Chris Braithwaite, also known as Chris Jones (1885 – 9 September 1944), was a black Barbadian who was leader of the Colonial Seamen's Association in the 1930s.

Life

Born in

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estima ...

, Braithwaite went to sea with the

British merchant navy The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom and comprises the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard ...

as a teenager and travelled the world as a sailor. He then settled in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and founded a family, before rejoining the Merchant Navy during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

.Christian Høgsbjerg
"The inspiring fight of socialist seafarer Chris Braithwaite"
''

Socialist Worker ''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since ...

'', 25 February 2014. After

he lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

for a while, before moving to settle in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, working for the

Shipping Federation {{no sources, date=August 2020 The Shipping Federation was an association of employers in the shipping industry. It was formed in 1890 in response to the London dock strike of 1889 and the successes of the National Union of Seamen The Nat ...

. He married a white woman, Edna, from

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...

in London's East End, and they lived in Stepney.Christian Høgsbjerg
"Chris Braithwaite"
''Encyclopedia of Afro-European Studies''. Braithwaite became a member of the

National Union of Seamen The National Union of Seamen (NUS) was the principal trade union of merchant seafarers in the United Kingdom from the late 1880s to 1990. In 1990, the union amalgamated with the National Union of Railwaymen to form the National Union of Rail ...

, and in 1930 joined the Seamen's Minority Movement, a rank-and-file group organised by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Taking the pseudonym "Chris Jones" to avoid victimisation by his employer, Braithwaite had joined the CPGB by 1931. He helped distribute the ''Negro Worker'', and with Arnold Ward helped launch the Negro Welfare Association, publicising the case of the Scottsboro Boys. In 1933 he followed

George Padmore George Padmore (28 June 1903 – 23 September 1959), born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author. He left his native Trinidad in 1924 to study medicine in the United States, where he also joined the Com ...

in resigning from the CPGB in protest at the implicit shift away from anti-imperialism involved with the emerging "

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

" strategy. In 1935, opposing the new British Shipping (Assistance) Act 1935, Braithwaite founded the Colonial Seamen's Association - which included Asian seamen alongside other black colonial seamen. He became organising secretary of the

International African Service Bureau The International African Service Bureau (IASB) was a pan-African organisation founded in London in 1937 by West Indians George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Amy Ashwood Garvey, T. Ras Makonnen and Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta and Sierra Leonean l ...

(IASB), established in May 1937, whose members included Padmore,

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are i ...

, Jomo Kenyatta,

Amy Ashwood Garvey Amy Ashwood Garvey (''née'' Ashwood; 10 January 1897 – 3 May 1969) was a Jamaican Pan-Africanist activist. She was a director of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation, and along with her former husband Marcus Garvey she founded the ''Neg ...

and I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson. Braithwaite wrote a monthly column, "Seamen's Notes", for the IASB journal, ''International African Opinion''. Braithwaite, Padmore and James continued to oppose the CPGB, turning up together to heckle CPGB meetings. Braithwaite and Padmore worked with the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

(ILP) and with ILP intellectuals like Reginald Reynolds and

Ethel Mannin Ethel Edith Mannin (6 October 1900 – 5 December 1984) was a popular British novelist and travel writer, political activist and socialist. She was born in London. Life and career Mannin's father, Robert Mannin (d. 1948) was a member of the So ...

. He died from pneumonia on 9 September 1944, survived by his wife and six children.George Padmore
"Chris Jones: Fighter for the Oppressed"
''

New Leader ''The New Leader'' (1924–2010) was an American political and cultural magazine. History ''The New Leader'' began in 1924 under a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, such as Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. It was p ...

'', September 1944.

References

Further reading / external links

*Dorothy Rose du Boulay
Chris Braithwaite and the International African Service Bureau
- talk by Chris Braithwaite's granddaughter at ''Rastafari in Motion'', Black Cultural Archives, August 2016. *Christian Høgsbjerg
''Chris Braithwaite: Mariner, Renegade and Castaway''
(London: Socialist History Society / Redwords, 2014), *Christian Høgsbjerg
"Chris M Braithwaite"
''Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Black Salt: Britain's Black Sailors
- Exhibition at

Merseyside Maritime Museum The Merseyside Maritime Museum is a museum based in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of National Museums Liverpool and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. It opened for a trial season in 19 ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

which featured Chris Braithwaite in 2017–18.
''A Necessary Fiction''
- art exhibition by Basil Olton in

Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough covering much of the traditional East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally ...

, London, in 2017–18 inspired by the life of Chris Braithwaite. {{DEFAULTSORT:Braithwaite, Chris 1885 births 1944 deaths Barbadian emigrants to England Barbadian emigrants to the United States Barbadian sailors Black British history British communists British Merchant Navy personnel British trade unionists Communist Party of Great Britain members