exclusive Education: Race, Class and Exclusion in British Schools'', Lawrence & Wishart, 2002 *''Lightning of Your Eyes: new and selected poems'', Smokestack Books, 2006 *''Cosmopolis Toronto'' (editor), 2007 *''Tell It Like It Is: How our schools fail black children'' (with Bernard Coard and others), 2007 *
Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzman
', Northway Publications, 2008 *''Toronto Generations'' (editor), 2008 *''Mandela, Manchester'' (editor), 2009 *
Doodlebug Boy
', 2011 *
Red Groove
', Five Leaves Publications, 2013 *
Footprints: Poems by Peter Blackman
' (editor), Smokestack Books, 2013 *''Isaac and I: A Life in Poetry'', 2017; reprint Five Leaves Publications, 2022, *''The World is in Our Words'', Five Leaves Publications, 2022. *''Talking the Groove: Jazz Words from the Morning Star'', Jazz In Britain, 2024.

References

External links

''Chris Searle: The Great Includer''
October 2009. Special issue of ''

Race and Class ''Race & Class'' is a Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal on contemporary racism and imperialism. It is published quarterly by SAGE Publications on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations (United Kingdom), Institute of Race Relations and ...

'', a festschrift on his 65th birthday.
"The Stepney School Strike of 1971"
''Spitalfields Life'', 16 August 2011. *Michael h Baldwin
" Tales for Perspiring Teachers. Chapter 2. Revolution in the air"
- In which 900 children go on strike and march to Trafalgar Square. *Fran Abrams

''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 31 December 1995
"Former head chronicles a passion for jazz and justice"
(interview), '' Sheffield Telegraph'', 14 November 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Searle, Chris 1944 births Living people 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers Alumni of the University of Leeds British activists British educational theorists British male poets British poets British socialists People from Romford