Richard Hart

Richard Hart (13 August 1917 – 21 December 2013) was a Jamaican historian, solicitor and politician. He was a founding member in 1938 of the People's National Party (PNP) and one of the pioneers of Marxism in Jamaica. He played an important role in Jamaican politics in the years leading up to Independence in 1962. He subsequently was based in Guyana for two years, before relocating to London, England, in 1965, working as a solicitor and co-founding the campaigning organisation Caribbean Labour Solidarity in 1974. He went on to serve as attorney-general in Grenada under the People's Revolutionary Government in 1983. He spent the latter years of his life in the UK, where he died in Bristol.

Hart was the author of several notable books on Caribbean history – including Towards Decolonisation: Political, Labour and Economic Developments in Jamaica 1939–1945 (1999), Slaves who Abolished Slavery (1980, 1985; reprinted 2002) and The Grenada Revolution: Setting the Record Straight (2005) – and he lectured on the subject at universities in the West Indies, the US, Canada and Europe. Professor Rupert Lewis of the University of the West Indies' Mona campus once described Hart as "the most consistent Caribbean activist".

Life Richard Hart was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 13 August 1917, of mixed heritage that included Sephardic Jewish and African. He was the son of Ansell Hart, a Jamaican solicitor and author of a 1972 historical study of George William Gordon. Hart was educated in Jamaica, attending Munro College in St. Elizabeth, and in England, where he was sent to boarding-school at Denstone College in Staffordshire.

He returned to Jamaica in 1937, and became a founding member of the People's National Party (PNP) in 1938; and in 1940 was arrested for organising a demonstration demanding Bustamante's release from prison. Hart sat the English Law Society examinations in Jamaica, qualifying as a solicitor in 1941. In 1942, he was imprisoned without trial by the British colonial government for his political activities. The other three members were Frank Hill, Ken Hill and Arthur Henry, and they were collectively referred to as "the four Hs". Hart was also very active in the trade union movement in Jamaica in the 1940s and 1950s, and worked as a member of the executive committee of the Trade Union Council from 1946 to 1948.

Believing in the importance of popular education to empower people and raise the level of political consciousness in the community – to which his first book, The Origin and Development of the People of Jamaica (1952), was dedicated – Hart helped establish the People's Educational Organisation (PEO), which organized a bookshop and held meetings and debates, including on the type of political party that was needed. Together with other radical thinkers and activists, he then formed the People's Freedom Movement (which was later renamed the Socialist Party of Jamaica). The party disbanded in 1962. from 1963 to 1965. After returning to the UK, Hart initiated a correspondence with Canon John P. Bennett – the first Arawak priest to be ordained as an Anglican priest – and worked to assist in the writing and publication of an Arawak-English Dictionary. The letters exchanged between Hart and Bennett would eventually be published in 1991, in a book entitled Kabethechino ("Close Friends"), edited by Janette Forte of the University of Guyana. together with Cleston Taylor (1926–2010), Lionel Jeffrey (1926–1993) and others. Hart remained the Honorary President of CLS,

Grenada; return to England In 1982, Hart moved to Grenada, where he worked as a legal consultant to the People's Revolutionary Government. He was appointed Attorney General of Grenada on 25 May 1983. and was awarded an honorary doctorate by The University of the West Indies (UWI). His 1999 title Towards Decolonisation: Political, Labour and Economic Developments in Jamaica 1938–1945 was described by Linden Lewis in a review as: "a meticulously documented text about the struggle for decolonization, union recognition, and the establishment of an indigenous political party in Jamaica during the War years. The text is part memoir and part historical account. As a major participant in the labor and political struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, Hart was both observer and actor in the unfolding drama of the process of decolonization." Hart's 2012 book, Caribbean Workers' Struggles, "is a wide-ranging and immensely readable essay that gives centre stage to the struggle for workers' rights and national independence against the forces of racism and imperialism." Socialist Review states: "This book is testimony to the courageous and unceasing struggle from below that won freedom and political rights for a population of slaves." His last published book was Occupation & Control: the British in Jamaica 1660–1962 (2013).

Hart died aged 96 at his home in Bristol on 21 December 2013, survived by his partner of more than 50 years, Avis Ho-Young. London: Caribbean Labour Solidarity & Socialist History Society, 2002. Slaves Who Abolished Slavery: Volume 2, Blacks in Rebellion (1985). University of the West Indies Press, 2002. . Slaves Who Abolished Slavery: Volume 1, Blacks in Bondage. Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1980.

The Abolition of Slavery. London: Caribbean Labour Solidarity, 2007. . Caribbean Workers' Struggles. London: Socialist History Society/Bogle-L'Ouverture Press, 2012. Occupation & Control: The British in Jamaica 1660–1962. Arawak Publications, 2013.