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Thu, 01.25.1906

Amy Barbour-James, British Activist born

Amy Barbour-James

*Amy Barbour-James was born on January 25, 1906. She was a Black British-born Guyanese civil rights activist and civil servant. Caroline Amy Aileen Barbour-James was born in Acton, London, to Guyanese parents, John and Caroline Barbour-James, one of their eight children. They were a middle-class family.

Her father, John Barbour-James, was an administrator in West Africa and had access to an extensive network of contacts throughout the continent. In 1918, he founded the African Patriotic Intelligence Bureau. Inspired by her father, Barbour-James became active in the British civil rights movement.

She was involved in the African Progress Union and the League of Coloured Peoples, becoming secretary in 1942. In 2011, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a short drama based on Barbour-James's life. Amy Barbour-James died on May 4, 1988, at 82.

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

Though slavery's dead, yet there remains A work for those from whom the chains Today are falling one by one; Nor should they deem their labor done, Nor shrink the task, however hard, While... THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY by James Bell
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