Eric Huntley, "who 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," died January 21, the Guardian reported. He was 96. The venture began on a printing press in their west London living room, and in 1975 became the Bogle L'Ouverture bookshop, "which established itself as a community hub and informal advice center as well as a place to buy books from outside the mainstream."
Authors championed by Bogle L'Ouverture included Linton Kwesi Johnson, Valerie Bloom, Lemn Sissay, Beryl Gilroy, and Donald Hinds. The Huntleys also became involved in creating the International Book Fair of Radical and Third World Books, which ran from 1982 to 1995.
In addition to his work in publishing, Huntley was for many years involved in racial justice campaigns in the U.K. He was a key figure in the Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association and the Black Parents Movement. He was also closely involved in the Black People's Day of Action in 1981.
Born in Georgetown in British Guiana (now Guyana), he married Jessica Carroll in 1950. The Huntleys linked up with Marxist politicians to help form the People's Progressive party in 1950, campaigning for independence, the Guardian noted. The party's election victory in 1953 resulted in the British government declaring a state of emergency and suspending the colony's constitution. In 1954, Eric Huntley was arrested for breaking curfew, and spent a year in Georgetown prison.
Upon his release, he decided to seek a better and safer life in Britain. He left for England in 1957, and was reunited with his wife and two children in 1962. In London, they met Walter Rodney, a young Guyanese political activist, who made a deep impression on them. 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 U.K.
Operating 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 Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dread Beat and Blood (1975), several books by Andrew Salkey, Beryl Gilroy's Black Teacher (1976), and poetry collections by Valerie Bloom, Lemn Sissay, Sam Greenlee, Lucinda Roy, Imruh Bakari, and John Lyons.
The Bogle L'Ouverture bookshop opened in 1975, and was 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. Bogle L'Ouverture survived until 1991, with Huntley blaming its decline on rising rents and cuts to grants, the Guardian noted. 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," the Guardian wrote, "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.