Arranged in Order of Service

Gus John

Welcome Address

On behalf of Sarah, Wole, Irma, Keith and Michael and the entire La Rose family, welcome.

We have come together to celebrate and give God thanks for the life and life-time achievements of a truly great and wonderful man, a gentle genius of a man, a man with a prodigious intellect and unmatchable generosity. We have come to honour our brother, friend and comrade, John La Rose, and lay his body to rest.

We come, each of us, with our own thoughts, memories and experience of John and of how he touched our lives. I first met John some 40 years ago and he became, progressively, my teacher, mentor, close friend and very dear brother. When, in March 1991, we produced this volume of tributes to John, Foundations of a Movement, to mark the 10^th anniversary of the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third world Books and, more to the point, to honour John while he was still with us, I described John in the title of my tribute as: Resolute, Radical and Revolutionary … and, above all, quintessentially human. I could have added: fearless, courageous and supremely confident.

Imagine this scenario in middle 1960s London. Sarah is at the controls of a Honda 50. John is perched behind her clutching his trade mark carrier bags bursting with books and sitting with a poise that put even the most intrepid ocada riders in Lagos to shame. I remember it as a green moped; Sarah assures me it was red. What mattered was that it ferried Sarah and John and their mobile bookshop back and forth around Greater London for up to 180 miles on a single gallon of two-stroke fuel. Maybe that is why I remember it as green, despite the insufferable noise the thing made.

From such lowly beginnings John and Sarah built a monumental institution, an institution that in the last 40 years has had an impact across the globe that is greater and more sustainable than Shell, Coca Cola or any other conglomerate. And so, today, John’s immediate family are joined by his other families, the New Beacon family, the International Book Fair family, the George Padmore Institute family, and by people from across the world.

It is fitting, indeed, that the five continents that John connected and brought together through his vision for a better world, through his international socialist praxis and his Pan-Africanism, through his active engagement with the struggle for social liberation and against political repression throughout the world, through New Beacon and through the Book Fair are represented by you in such numbers here today; here to honour one of the greatest sons of the Caribbean, one of the great Citizens of the World, one of those rare beacons that slowly and dazzlingly glide across our skies once in a generation, shedding light upon and intervening in human affairs with a fundamental belief in the indomitable nature of the human spirit and with an abundance of hope.

So, welcome, all of you. Those of you who interrupted your holiday or abandoned your business abroad in order to be present here today; those who have travelled across the continents, from the USA, from the African continent, from the Caribbean and from other parts of Europe.

Nuff respec’ to Sarah and John’s family, especially to Aunt Zita who is John’s only surviving sibling and who travelled from Trinidad in order to be with us today.

We salute our brother John.

(c) Gus John

Michael La Rose

Eulogy For My Dad the Radical John La Rose

My Dad was a radical smiling warrior. He was deadly serious about the struggle for cultural and social change, for racial equality and social justice and for human progress. But he engaged you with charm, style and grace. He was a poet with two volumes of poetry Foundations (1966) and Eyelets of Truth Within Me (1992). He combined culture and politics with a passion.

John La Rose was born in 1927 in the Caribbean twin island republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Dad was brought up in the then sleepy market town of Arima. He was the youngest of six children who included Lilea, Oswin (known as Boysie), Teresa, Maura and Xysta.

We are happy that his surviving sister Xysta is with us today along with Boysie’s son Louis and Lilea’s daughter Anne-Marie.

John won a scholarship to the prestigious St Mary's College in the capital, Port of Spain, where he later taught. He considered training as a Catholic priest before becoming an insurance executive in Cyril Duprey’s fledgling Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO).

He made an important decision in his teens and joined the Arima Literary group. An older member of the group Neville Giuseppi as John says in Horace Ove‘s film “introduced me to Marxism and modern English poetry”. This marked the genesis of a radical political thinker and cultural activist.

John became an executive member of the Youth Council in Trinidad based at Cocorite. This organisation was dangerously full of young radicals including his life-long friend Lennox Pierre, Kelvin Scoon, Karl Pratt, Pearl Nunez who later was known as Pearl Connor–Mogotsi, Chris Le Maitre and Irma Hilaire who later became his wife and life-long activist Irma La Rose.

In 1954 John and Irma married at the back of the Roman Catholic Church in San Juan just outside Port-of-Spain.

John believed strongly in the organisation of workers in trade unions as a basis for change. He was an executive member of the Federated Workers Trade Union (FWTU) and developed a long relationship with the Oil Field Workers Trade Union (OWTU). He was the European representative of that union.

In the 1940s in Trinidad, John was a founding member of the Marxist group the Workers’ Freedom Movement (WFM). In 1952 the WFM joined other groups to form the West Indian Independence Party (WIIP). He became the general secretary of the WIIP. This organisation with its links throughout the region was feared by the colonial authorities.

In 1956 John was a candidate for WIIP in the Trinidad general elections. He lost his deposit. It was the year I was born and the year that Sparrow emerged with Jean & Dinah. In 1957 John’s second son Keith was born. The PNM government that came to power in Trinidad under Eric Williams feared the radical WIIP and John especially. John and his young family faced exclusion and blacklisting in Trinidad. All jobs were refused him.

Irma, who was born in Venezuela, decided that the young family could make their lives in exile by going to oil-rich Venezuela. John spoke Spanish and French and they both got jobs as English teachers in Venezuela. They were supported by the expatriate Trinidadian community as well as by friends and comrades from the Venezuelan Communist party who they knew from Trinidad.

In 1961John decided to study law in London. He sailed to England accompanied by his nephew Louis La Rose who was the then leader of the Teen Stars Steel band and had to leave Trinidad because of police harassment. Dad never seriously pursued a law career in London. He said it was not for him

The family was eventually reunited in London in 1962. But a couple of years later John and Irma separated. He later met his present partner Sarah White and they had my brother Wole in 1969.

John believed that we should control our own information and history through writing and publishing. He believed that through publishing you could make available history and lessons from past generations. He went about this task with commitment and with a clear ideology about culture and politics. In 1966 he founded with Sarah, New Beacon Books, the first Black publishing house and bookshop in Britain.

In the same year, together with the Jamaican writer and broadcaster Andrew Salkey and the Barbadian poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite, he co-founded the influential Caribbean Artists Movement. Between 1972-73 Dad was chairman of the Institute of Race Relations and Towards Racial Justice, which published the radical campaigning journal Race Today.

John loved and had a great respect for the art and creativity of Carnival culture. That is Steel band, Kaiso /Calypso and Mas.

Carnival was part of his cultural and political agenda. In the mid-1950s, he co-authored, with the calypsonian Raymond Quevedo (Atilla the Hun), a pioneering study of calypso entitled Kaiso: A Review (republished in 1983 as Atilla's Kaiso). New Beacon Books published Kaiso Calypso Music conversation with David Rudder and The Trinidad Carnival; mandate for a national theatre by Errol Hill.

John was part of the struggle for the Notting Hill Carnival in the middle 1970s and advised us on strategies to fight for the existence of the festival. A lot of that was captured in the document The Road Make to Walk on Carnival Day. Later he proposed the formation of the Association for a Peoples Carnival APC which I lead in the 1990s and which continued the cultural and political struggle for the Notting Hill Carnival.

He was also a film-maker and made a short film on the Black Church in Britain for BBC2 in 1973. He felt the Black Church in Britain was an important vehicle for progress. He also co-produced and scripted Franco Rosso's documentary film Mangrove Nine, about the resistance of the black community to police attacks on the Mangrove restaurant in Ladbroke Grove, London.

John was heavily involved in the Black Education Movement in the 1960s, particularly in the struggle against banding, and the placing of black children in schools for the educationally sub-normal. He worked closely with the North London West Indian Association in Haringey on these campaigns. He founded the George Padmore Supplementary School in 1969 in his front room with his sons and their friends as the first pupils. He was one of the founders of the Caribbean Education in Community Workers Association (CECWA). That organization published Bernard Coard's campaigning book, How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System (1971).

In 1975, after a black schoolboy, a friend of Keith’s, was assaulted by police outside our school in Haringey, we immediately phoned our Dad. He got together with concerned parents, founded the Black Parents Movement (BPM) to combat the metropolitan police criminalization of young blacks, and to agitate for youth and parent power for improved education. We formed ourselves in to the Black Youth Movement (BYM). Many campaigns were organized against police oppression including the release from prison of Newton Rose in Hackney after his illegal conviction for murder.

John had clear ideas on the politics of alliances, of grabbing opportunities for joining together in unity. He proposed the formation of the Alliance. It consisted of the BPM (its North London, West London and Manchester groups), the BYM, and Race Today Collective in Brixton and the Bradford Black Collective. Linton Kwesi Johnson recently wrote “This alliance became the most powerful cultural and political movement organised by blacks in Britain, winning many campaigns for justice against police oppression, agitating for better state education and supporting black working class struggle. It was the alliance which formed the New Cross Massacre Action Committee in response to an arson attack which resulted in the deaths of 13 young blacks in 1981, and mobilised 20,000 people in protest on the Black Peoples Day of Action. John was the chairman of the action committee.”

John never took his eyes of Africa. But it was real Africa he was interested in. The political movements, student leaders, the economic development plans, the opposition to neo-colonialism. He met regularly with exiles from South Africa , Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya He made sure he found out what was happening all over Africa . He made a point of introducing activists to each other and to others from the Caribbean, South America and the USA. It was only natural that in 1982 he became chairman of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya, whose founding members included the Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Culture united with politics was the constant practice of John’s ideology.

In 1983 my Dad suffered his first major heart attack. He carefully managed his heart condition with Sarah’s help until his death. He never complained and got on with what he saw was important, the struggle for social change.

The cultural and political action culminated in John's greatest achievement the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books between 1982-95. The Book Fair was, in the words of John’s call "a meeting of the continents for writers, publishers, distributors, booksellers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and people who inspire and consume their creative productions". It was John who encouraged the OWTU to organize the Caribbean Peoples International Book Fair in 1987. It was at the first Book Fair that John proposed the idea of a regional assembly of workers and people. The Assembly of Caribbean People was inaugurated in 1994.

John founded the George Padmore Institute (GPI) in 1991. David Abdullah recently pointed out that “Significantly, the GPI is only one of two institutions in the world (the other being in Accra, Ghana) to honour the outstanding Pan-African, George Padmore.” The GPI’s remit is to archive the Black experience in Britain and Europe. .

I hope you now have some idea about what John La Rose was about. His was an intellect in the service of the people. My last conversation with him was typical. It was full of enthusiasm and laughter we talked about the approaching Chelsea and Barcelona game. He was enthralled with Wenger, Benitez and Mourinho. We talked about the effect of Trinidad qualifying for the World Cup. We talked about Chavez in Venezuela and Putin’s strategy in Russia. We examined the Chinese economic growth and talked about the Sudan after the death of Garang. As usual he insisted I read the newspaper clippings he had recently selected for me.

We now have to say thank you and farewell.

Dad you have strengthened us and enriched our futures.

Thank you father, grandpa and great granddad for your love and support.

Thank you comrade. Thank you Poet-Warrior. Thank you cultural and political activist for your legacy and practice.

Across the continents we mourn your passing.

Now in the words of the folk song you loved so much “It’s time for man go home.”

(c) Michael La Rose

Kole Omotoso

Tribute to John La Rose

I speak on behalf of Africa, an aspect of the world that John La Rose built.

I speak on behalf of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Wanjiri Kihoro whose struggles in Kenya John La Rose embraced and fought with them.

I speak on behalf of S. Anai Kelueljang of the Southern Sudan whose struggle and poetry John La Rose encouraged and publicized. I speak on behalf of the numerous Nigerians living and dead, whose political and cultural frustrations John La Rose gave so much of his time and prodigious energy — Eddie and Bene Madunagu, Balarabe Musa, Yusuf Bala Usman, Siddique Abubakar, Ola Oni, Femi Osofisan, G.G. Darah, Odia Ofeimun, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Niyi Osundare, Femi Fatoba, Biodun Jeyifo.

I speak on behalf of Samba Mbub, the young Senegalese Rastafarian who met John La Rose years ago at the Book Fair and now the ambassador of Senegal to the Republic of South Africa.

I speak on behalf of Naledi and Sharif Pandor and their family. Naledi, now Minister of Education in the government of the Republic of South Africa, met John La Rose in Cape Town and visited him at his number 2 Albert Road home.

I speak on behalf of Moeletsi Mbeki who spent an afternoon of talk with John La Rose sometime late in 2004.

I also speak on behalf of my immediate family, on behalf of Marguerite whose own passing John La Rose marked with a photographic exhibition in the living room at No. 2 Albert Road. I speak on behalf of Akin, Pelayo and Yewande, who, as Akin celebrates in his film God is African, have been blessed by the rare occurrence of their parents’ friends becoming their own friends.

I speak on behalf of Nonhlanhla, (John La Rose insisted on learning how to pronounce this Zulu name), Sibonelo and Mbali who met and knew John La Rose at No. 2 Albert Road from December 28, 2005 to January 7, 2006. They have been charmed by the warm generosity of John La Rose.

I would have been at No. 2 Albert Road, for the first time sometime in late 1969 or early 1970. John La Rose, meticulous keeper of records as he was, was very specific. It was really December 1969 and I was living in No. 14 Montague Street in Edinburgh, all recorded in the justly famous John La Rose address books.

From post-graduate student to university teacher and son-in-law of the Caribbean island-nations on whose drama and theatre I wrote a book under the guidance of John La Rose, I was exposed to the humane, generous and revolutionary fervour of John La Rose. So, Generosity, Humaneness and Revolution defined for me and mine the influence of John La Rose on me. These are words that would not be found side by side under normal circumstances but in the large personality of John La Rose these words live together comfortably.

John La Rose was generous with what he had in material terms. Numerous were the meals sessions at the kitchen in No. 2 Albert Road. Numerous were the books, new and old, printouts of articles and newspaper cuttings displayed and exchanged or otherwise sent by post or faxed. These are wonderful generosities.

But John La Rose was also generous with his time. I do not know of anyone who has had so much time to give. Generosity, Humanness and Revolution.

One incident cements this in my mind. In 1983, I was flown out of Nigeria half dead from mistreatment of my asthmatic condition. My first day in hospital coincided with the opening of the International Book Fair of Radical, Black and Third World Books. John La Rose came to the hospital to be with me and was absent from the Book Fair that day.

John La Rose honoured me, my family and my friends from the different parts of Africa. On their behalves I pledge to honour you John La Rose by practicing your Generosity, your Humanness and your Revolutionary practice.

Ka to r’erin odigbo! To view the elephant we go to the jungle

Ka to r’efon odogan! To view the horned one we go to the wild

Ka to r’eni bi iwo John La Rose o di gbere!! To see a person like John La Rose Heaven is where we must go!

Iku d’oro! Death has caused mishap!

Iku m’eni rere lo! Death takes the good person away!

Ma j’okun Reject the dregs

Ma jekolo! Reject the worms!

Ohun ti won ba nje l’orun. Feast only on what the angels give!

Ki o ba won je! The feast the angels host!

Sun n re on John La Rose! Rest in peace, John La Rose!

John La Rose sun n re!! John La Rose rest in peace.

(c) Kole Omotoso

Kole Omotoso is a former professor of English and Drama at the Universities of Ife, the Western Cape and Stellenbosch.

David Abdulah

Tribute to John La Rose

I speak here today both as a friend and comrade of John and on behalf of the Central Executive, General Council and membership of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union – the Union with which John was associated for more than fifty years and of which he was an honorary member and its European representative and for outstanding service to which he was awarded our highest honour – the Labour Star.

John was a rare human being for very many reasons — his spirit of generosity, his love for talking and debating ideas, his commitment to nurturing young comrades, the warmth of his personality and his love for life. Some of these qualities I believe were developed in the environment of Trinidad and Tobago where happiness is, or more accurately now that we are in this market driven globalised world, was epitomized by that social interaction and discourse popularly known as liming.

But John La Rose was a rare human being for another very important reason. He was an unrepentant revolutionary who, regardless of the setbacks and defeats of various efforts at bringing about fundamental social transformation, believed that that transformation was inevitable. As he himself said at the Opening of the First Caribbean Peoples International Book Fair, organized by the OWTU on John’s initiative and with his guidance, “A new mode of production … establishes itself over long historical periods amidst many hopes and horrors. The transition to socialism and building socialist societies can be no different. There have been advances and difficulties, zig-zags, victories and defeats”.

Why, we may ask, was John so confident, so full of hope — right up to the very end of his life when neo-liberalism and the neo-fascist super-power seem to be running rampant the world over? The answer lies in his total faith that “the human spirit will triumph against all obstacles”. The remarkable thing is that this faith was not idealism, but based on a very profound insight and understanding of people and history. A history which he both experienced and studied, and that led him to the conclusion that the movement for social change is rooted in the ordinary people, finds expression in the workers’ movement for power and is “always and permanently on the road”.

His relationship with the OWTU helped to both strengthen and reaffirm that faith. He had a political relationship with George Weekes when the latter was leading the struggle for democracy within the Union in the late 1950s and when Weekes and his rebel movement won the elections for the Union’s Central Executive in 1962 John became one of the most important and trusted advisers of the leadership. He continued in that role, as friend and comrade for more than 40 years.

John, as we all know, began with Sarah, New Beacon Books and in doing so established a link with past efforts – namely the Beacon Group in Trinidad of the late 1920s – to make available the ideas of Caribbean writers to Caribbean people. But New Beacon in a very real way epitomizes what John has been to so many all over the world, and to us in the radical and revolutionary workers movement in Trinidad and Tobago. For John was a veritable beacon — a light which offered comfort and hope, a light to assist in the navigation of the dangerous and turbulent waters of life and struggles, a reference point which enabled us to remain focused in our direction or to correct us when we went off-course, a source of both inspiration because we could see the light and sobering realism because we knew the journey was not yet ended.

It was John who clarified for us the political lessons of the momentous Caribbean-wide general strikes and anti-colonial revolts of the 1930s since his political activism began a mere ten years after and in an organisation in which were some of the leaders of that struggle. It was John who gave us terms such as “workers and peoples power” and “disciplined mass action” to guide and direct our work. He was there with us to assist our understanding of Grenada in those terrible days of October 1983 and of Trinidad and Tobago in 1990. He pointed us to the transformation in the world of work based on the revolution in technology and the workers’ response and resistance. He advised about the “shorter working day, shorter working week, shorter working life with more time for rest, recreation and development”. He connected us with trade unions, activists in the workers’ movement and with revolutionary activists from across the continents thus building enduring relationships of “mutual solidarity”. In this regard he was on the continuum established by his fellow Trinidadian revolutionary — George Padmore. (It is interesting that Padmore, CLR James and John all came from east Trinidad with their homes being within a five-mile radius).

We marched together in Fyzabad, Trinidad, in celebration of the workers’ revolt of 1937 and in West Berlin against the IMF and World Bank. We struggled together against forces of reaction in and out of the Union. We shared the pain of defeats and the joys of victories. We together mourned the loss of comrades like Nello James and Lennox Pierre and Walter Rodney and Maurice Bishop. We revelled together in the view of the Northern Range which John saw every day from his home in Arima. John truly lived the statement — the personal in the political. I shall miss our long telephone conversations that inevitably began with “Hello, David, John here!” and his inscriptions that always ended —“with hope”.

And so I end, as John would have wanted — with a poem, as poetry best expresses our thoughts. It is by the outstanding Caribbean poet and friend and comrade of John, Martin Carter.

‘Dear Comrades

If it must be

You speak no more with me

Nor smile no more with me

Nor march no more with me

Then let me take

A patience and a calm

For even now the greener leaf explodes

Sun brightens stone

And all the rivers burn

Now from the mourning vanguard moving on

Dear comrades I salute you and say

Death must not find us thinking that we die’

But those who are here today must not be selfish. John gave us his all and more, and so we say, firstly, thank you to Sarah, Wole, Michael, Keith and all the members of the La Rose family for sharing John with us at a cost to yourselves. And thank you John, for all that you have done for so many. Your light, your beacon, your revolutionary spirit of hope will never go out! It will continue to guide the OWTU and the workers’ movement for power.

(c) David Abdulah

David Abdulah is Chief Education and Research Officer, Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union, Trinidad & Tobago.

Kamau Brathwaite

Kamau's Nine Nights for John

(1) Dear Sarah, There was the newes. there

was the silence. we wd need too many

new words and the old ones remain well.

and will do. and are beautiful. love. love

us. love us. thank you

(2) Dear Anne, Until we all reach here, it

was, as you say, darkness. but again it is

new. it is light. no matter how uttar. it is

radiance. New Beacon

(3) My dear Paul, Greetings & Salutations.

Yes. One of our very greatest own:

Peace Love Justice and supearl

intelligence. So glad i'm able to stay by

them that one lass time when he also

launch SLOW HORSES

(4) Some might go further back - go further

back - alpha & omega But none

more delta of the Nile: this sphinx this

pyramid this Nubian Pharaoah. Muse &

Sunship. Andrew - Zea Mexican - the

Caribbean Artists Movement, w/ Sarah

Sarah Sarah - our 5 corners of the

word. Can't write this now w/out our

shining white-haired Nefartari. Sarah

White. w/out whom nothing. blessèd

womb. Strength to continue the 5

corners of the world

(5) Such beautiful sons & sisters. Such clear

articulation of possession. such mastery

of Disposition. the voice of bronze that

shines in Errol's quiet bust of sunshine

(6) There will be nvr anything like this in

London again. nvr nvr in London again.

this gathering to mark a maker. In

making us, going far beyond himself to

what this is. a moment we will all

remember. help to make. cannot break

now. our journeys golokwatis. Our

victories by the water. road mek to walk on

carniVAL day. struggle mek to march.

lying down w/lions on the Serpentine.

roaring. a mind too wide & wise to know

defeat:

remember who you are & whe you come from. honour

that always in yr style & tongue & iconography

be - be yrself & independent in yrself. while being

mutual w/others. like true lovers

begin w/little things. the small sings. the Mighty god of

small things. grow from there. grow out from here. upfull

and these have all their place their

meaning in the unfolding. in the seasonal

overflowing of the river. Even in

this strange land Now part of what we

own. this Memphis of Geo Padmore &

New Beacon Books

(7) So let us hold hands. continuation on.

for Anne, for Janice, for Wole, for

Michael & Keith, for Irma, for Zita for

Keith Waithe & the music, for Roxy, for

Tony, for Gus, for Gugi, for Jessica&

Eric & Margaret Busby & the publishers,

for David Abdulah & the

Workers Unions, for Kole for Nigeria,

Somalia & the Continent; Susan for

Trinidad Tobago; for Jayne Cortez &

Alex, Aggrey & LKJ: the voices of the

poets. for CAM, Black Peoples Alliance,

the Black & International Radical Book

Fair. . . we hundreads congregation here

w/in this Testament. . . those thousands

gone. . . these millions yet to come. . . for

that warrishi kitchen table at 2 Albert

Road. . . for this frail circle of remembrance

that we live this movement's

moment in - the thrilldren, my

belovèds, of the stars

(8) And so to John . the Revelator. flower

& resurrection & free spirit unem6

cumberèd. that clarion voice of tone. the

little curl of laughter in it. poet & seer.

Césaire. and at the head of that long

march for justice - the 20,000 over

Blackfriars Bridge forever 1981

Peace & Love & Nuff Respec. my

dearest friend. w/yr warm always

gracious generations' smile of welcome

at the top of the long high stairway of yr

home

Let us give Thanks even as we grieve,

my comrade brother

In you, FOUNDATION - islets of truth w/in us -

have we found our world

(9) dam dam damirifa/ damirifa due due due due

damirifa -

(c) Kamau Brathwaite London 13 March 2006

Susan Craig-James

Tribute to John La Rose, a loyal friend

I had the privilege of knowing John, Sarah and the La Rose family for the past 37 years. Over this time, I came to see John as a nurse — in three senses.

In the summer of 1989, I fell ill while staying at John and Sarah’s home, and it was John who came every day with his light footstep and his quiet smile to give me lunch. So I was privileged to know him as my nurse.

But he was a nurse to numerous people, in the sense of being a nurturer. He gave generously of his time, his knowledge, his resources, to help us to unlock potential, to dream dreams, to go beyond. For example, I run a business today because John saw clearly what I was only dimly groping towards in 1997. So he was to me a nurse and a nurturer.

In a third sense, John was a midwife — for social change. All the movements of which he was a part served to unlock the potential, to widen the space, for our collective development. His was a voice, a stance — against oppression, yes, but for the birth of a new social order. He was a midwife for respect, for human dignity; a midwife for a better world for all people.

John dreamed to change the world. And in so doing he brought the world together, as family—from all the continents and from all walks of life, creating connections that are so special and making him so precious to so many. This is the measure of the man.

I thank God for John and for the La Rose family. May God strengthen his family at this time, and may He give us the grace to go and do likewise.

(c) Susan Craig-James

Abdul Alkalimat

Comments for the Memorial for John La Rose

John was a comrade, a teacher, a brother, a friend.

I first met John at the 2nd book fair. We had had similar experiences: being students of revolutionary ideas especially in the tradition of Marxism and PanAfricanism; being involved in a party building process, running a book store and publishing, building a liberation process for educating the youth, and being active in anti-racist campaigns. We shared and we bonded. We remained close comrades for the last 25 years.

My small contribution was in helping get John into the USA, and I might add helping him get out of the USA as well. We were at MIT in Boston having one of our technology, culture and social change conferences. John was delighted to be there and added his wonderful voice to the proceedings. At an after party he read poetry and used art to balance the digital science, he helped everyone see the necessary dialectical dance of reason and emotion.

I dug his style — non-stop, focused, leaping into incredible narratives of detail upon detail, then switching to quick witted conversations that might weave in and out of whatever country on whatever battle front, but always about progress for the exploited and oppressed. I always learned from John, and got my battery recharged.

DuBois had his Pan African Congresses and John had his Book Fairs. And what gatherings they were. We became a network and London was our hub. We continue to be international cadre of art and politics on the battlefronts for freedom. We were and even are here today, a meeting of the continents.

John is gone.

Long live John.

And that means us.

We are the legacy for each other.

When we lose a strong brother like John we have to change our division of labour, accept new tasks as our own so that our network remains what it has been and more.

I salute John.

I salute Sarah, Irma, Michael, Keith, Wole, Gus, Roxy, Linton and all the comrades.

I salute all of us.

Forward comrades. In his memory there’s much work to be done.

(c) Abdul Alkalimat

Abdul Alkalimat is professor of Africana Studies and Sociology and Director of the Africana Studies programme at the University of Toledo. He is the editor of H-Afro-Am, the principal Listserv for African-American studies.

Talib Kibwe – TK Blue

words for brother john

Akua ... peace and blessings. if possible, please read these words for me at John's funeral … many thanks – god bless!!!!!

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Upon my arrival from Warsaw, Poland, I received word from Jayne Cortez that John La Rose had passed. Needless to say, I was deeply saddened by this news. I am sending my deepest sympathy to Sarah White and John's entire family and friends. I am so sorry that I could not be there physically ... but I am truly with you all in spirit.

John was an incredible brother, friend, and mentor. It seems like yesterday when he invited me and Randy Weston to participate in the annual Book Fair that he helped to create. I am truly blessed to have been a part of this historic event and to have performed for him on several occasions.

Knowing that my mom is from Trinidad and Tobago, he also organized my first performance in Port of Spain. I am truly indebted to his kindness and generosity ... through him I met so many incredible, international artists and writers ... Jayne Cortez is one and I had the pleasure to perform with her in London for the first time during the Book Fair.

I will always remember staying at John and Sarah's home during the Book Fair and having these long intellectual discussions well into the night. His hospitality was always genuine and he made me feel completely at home and as if I was part of his family. Just last year I performed in London at Ronnie Scott's jazz club, and John insisted that I come to dinner. That was the last time I saw him and it will remain etched in my memory forever!!!!

I will miss John La Rose ... I will always honor his memory with the beautiful sound of music. In fact, I am performing this night in NYC with my band and I will dedicate the performance to his memory and life's work.

Rest in peace my brother … you've touched so many lives in such a positive way ... we all love you and we all will remember your great legacy ... may god bless your loving spirit!!!!! —

(c) Talib Kibwe

Talib Kibwe is a saxophonist, flutist and composer. Talib has worked with many of the great names in jazz, including Chico Hamilton, Sam Rivers, Abdullah Ibrahim and Randy Weston, as well as leading his own bands and small groups.

Ian Macdonald QC

Tribute to John La Rose

I am not able to with you all today, as I am in New York. John represented so many positive roles for so many people: Partner, Father, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, Mentor, Raconteur, Analyst, Artist, Organiser, Friend and Comrade.

John and I first met in 1966, when a number of us in the Islington branch of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) organised a demo in Islington against police brutality. John came as the guest speaker.

For me it was the start of a long and fruitful personal and political association, which has continued and endured for the last 40 years.

Today we mourn the loss of someone who has been so dear to so many, but we shall also celebrate and remember a life of so much greatness and achievement. Goodbye and much love, dear John, and thank you so much for what you have given to so many of us.

(c) Ian Macdonald

Ian Macdonald is a distinguished human rights lawyer. He is a former Head of Garden Court Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.

Rt.Revd. Dr. Sir Wilfred Wood, KA

Recorded Sermon for the Funeral Service of Dr. John La Rose

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 11, verse 24: He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

That was the description which the writer of the Acts of the Apostles gave to one of the pillars of the earliest Christian community whom he knew personally, and who was a man renowned for his generosity, his befriending of the outcasts, and his insistence on giving people a second chance.

And in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verse 17 the Lord Jesus tells us how to recognise a good man. He says that the good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, and a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. We will know them by their fruit.

Then in Galatians, chapter 5, verse 22, St. Paul describes the fruit of the Holy Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I would ask this of those assembled here today: as I read this list again slowly to think of John La Rose, and if after each one you can in good conscience say "yes, that was John" then murmur that statement quietly. If you cannot do this in good conscience, please remain silent.

Love

Joy

Peace

Patience

Goodness

Kindness

Faithfulness

Gentleness

Self-control

So, on the evidence of our own experience and the testimony of scripture, our friend John was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. So although Sara and Wole, Irma, Michael and Keith and all of us who love John, are now bereft of his physical presence and will grieve, we are not to mourn as those without hope because we know John has fallen into the arms of a loving God, and as God's majesty is so is His mercy.

Because a sermon is not a eulogy, it must fall to others to tell of John's massive intellect and the humility with which he placed that intellect at the service of humanity in the widest meaning of that word. No self-help effort at dignity and self-respect was considered too small or too unimportant to attract his support and encouragement.

But on a personal note, I must record that in addition to the various demonstrations that he and I went on together in the cause of justice for black people in British society, he also succeeded me as Chairman of the Institute of Race Relations, and with Sivanandan and others carried forward the transformation of that Institute. In Harambee, led by Brother Herman Edwards and Byron Lawrence (an attempt at Police/Juvenile/Parent co-operation) he supported us in the struggle to save abandoned youth; he and Sara never missed the annual Martin Luther King Memorial Lecture, and on the occasion that he was himself the Lecturer took the opportunity to pay tribute to Caribbean migrants to the United Kingdom during the 1940s, 1950s and 196's whom he labelled "The Heroic Generation".

He was totally resistant to temptations of power, wealth and fame. But in this he was not being original. We Christians choose to believe that this universe of planets, atoms and microbes in which we are set, is no accident or without meaning. Although our limited human intelligence can only grasp a tiny appreciation of the Greater Universal Intelligence at the origin and heart of the universe whom we call God, it is still a cause for wonder, thanksgiving and eternal gratitude that this God whom we recognise as a union of Absolute Power, Complete Goodness and Perfect Love should choose to become particular in the person of Jesus Christ. This loving entry of the Creator into His creation showed that the Universe is built on moral foundations, giving meaning to truth, love, justice, goodness, sacrifice, and mercy. The temptations of desertion and betrayal by friends, of loneliness, victimisation and pain for Jesus to fall away from a life of integrity were as nothing to the greater temptations to power, wealth and fame. He resisted them all.

It is true that many people are affronted by organised religion and find the Church unattractive, but imperfect as it may be the Church is the instrument chosen by God to pass on from generation to generation the Good News of Jesus Christ. The young John La Rose would have been greatly influenced at an early age in his Roman Catholic upbringing in Trinidad by the Faith which gave him glimpses into what a world patterned on Jesus Christ could be like, and made it desirable that he should devote his life to the service of humanity, resisting every lure of power, wealth and fame. Would that our present day power-hungry world leaders, who can drop bombs on women and children and call their dismembered bodies "collateral damage", thus provoking the misguided response of suicide bombers, and those shareholders in Arms Manufacturing and Arms Sales enterprises who grow richer with every bomb that falls, had encountered Jesus Christ and had been moved to live lives of service without thought of reward in the way that John La Rose has done.

So if you find organised religion a stumbling block, consider the story of Abou Ben Adhem as told in Leigh Hunt's poem:

‘Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

'What writest thou?' -- The vision rais'd its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answer'd, 'The names of those who love the Lord.'

'And is mine one?' said Abou. 'Nay, not so,'

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, 'I pray thee, then

Write me as one that loves his fellow men.'

The angel wrote, and vanish'd. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And show'd the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.’

John Ben Adhem La Rose, may his tribe increase. May he rest in peace.

May he be raised with Christ in Glory. Amen.

(c) Wilfred Wood

Wilfred Wood is a former Bishop of Croydon