Jessica Elleisse Huntley (née Carroll; 23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013) was a Guyanese-British political reformer and prominent race equality campaigner. She was a publisher of black and Asian literature, and a women's and community rights activist. She is notable as the founder in 1969 of
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) is a radical London-based publishing company founded by Guyanese activists Jessica Huntley (23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013) Margaret Busby"Jessica Huntley obituary", ''The Guardian'', 27 October 2013. ...
in London.
Early life
She was born in Bagotstown,
British Guiana
British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana.
The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...
(now
Guyana
Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...
) on 23 February (the date on which day the 18th-century
Berbice slave uprising
The Berbice Rebellion was a slave rebellion in Guyana that began on 23 February 1763Cleve McD. Scott"Berbice Slave Revolt (1763)" in Junius P. Rodriguez, ''Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion'', Vol. 1, Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 20 ...
is commemorated) 1927, the only daughter and the youngest of four children of James Carroll and his wife, Hectorine ( Esbrand) Carroll.
Jessica was three years old when her father died, and her mother struggled financially to raise her children, nevertheless instilling the values of independence, discipline, justice and loyalty that informed Jessica's life. Unable to finish high school on the family's meagre finances, Jessica attended evening classes in shorthand and typing. With the hope of a clerical position becoming available, she worked in a garment factory, where she took up the cause of exploited female workers.
In 1950, she married
Eric Huntley
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) is a radical London-based publishing company founded by Guyanese activists Jessica Huntley (23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013)Margaret Busby"Jessica Huntley obituary", ''The Guardian'', 27 October 2013. ...
, and in the following two years gave birth to their first two children.
Career
In January 1950, Jessica Huntley co-founded the first national government of British Guiana, elected through mass suffrage, alongside Leaders
Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Berret Jagan ( ; 22 March 1918 – 6 March 1997) was a Guyanese politician and dentist who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964. He later served as President of Guyana from 19 ...
,
Janet Jagan
Janet Rosenberg Jagan (née Rosenberg; 20 October 1920 – 28 March 2009) was an American-born Guyanese politician who served as the President of Guyana, serving from December 19, 1997, to August 11, 1999. She was the first female president of Gu ...
, Eric Huntley,
Eusi Kwayana
Eusi Kwayana, formerly Sydney King (born 4 April 1925), is a Guyanese politician. A cabinet minister in the People's Progressive Party (PPP) government of 1953, he was detained by the British Army in 1954. Later he left the PPP to form ASCRIA ...
and other members of the People's Progressive Party (PPP). In May 1953, Jessica Huntley co-founded in then British Guiana the Women's Progressive Organization to focus on women's rights as part of the PPP's independence struggle.
She was appointed as the organizing secretary of the PPP, and stood as a candidate in the general election, but was not elected. She moved to the UK in April 1958, following her husband, who had moved there in 1957 to look for work.
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications
In 1969, Huntley co-founded, with her husband Eric Huntley, the London-based publishing company
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) is a radical London-based publishing company founded by Guyanese activists Jessica Huntley (23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013) Margaret Busby"Jessica Huntley obituary", ''The Guardian'', 27 October 2013. ...
(BLP), which was named in honour of two heroes of the Caribbean resistance,
Toussaint L'Ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (, ) also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda (20 May 1743 – 7 April 1803), was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louvertu ...
and
Paul Bogle
Paul Bogle (1822 – 24 October 1865)Dugdale-Pointon, T. Military History Encyclopedia good on the Web, 22 September 2008. was a Jamaican Baptist deacon and activist. He is a National Hero of Jamaica. He was a leader of the 1865 Morant Bay ...
. Beginning with ''The Groundings With My Brothers'', by Guyanese historian and scholar
Walter Rodney
Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) was a Guyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works include '' How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'', first published in 1972. He was assassinated in Georgetown, ...
, BLP went on to publish books by an expanding range of authors, including
Andrew Salkey
Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin.
He was born in Panama but was raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pursu ...
,
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Linton Kwesi Johnson Order of Distinction, OD (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poetry, dub poet and activist. In 2002, he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in th ...
,
Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay FRSL (born 21 May 1967) is a British author and broadcaster. He was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, was chancellor of the University of Manchester from 2015 until 2022, and joined the Foundling Museum's board of trus ...
and
Valerie Bloom
Valerie Bloom MBE (born 1956)Jeffrey Wainwright''Poetry: The Basics''(2004), 2nd edition, Routledge, 2011, p. 21. is a Jamaican-born poet and novelist based in the UK.
A
Nubian Jak Community Trust
Nubian Jak Community Trust (NJCT) is a commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme founded by Jak Beula that highlights the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The first NJCT heritage plaque, honouring Bob Marle ...
blue plaque unveiled in October 2018 outside the Huntleys' West Ealing home commemorates their work in the founding of Bogle-L'Ouverture."Blue plaque to mark work of Ealing activist couple" ''Ealing Times'', 28 September 2018.
Other activity
The Bogle-L'Ouverture bookshop, opened by the Huntleys in Ealing in 1975, was one of the first Black bookshops in the UK, renamed as the Walter Rodney Bookshop following Rodney's assassination in 1980, and was a central hub for community action and creativity.
Huntley was instrumental in the establishment of the
International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books
The International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books, often referred to as The Black Book Fair, was inaugurated in London, England, in April 1982 and continued until 1995, bringing together a number of Black publishers, intellectu ...
, held between 1982 and 1995, of which she was joint director with
John La Rose
John La Rose (27 December 1927 – 28 February 2006) was a political and cultural activist, poet, writer, publisher, founder in 1966 of New Beacon Books, the first specialist Caribbean publishing company in Britain, and subsequently Chairman of ...
until 1984.
Among other activism, in the 1980s Huntley was a co-founder with
Margaret Busby
Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's then youngest publisher as well as the first black female book p ...
and others of Greater Access to Publishing (GAP), a voluntary group campaigning for greater diversity within the mainstream publishing industry.
Personal life
In 1948, she first met
Eric Huntley
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) is a radical London-based publishing company founded by Guyanese activists Jessica Huntley (23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013)Margaret Busby"Jessica Huntley obituary", ''The Guardian'', 27 October 2013. ...
(born 1929), who was at the time a postal worker and trade union activist. They married on 9 December 1950 and lived for a period in the village of
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.Alston, Cumbria also claims this, but lacks a regu ...
. They co-founded a political study group that met in their rented house. They had two sons there: Karl (who was named after
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
) in 1951, and Chauncey in 1952.
Jessica Huntley died on 13 October 2013 at
Ealing Hospital
Ealing Hospital is a district general NHS hospital, part of London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, located in the Southall district of the London Borough of Ealing, West London, England. It lies on the south side of the Uxbridge Road ...
, survived by her husband Eric, their son Chauncey and daughter Accabre (named after one of the rebels in the Berbice slave uprising). Their son Karl died two years earlier, also on 13 October. Hundreds of people attended her funeral on 31 October at
Southall
Southall () is a large suburban town in West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns.
It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided ...
Bogle-L'Ouverture
Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (BLP) is a radical London-based publishing company founded by Guyanese activists Jessica Huntley (23 February 1927 – 13 October 2013)Margaret Busby"Jessica Huntley obituary", ''The Guardian'', 27 October 2013. a ...
, together with documents concerning the personal, campaigning and educational initiatives of Jessica and Eric Huntley from 1952 to 2011, were deposited at
London Metropolitan Archives
The London Archives (previously known as the Greater London Record Office 1965–1997, and London Metropolitan Archives 1997–2024) is the principal local government archive repository for the Greater London area, including the City of London ...
(LMA).
Since 2006, the Huntley Archives at LMA have inspired an annual conference on themes reflecting different elements of the content of the collection.
A blue plaque, organized by the
Nubian Jak Community Trust
Nubian Jak Community Trust (NJCT) is a commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme founded by Jak Beula that highlights the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The first NJCT heritage plaque, honouring Bob Marle ...
and others, was unveiled in October 2018 outside the Ealing home of Jessica Huntley and Eric Huntley to commemorate their work in founding Bogle-L'Ouverture.
In October 2024, a biography titled ''Jessica Huntley's Pan-African Life: The Decolonizing Work of a Radical Black Activist'', written by Claudia Tomlinson, was published by
Bloomsbury Academic
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...
.
See also
*
John La Rose
John La Rose (27 December 1927 – 28 February 2006) was a political and cultural activist, poet, writer, publisher, founder in 1966 of New Beacon Books, the first specialist Caribbean publishing company in Britain, and subsequently Chairman of ...
*
Margaret Busby
Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's then youngest publisher as well as the first black female book p ...
References
Further reading
* Margaret Andrews, ''Doing Nothing is Not An Option: The Radical Lives of Eric & Jessica Huntley'', Middlesex, England: Krik Krak, 2014. .
Stabroek News
The ''Stabroek News'' is a privately owned newspaper published in Guyana. It takes its name from ''Stabroek'' , the former name of Georgetown, Guyana.
It was first published in November 1986, first as a weekly but it later changed to a daily pri ...
Pambazuka News
''Pambazuka News'' is an open access, Pan-African e-mail and online electronic newsletter. It is published weekly in English, Portuguese and French by the not-for-profit organisation Fahamu. The word ''Pambazuka'' means "dawn" or "arise" in Kis ...