Timeline part 3 (1938-1945)
A History of Negro Revolt. Fact monograph no. 18, London (1938). Revised as A History of Pan-African Revolt. Washington: Drum and Spear Press (1969).
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Secker & Warburg (1938). Revised edition, New York: Vintage Books/Random House (1963). ISBN 0-679-72467-2. Index starts at page 419. Library of Congress Card Number: 63-15043. New British edition with Foreword, London: Allison & Busby (1980).
September: One of two delegates from Britain to be present at the founding conference of the Trotskyist Fourth International in Paris
Arrives in the U.S.A. in late 1938 after lecture tour sponsored by SWP at request of Leon Trotsky. Image public domain. Leon Trotsky.
Meets Constance Webb and begins correspondence with her which continues for over 10 years (and is collected in Special Delivery).
C.L.R. takes up new responsibilities in the SWP in New York as director of the party’s ‘National Negro Department’.
4-11 April: discussions with Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
Adopts the pseudonym J.R. Johnson
Germany invades Poland; occupies Bohemia and Moravia; renounces pact with England and concludes 10-year non-aggression pact with USSR.
Image public domain.
German battleship Schleswig-Holstein attacks Polish forts at start of war.
Why Negroes should oppose the war (as “J. R. Johnson”) New York: Pioneer Publishers for the Socialist Workers Party and the Young People’s Socialist League (Fourth International (1939).
Leaves SWP with Max Shachtman, who forms the Workers’ Party.
My friends: a fireside chat on the war (as “Native Son”) New York: Workers Party (1940).
Founds Johnson-Forest Tendency with Raya Dunayeskaya (Leon Trotsky’s former Russian language secretary).
Trotsky assasinated by Stalinist agent (20th August)
Meets Grace Lee Boggs in Chicago
Withdraws from the SWP completely and joins the WP, led by Max Shachtman.
C.L.R. James is the leading theorist in the WP along with Dunayeskaya.
Germany attacks the Balkans and Russia. Japanese surprise attack on U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor brings U.S. into World War II; U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan.
Image public domain.
Wehrmacht troops cross the borders of the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941.
Nazi leaders attend Wannsee Conference to coordinate the “final solution to the Jewish question,” the systematic genocide of Jews -the Holocaust.
Mussolini deposed.
C.L.R. meets and begins a lengthy correspondence with Francis Nkrumah (later to be known as Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana), who is then a student at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. He sends a letter of introduction to George Padmore (renowned Trinidadian Communist) when Nkrumah leaves the US for the UK and Nkrumah later credits James with teaching him ‘how an underground movement worked’.
Bretton Woods Conference creates International Monetary Fund and World Bank (July 1–22).
Dumbarton Oaks Conference—U.S., British Commonwealth, and USSR propose establishment of United Nations (Aug. 21–Oct. 7).
Taking over from Churchill, Clement Attlee becomes Britain’s Prime Minister and is perhaps best remembered for setting up the National Health Service.
U.S. drops atomic bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9).
Pan-African Congress held in Manchester – Kwame Nkrumah emerges as a global anti-colonial leader.
Image public domain.
Kwame Nkrumah.