Author and former Activist hosts book signing

Jun 21, 2015 News

By Shyon Hoppie
Author, former Socialist and African-Caribbean Community Activist, Eric Lindbergh Huntley hosted a book signing at the Austin’s Book Store on Church Street yesterday. The event was held in an effort to publicize the

Eric Huntley at the book signing yesterday showing a few of his books.

86-year-old author’s newest book, “Doing Nothing is not an option”- The radical lives of Eric and Jessica Huntley.
The Huntley’s were highly politically active people, as business partners and also in their own right as individuals. They have been heavily involved in political activism, advocacy and campaign work on an international level.
Eric and Jessica immigrated to the United Kingdom (UK) in the late 1950s, to political campaign pickets outside embassies.
They wasted no time before becoming active in political and social issues relating to the British African-Caribbean communities in and around London.
The Huntley archives were the first major deposit of records from the African-Caribbean community in London presented to London Metropolitan Archives (LMA).
The papers consist of the business records of Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications Limited and documents concerning personal, campaigning and education initiatives of Eric and Jessica Huntley, dating from 1952-2011.
The Huntley Archive Advisory Group (HAAG) was formed in 2005 to provide support, advice and generally further the work of LMA to make the Huntley Collection available to as wide an audience as possible. This group worked with LMA to establish the broad structure for the preservation of the documents in the collection. In 2012 Friends of Huntley Archives at London Metropolitan Archives (FHALMA) was formed to continue the work of HAAG.
FHALMA is a volunteer project to catalogue and make accessible two sections of the Huntley Collections – unique original photographs which are part of the Huntley Archives and printed books as part of the Huntley Library deposited at LMA. The project began in April 2014 at the LMA.
For over 50 years the Huntleys participated in many significant grassroots campaigns. These included, Founder members of the Caribbean Education and Community Workers’ Association (CECWA), the first specialist Black education group to have been established in the UK.
In 1974 the Huntley’s opened their bookshop, at that time called ‘The Bookshop’, in West Ealing, London. The bookshop was later renamed as the ‘Walter Rodney Bookshop’ and quickly became a place of importance for Britain’s Black community.
Eric later described it as an ‘oasis in the desert of West London’. Visitors to the shop were able to discover new radical publications, meet authors at book launches and find books to suit children from diverse backgrounds. It also became a place for teachers to learn new ways to teach their subjects and was frequently visited by artists and intellectuals visiting the UK.
The Huntley Archives, the group that replaced HAAG, is granted charity status and sadly Jessica died in 2013. Eric continues to work with the Conference planning group while also accepting speaking invitations and pursuing his personal writing.