Jocelyn Barrow

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Jocelyn Barrow DBE (born April 15, 1929 in Port of Spain , Trinidad ; † April 9, 2020 in London ) was a British educator, activist for racial equality and co-founder of the campaign against racial discrimination.

life and work

Barrow was born to Olive (nee Pierre) and engineer Charles Barrow in colonial Trinidad . After attending St. Joseph's Convent School in Port of Spain, she trained as a teacher at the city's state teacher training college. She came to the UK in 1959 to complete an English degree from London University , followed by postgraduate studies at the Institute of Education. In 1970 she married Jocelyn Henderson Downer, an attorney and later a judge on the Jamaican Court of Appeals who retired in 2004. For most of their marriage they lived between the UK and Jamaica , he came to London for Christmas, Easter, and a month of summer while she went to Jamaica from January to March. She taught English in schools in Hackney, one of the most deprived areas in East London, in the 1960s and 70s. She later became a lecturer at Furzedown Teacher Training College in Tooting (London) .

Her experience as a teacher led her to set up a local project called “Each One Teach One” to help black children and their families provide educational support to one another. She pioneered the introduction of multicultural education in British schools, because she found that there was a large gap between well-equipped schools for mostly white middle-class children and poorly-equipped schools for mostly black working-class children. From 1964 to 1969 she was General Secretary and then Vice-Chair of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (Card). Immediately after the Race Relations Act 1968 was passed, she was appointed a member of the Community Relations Commission. She served on this body until it was merged with the Race Relations Board under the Race Relations Act 1976 to form the Racial Equality Commission.

From 1983 to 1987, as a member of the Parole Board, and from 1981 to 1988 in particular as the first black female governor of the BBC , she initiated programs that encouraged young blacks and Asians to realize their potential. She was also the chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission for the Training of Lawyers and, since its establishment in 1981, has been the patron of the Black Culture Archives. She also became the founder and president of the Hackney Community Housing Association (1978 until her death), a member of the European Commission's Economic and Social Committee (1990-1998) and a governor of the British Film Institute (1991-1997). She was instrumental in founding the North Atlantic Slavery Gallery and the Maritime Museum in Liverpool .

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personal data
SURNAME Barrow, Jocelyn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barrow, Jocelyn Anita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British educator, racial equality activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Port of Spain , Trinidad (island)
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 2020
Place of death London