Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020)
["Tributes pour in to Dame Jocelyn Barrow, a ‘true champion of racial equality’"]
''The Voice
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'', 11 April 2020. was a British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first black woman to be a governor of the
British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
(BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the
Broadcasting Standards Council
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...
.
Early life and career
Jocelyn Barrow, daughter of
Barbadian father Charles Newton Barrow and Olive Irene (''nee'' Pierre),
[Elizabeth Sleeman (ed.)]
"BARROW, Dame Jocelyn (Anita), DBE, FRSA"
in ''The International Who's Who of Women 2002'', Psychology Press, 2001, p. 43. was born in
Port of Spain,
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
(her mother's native land), where she was active politically as a member of the
People's National Movement
The People's National Movement (PNM) is the longest-serving and oldest active political party in Trinidad and Tobago. The party has dominated national and local politics for much of Trinidad and Tobago's history, contesting all elections sinc ...
. She undertook training to become a teacher, and in 1959 travelled to Britain for postgraduate studies, attending the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
,
[Angela Cobbinah]
"‘Life is a two-way street’"
''Camden New Journal'', 24 October 2019.["Dame Jocelyn Barrow , HonLLD"]
Honorary Graduates, University of Greenwich. where she read English.
["Boards and senior staff at 1 November 1988"](_blank)
''Annual Report & Accounts 1987–88'', BBC.
Barrow was a founding member, general secretary and later vice-chair of
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasted until 1967, that lobbied for race relations legislation. The group's formation was inspired by a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. to Londo ...
(CARD) – the organisation that between 1964 and 1967 lobbied for race relations legislation and was responsible for the
Race Relations Act of 1968
The Race Relations Act 1968 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom making it illegal to refuse housing, employment, or public services to a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins in Great Britain (although n ...
. Barrow said in a 2019 interview: "Card was a very effective organisation though it wasn’t as grassroots as I would have liked it to have been. It was led by people like me,
Lord avidPitt and
Anthony Lester, a QC. The people at the bottom were too busy trying to survive though some did join."
Barrow was also a leading member of the North London West Indian Association (NLWIA), set up in 1965 as a major component of the West Indian Standing Conference, which had been founded in 1958 after the
Notting Hill riots
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially motivated riots that took place in Notting Hill, England, between 29 August and 5 September 1958.
Background
Following the end of the Second World War, as a result of the losses during the wa ...
to speak out on behalf of West Indians; among other activities, the NWLIA responded to prejudice against black children in the state education system, which was exposed in a leaked report.
In 1968 she was appointed vice-chair of the International Human Rights Year Committee, and from 1968 to 1972 was a member of the
Community Relations Commission. Barrow also held the post of vice-president of the
National Union of Townswomen's Guilds.
As a senior teacher, and later as a teacher-trainer, at Furzedown Teachers College and at the
Institute of Education
IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society (IOE) is the education school of University College London (UCL). It specialises in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties. Prior to ...
in the 1960s, she pioneered the introduction of multi-cultural education, stressing the needs of the various ethnic groups in the UK.
She was a member of the Taylor Committee of School Governors.
In 1984 she co-founded Arawidi Publications, a children's publishing house, with Yvonne Collymore. Named after a Caribbean sun-deity, Arawidi published children's books in a variety of language forms including
West Indian dialects and
Glaswegian
The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegia ...
.
Between 1981 and 1988 Barrow served as a governor of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, the first black woman to have been appointed to the board of the corporation, which in 2001 was controversially described by its then director-general
as still "hideously white". Barrow was also founder and deputy chair (1989–95)
.
, that produced the report ''Delivering Shared Heritage'', about which she said: "Our findings and resulting recommendations, far from being of interest only to African and Asian communities, set out a code of values for delivering inclusive and healthy heritage management practice for everyone."
She was instrumental in the establishment of the
. She was a Trustee of the
. Acknowledging the key influence she had in the founding of BCA, their tribute to her stated: "Also known as the African People's Historical Monument Foundation, Dame Jocelyn recognised the need for a national monument like BCA to educate future generations."
. She died aged 90 on 9 April 2020, having been admitted to
for work in the field of education and community relations. In 1992, her work in broadcasting and her contribution to the work of the
, the first black woman thus to be honoured as a "Dame".
She was voted one of the "
in 2003, and in the 2020 relaunched list and accompanying book.
She received honorary doctorates from the
in 2007.