Research Catalog

Oral history interview with Constance Webb

Title
Oral history interview with Constance Webb / conducted by Howard Dodson.
Author
Webb, Constance
Publication
New York : Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1987.

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
VHSBy appointment only Sc Visual VRA-784Schomburg Center - Moving Image & Recorded Sound

Details

Description
1 videocassette (VHS) (51 min.) : sd., col.; 1/2 in.
Subject
  • Webb, Constance > Interviews
  • James, C. L. R. (Cyril Lionel Robert), 1901-1989
  • Trotsky, Leon, 1879-1940 > Influence
  • Communism
  • Communism > United States
  • Women communists
  • Women political activists > United States
  • United States > Intellectual life > 20th century
Note
  • The occassion is an interview regarding her life and relationship with C.L.R. James.
Event (note)
  • Recorded on 27 March 1987 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Biography (note)
  • Constance Webb was a successful model, actor and author, but will best be remembered as the beautiful second wife of the writer C.L.R. James, to whom he wrote a remarkable series of letters. The correspondence between James and Webb reveals much about his often enigmatic personality, the nature of literary and political life in the middle years of the 20th century.
  • The intellectual legacy of Cyril Lionel Robert James is complex and controversial. James made significant contributions in the fields of sport criticism, Caribbean history, literary criticism, Pan African politics and Marxist theory. James was born in Trinidad and Tobago which was then a British Crown colony. James moved to the US in late 1938 and after a tour sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party stayed on for over twenty years. But by 1940 he had developed severe doubts about Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers state and left the Socialist Workers Party along with Max Shachtman, who formed the Workers' Party. Within the Workers' Party he formed the Johnson-Forest Tendency with Raya Dunayevskaya (his pseudonym being Johnson and Dunayevskaya's Forest) and Grace Lee (later Grace Lee Boggs) in order to spread their views within the new party. In 1953, James was forced to leave the US under threat of deportation for having overstayed his visa by over ten years.
Call Number
Sc Visual VRA-784
OCLC
85222140
Author
Webb, Constance. Interviewee
Title
Oral history interview with Constance Webb / conducted by Howard Dodson.
Imprint
New York : Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1987.
Event
Recorded on 27 March 1987 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Biography
Constance Webb was a successful model, actor and author, but will best be remembered as the beautiful second wife of the writer C.L.R. James, to whom he wrote a remarkable series of letters. The correspondence between James and Webb reveals much about his often enigmatic personality, the nature of literary and political life in the middle years of the 20th century.
The intellectual legacy of Cyril Lionel Robert James is complex and controversial. James made significant contributions in the fields of sport criticism, Caribbean history, literary criticism, Pan African politics and Marxist theory. James was born in Trinidad and Tobago which was then a British Crown colony. James moved to the US in late 1938 and after a tour sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party stayed on for over twenty years. But by 1940 he had developed severe doubts about Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers state and left the Socialist Workers Party along with Max Shachtman, who formed the Workers' Party. Within the Workers' Party he formed the Johnson-Forest Tendency with Raya Dunayevskaya (his pseudonym being Johnson and Dunayevskaya's Forest) and Grace Lee (later Grace Lee Boggs) in order to spread their views within the new party. In 1953, James was forced to leave the US under threat of deportation for having overstayed his visa by over ten years.
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Research Call Number
Sc Visual VRA-784
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