The West Indian Students' Centre (WISC) was located at 1 Collingham Gardens,

Earls Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

, London, in a building bought with the support of West Indian governments, and officially opened on 1 June 1955 by

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II. ...

.Clover, David
"Dispersed or Destroyed: Archives, the West Indian Students' Union, and Public Memory"
in Sandra Courtman (ed.), ''The Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers'', Vol. 6, 2005, p. 8. ISSN 1471-2024. Hosting activities and events primarily for students from the West Indies, WISC also became a key London venue for others from the African diaspora, and provided facilities and a meeting place for such organisations as the West Indian Standing Committee, the

Commission for Racial Equality In-Commission or commissioning may refer to: Business and contracting * Commission (remuneration), a form of payment to an agent for services rendered ** Commission (art), the purchase or the creation of a piece of art most often on behalf of anot ...

, and the

Caribbean Artists Movement The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) was an influential cultural initiative, begun in London, England, in 1966 and active until about 1972,Norman Manley Norman Washington Manley (4 July 1893 – 2 September 1969) was a Jamaican statesman who served as the first and only Premier of Jamaica. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s. Manley was an advocate o ...

Eric Williams Eric Eustace Williams (25 September 1911 – 29 March 1981) was a Trinidad and Tobago politician. He has been dubbed as the " Father of the Nation", having led the then-British Colony of Trinidad and Tobago to majority rule on 28 October 1956, ...

Forbes Burnham Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (20 February 1923 – 6 August 1985) was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985. He served as Prime Minister of Guyana, Premier of British Guia ...

, and

Cheddi Jagan Cheddi Berret Jagan ( ; 22 March 1918 – 6 March 1997) was a Guyanese politician and dentist who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964. He later served as President of Guyana from 19 ...

. It also hosted American Civil Rights activists

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked ...

and

Dick Gregory Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, writer, activist and social critic. His books were bestsellers. Gregory became popular among the African-American communities in the southern U ...

in 1968, documented in

Horace Ové Sir Horace Shango Ové (born Horace Courtenay Jones; 3 December 1936 – 16 September 2023) was a Trinidadian-born British filmmaker, photographer, painter and writer based in London, England. One of the leading black independent filmmakers to ...

's short film ''Baldwin's Nigger'' (1969). Recalling London in the 1960s, Trinidadian-British cultural activist Ansel Wong has said: "The West Indian Students Centre in Earl's Court was a key focal point at the time. It was there that I encountered some of my major influences, like the Caribbean Artists Movement, which was set up by writers such as

Andrew Salkey Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but was raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pursu ...

and John La Rose. As young students they had almost a celebrity status for us: we were emboldened by them, as well as by the politics of people such as the radical activist Michael X." Now located in the building that formerly housed the West Indian Students' Centre are the High Commission of Saint Lucia and the High Commission of

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

References

{{Reflist, 30em 1955 establishments in the United Kingdom Afro-Caribbean culture in London Cultural organisations based in London

See also

References