Abstract
When I moved to the United Kingdom as a graduate student at the age of 23, I was amazed to find a plethora of stereotypes awaiting me. Though I am of Jamaican and Trinidadian descent, I was raised by my Jamaican family and would proudly attest to anyone that would ask, ‘I’m from Jamaica!’ All around the world that remark would give me praise, but on UK soil I was met with shock and dismay. ‘Jamaican?! Wow, you seem so calm.’ These remarks were gifted to me at all times from other young people, always Black, immigrants like me, friends with whom I shared many similarities, and strangers I knew nothing about. Over the course of the next year, I was bathed in the stereotypes plaguing Caribbean people and learned more about the lineage from which they stemmed. I found that my peers and I were partaking in a history that was becoming blanketed in forgetfulness; yet, unbeknownst to me, there were writers such as Gus John working to repeal this process through books like Blazing Trails: stories of a heroic generation.
Blazing Trails’ unique starting point and basic premise is the book’s structure as a compilation of eulogies and obituaries written by John. John, a scholar and activist originating from Guyana, taps into his fifty-five years of community engagement, activism, and cross-cultural analysis to recount the full lives of each person present in a eulogy. Each eulogy highlights the life of an extraordinary yet ordinary person who struggled for racial justice in the UK and effectively humbled a former empire. Present are prominent names such as Jessica Huntley and John La Rose, but others grace the pages with no less triumph, including Ruby Inniss and Willis Wilkie. Though these names may be unfamiliar to most, they played indelible roles in forging a culture of resistance to oppression in the UK and did so as immigrants from Caribbean nations. Their absence from public knowledge and education is no coincidence, but it has an impact that John deems detrimental, in particular to younger generations. John believes that without the ‘story of our resistance’ young people fail to recognise the continuity of their history. State oppression and unethical housing are nothing new, but neither is the resistance to them. And though resistance carries an image of aggression and ill temperament (associated with Caribbean people), we should not forget that it is born out of, and maintained by, uncompromising love. Blazing Trails showcases the holistic story of resistance in the UK through each eulogy and tames our societal instinct to misinterpret ourselves.
Margaret Busby’s foreword and the exclusive interview of John, conducted by Ndidi John, set a thought-provoking tone for the stories to come. Each chapter is dedicated to an activist’s life story in the form of a familiar yet astute eulogy. The chapters are grouped into six parts highlighting the area of activism each person inhabited. These areas include Publishing and Media, Performance, Education, Health Work, Social Work, and Community and Rights activism. Though grouped in these sections, each individual is not confined therein. More often than not, a reader will see an aforementioned hero within the pages of another’s eulogy – possibly as many as four others! The flexibility in which each person appears in another’s story makes three things irrefutably clear. 1) A person’s care and respect for their community extends far beyond a specific section of work. Whether based in education or the performing arts, these heroes carried an essence of resistance with them no matter where they went, and this essence spilt over on to the fields of community activism and/or publishing. 2) This collection showcases a family, a network, many friendships, and a determination to be undivided despite national pressure. And 3) each person mentioned profoundly influenced countless sectors in the UK, providing for a nation that did little to provide for them.
If John is to be condemned for anything, it should be his misleading description. Through the depiction of the book as a collection of eulogies, a reader may gear themselves to lumber through a series of heavy and potentially sad accounts of the past. On reading it, however, they will be pleased to find the opposite. The stories that John recounts speak to the full lives of the individuals whose stories are narrated – their upbringing in the Caribbean, the circumstances that led them to the UK, the struggles they faced, the communities they built, the changes and triumphs achieved, and the people they touched along the way. In essence, these eulogies illustrate what builds a revolutionary. It is surprising, yet no surprise at all, that the answer is simply life. One that is not so drastically different from yours or mine, but one that someone chose to act upon. Those who fill the pages of Blazing Trails had full lives and wanted more, they experienced love that was too valuable to leave unprotected, and they held on to the self-respect that others tried to erase.
As the reader progresses through the book, they are likely to find their own story within the eulogies of Jayne Cortez or Ian Macdonald. They have dreamt of seeing more Black and Asian talent on the screen like Pearl Connor Mogotsi or have battled for their children’s educational success like Victoria Joseph. As I combed through these pages, I found that my sympathies lay in the hands of Reverend Hewlette Andrew when he lost the trust of his mostly Black congregation after imploring theology to become more community-oriented and decolonised. I shot up at the chance to visit Pansy Jeffrey’s Pepper Pot Centre (though I may not be let in) after learning how tirelessly she worked to sustain a community for Caribbean senior citizens through an offering of great food. These stories brought resistance to life as an act of liberation and love, a journey of hurt and misgivings, a fight that adjusts to the struggle, and an achievement that – despite its unacknowledged effort – is indisputable. Regardless of their public stigma, these activists understood that ‘if you resolve to let no one and nothing render you less than you are, or have the capacity to be, you will be more firmly in control of yourself, irrespective of the battering gales of life’.
John’s unique form of storytelling through the collection of these eulogies opens the reader’s eyes to an unspoken past, recurring present, and opportune future. As young people, we do not stand alone, but, as people, we must decide to stand for something. Whether for a nation or community, for home or for abroad, the heroes of these pages stood for something outside of themselves and remind us that we can do the same. Blazing Trails’ direct message adds to its power and the book can serve as a great introduction to the history of resistance, the history of Caribbean people, the history of the UK and the history of one’s self. I recommend it to anyone who familiarises themselves with Cy Grant’s words, ‘I knew that the colony (and the colonial system) was too small to hold me!’