CLR James, Irish Question, and Black Liberation Struggle

When Trinidadian Marxist author of The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, CLR James was asked to reflect on his own political development he reportedly said that “he didn’t really understand what it meant to be revolutionary until he went to Ireland.” As it was the “Irish revolutionaries who ‘really understood armed struggle and revolutionary conflict.’” James would triumphantly argue for the autonomy of the Black liberation struggle, as James Connolly had argued for the Irish liberation struggle.  This talk will meander through history, recite primary texts, investigate the Irish and Black “Questions,” examine James’s thinking on the meaning of autonomy, and ask what these and neighboring “Questions” have to tell us today. 

Kevin Van Meter is an author, labor educator, and union organizer.  

At University College Dublin Health Sciences Building Room A005. Thank you to the UCD School of…