Eric Huntley — the Guyanese‑born publisher, organiser, and towering figure of Black British political life, has died at the age of 95, prompting an outpouring of tributes from the communities he spent a lifetime empowering.
Huntley, alongside his late wife and comrade Jessica Huntley, co‑founded Bogle‑L’Ouverture Publications in the late 1960s, a radical publishing house that opened the door for Black writers long shut out of the British literary establishment. Their imprint brought the works of thinkers such as Walter Rodney and Bernard Coard into print, and their bookshop — later renamed the Walter Rodney Bookshop, became a cultural and political home for generations of Caribbean and African diaspora communities in London.
But the Huntleys’ influence stretched far beyond publishing. Together, they helped build supplementary schools, community education projects, and organisations including the Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association and the Black Parents Movement. They were central to the campaign that challenged Haringey Council’s discriminatory IQ‑based banding system, and they were ever‑present in the marches, meetings, and movements that shaped Black British resistance from the 1970s onward.
In 1981, the couple helped establish the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books, a landmark event that brought writers, activists, and artists from across the globe into conversation and cemented their place at the heart of Britain’s radical intellectual tradition.
In 2005, the Huntleys donated their extensive archives to the London Metropolitan Archives, ensuring that future generations would have access to the documents, letters, pamphlets, and ephemera that charted decades of struggle, creativity, and community organising. The collection is now stewarded by the Friends of the Huntley Archives, a testament to the enduring impact of their work.
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Tributes have been led online by immigration lawyer and campaigner Jacqueline McKenzie, who described Huntley as “the doyen of Black publishing and political activism in the UK,” recalling his unwavering presence at community events well into his nineties. “It’ll be hard to forget Eric,” she wrote. “May he now rest peacefully whilst future generations benefit from the stoic and important collection of works he leaves behind.”
For many, Huntley’s passing marks the end of an era, but his legacy lives on in every writer he championed, every young person educated in the supplementary schools he helped build, and every activist who found a home in the spaces he and Jessica created. From Guyana to London, from grassroots organising to global literary influence, Eric Huntley’s life was a blueprint for community‑rooted resistance. The communities he uplifted will carry his work forward.