C. L. R. James - Legacy

Legacy

• In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of titles by James were published by Allison & Busby, including four volumes of selected writings: The Future In the Present, Spheres of Existence, At the Rendezvous of Victory, and Cricket.

• In 1983, a 60-minute film, Talking History, featuring James in dialogue with the historian E. P. Thompson, was made by Penumbra Productions. This British company also filmed a series of six of his lectures, shown on Channel 4. The topics were: Shakespeare; cricket; American society; Solidarity in Poland; the Caribbean; and Africa.

• The C.L.R. James Institute was founded with James's blessing by Jim Murray in 1983. Based in New York, and affiliated to the Centre for African Studies at Cambridge University, it has been run by Ralph Dumain since Murray's death in 2003.

• A public library in the London Borough of Hackney is named in his honour. He attended the naming ceremony in March 1985, and his widow, Selma James, attended a reception there to mark its 20th anniversary. Hackney Council had intended to drop the name of the library as part of a new development in Dalston Square in the spring of 2011, but after protests from Selma James and local and international campaigners, the council promised that the library would after all retain the name of C. L. R. James. A council statement said: “As part of the new library, there will be a permanent exhibition to chronicle his life and works and an annual event in his memory, and we are pleased to report the state-of-the-art education room will also be named after this influential figure.” The new Dalston C. L. R. James Library was officially opened on 28 February 2012. At the launch there on 2 March 2012 of a permanent exhibition dedicated to James's life and legacy, Selma James spoke.

• The Brixton Pound, a local currency in use in Brixton only, created in an effort to support independent traders, has his picture on the ten-pound note.