Eric Huntley obituary
Eric Huntley, who has died aged 96, was the co-founder with his wife, Jessica, of the radical publishing house Bogle L’Ouverture, set up in London in 1968 to showcase black writing talent.Initially run on a printing press in their west London living room, the venture soon outgrew those makeshift premises, and in 1975 became the Bogle L’Ouverture bookshop, which established itself as a community hub and informal advice centre as well as a place to buy books from outside the mainstream.Among the authors championed by Bogle L’Ouverture were Linton Kwesi Johnson, Valerie Bloom, Lemn Sissay, Beryl Gilroy and Donald Hinds, while the Huntleys also became involved in creating the International Book Fair of Radical and Third World Books, which ran from 1982 to 1995, uniting and amplifying the thoughts of black intellectuals, creatives and activists across continents.Aside from his work in publishing, Huntley was for many years involved in racial justice campaigns in the UK.He was a key figure in the Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association and the Black Parents Movement; the first formed in response to the racist labelling of large numbers of black children as “educationally subnormal” and the second campaigning against “sus” laws that allowed police to stop, search, and arrest individuals on suspicion of intent to commit a crime – a facility that was deployed disproportionately against young black people in the 1970s and 80s.
He was also closely involved in the Black People’s Day of Action in 1981, which followed the dire police response to what was widely suspected to be a racist arson attack, the New Cross fire in south-east London in January 1981, when 13 young black people lost their lives (one survivor later killed himself, bringing the death toll to 14),Born in Georgetown in British Guiana (now Guyana), Eric was one of the 12 children of Frank, a prison warder, and Selina, a housewife,A bright, attentive pupil, he attended Smith Memorial primary school in Georgetown, but was unable to go to high school because of family hardship,When his father was posted to Berbice, Eric worked for the local post office as a messenger, and also trained briefly as a Methodist preacher,But he soon gave up the cloth, much to the consternation of his devout father, and moved back to Georgetown, where he continued as a postal worker.
In 1948 he met Jessica Carroll, a trainee typist, and they married in 1950, moving to nearby Buxton, where Eric was a postman.With tensions brewing between labour unions and the British authorities, the Huntleys linked up with the Marxist politicians Cheddi and Janet Jagan and their colleague Forbes Burnham to help form the People’s Progressive party in 1950, campaigning for independence.The party’s victory at the ballot box in 1953 ended up with the British government declaring a state of emergency and suspending the colony’s constitution, claiming that a revolution was afoot.In 1954 Huntley was arrested for breaking a curfew, and spent a year in Georgetown prison, where his father was working at the time.He later reflected on the “mental torture” the situation inflicted on both of them.
Following his release in 1955, he was spurred by the unstable political climate to seek a better and safer life in Britain in 1957.This was a difficult decision to make; he had to leave behind Jessica and their two young sons, Karl and Chauncey.When he arrived in cold, foggy Southampton, the shortcomings of the wedding suit he had travelled in were soon apparent.He managed to secure work at the Mount Pleasant sorting office in London, and studied at night school while saving for the passage for Jessica and the boys.They joined him in 1962, and in London the couple went on to have a third child, Accabre.
Struggling to get housing in the capital, at one point the family lodged at the home of some Trinidadian friends, John and Irma La Rose.The La Rose household was a place alight with political discussions about the decolonisation movement.Huntley described it as a “university”, and while there he encountered the young Guyanese political activist Walter Rodney, who was pursuing postgraduate studies at Soas University of London.Rodney made a deep impression on the Huntleys, and in 1968 they decided to set up Bogle L’Ouverture (named after two heroes of black resistance, Paul Bogle and Toussaint L’Ouverture) to distribute Rodney’s speeches in the UK.At the time La Rose’s New Beacon Books (formed in 1966) and Allison & Busby (1967) were the only other black-owned publishers in London.
Self-financed and run out of the Huntleys’ home in Ealing, the press published its first title, Rodney’s The Groundings With My Brothers, in 1969,Later they released Kwesi Johnson’s Dread Beat and Blood (1975), several books by Andrew Salkey, Gilroy’s Black Teacher (1976), and poetry collections by Bloom, Sissay, Sam Greenlee, Lucinda Roy, Imruh Bakari and John Lyons,The Bogle L’Ouverture bookshop opened in 1975, renamed the Walter Rodney bookshop following Rodney’s assassination in 1980,Between 1977 and 1979, when support for the National Front was at its height, the shop was the target of numerous racist attacks,When windows were broken in the 11th such incident, Huntley, along with fellow black bookshop owners, picketed the Home Office, forcing the police to provide adequate security for their businesses and take the crimes seriously.
Bogle L’Ouverture survived until 1991, with Huntley blaming its decline on rising rents and cuts to grants,The business was never designed to turn a profit and, while Jessica focused full-time on running it, Eric worked as a part-time insurance salesman,After the shop closed they moved operations back to their house, where they continued to publish intermittently,Eric’s advocacy of community causes went on well into his 10th decade, when he observed that “the struggle never ends: there is always something to fight for”,Papers relating to the Huntleys’ activism and publishing are now held at The Friends of the Huntley Archives at the London Metropolitan Archives.
Karl died in 2011, and Jessica in 2013, after which Eric created a community garden in Ealing in her honour.He is survived by Chauncey and Accabre, nine grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and a great-great grandchild.Eric Lindbergh Huntley, publisher and political activist, born 25 September 1929; died 21 January 2026
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