Selma James is an antisexist, antiracist campaigner and has fought for justice for over 50 years. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1930 she became the wife of the internationally renowned West Indian Historian and political philsopher C.L.R James. In Britain during the 1960s, she became a leading activist in the movements for the rights of immigrants and people of colour.
Selma is the author or several seminal books among them A Women's Place; Sex Race and Class; The Perspective of Winning; Wageless of the world and Women, the Unions and Work. She has lectured and led workshops all over the World and is the founder of the Wages for Housework and Care Income Now campaign.
Selma's most recent book Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race and Class and Caring for People and Planet is steeped in the tradition of Marx. She draws on half a century of organizing across sectors, struggles and national boundaries with others in the Wages for Housework Campaign and the Global Women’s Strike, an autonomous network of women, men, and other genders that agree with their perspective. There is one continuum between the care and protection of people and of the planet: both must be a priority, beginning with a care income for everyone doing this vital work. This book makes the powerful argument that the climate justice movement can draw on all the movements’ people have formed to refuse their particular exploitation, to destroy the capitalist hierarchy that is destroying the world. Our time is now.
Antiracism, anti-discrimination and the justice work we do for ourselves and with others are at the heart of Selma James' campaigning.









Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet
SKU: 9781629638386
Author: Selma James • Foreword by Margaret Prescod • Editor: Nina Lopez
Series: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-62963-838-6
Published: 06/2021
Format: Paperback
Size: 6x9
Pages: 256
Subjects: Feminism / Economics
Selma James - Latest news
Selma James speaks at Oxford Real Farming Conference: A Care Income to Protect the Land, the People and the Natural World
Speakers: Selma James, Swati Renduchintala, Pranom Somwong, Dee Woods, Jyoti Fernandez. As mothers, carers, farmers/farm workers, land and human rights’ defenders, women do most of the work of feeding (starting with breastfeeding) and protecting families and communities, the soil and the environment. For doing this fundamental caring work of society, unwaged and low-waged, we are…
Read More40 Years After Sex Workers Took Over an English Church, the Fight for Justice Picks Up in San Francisco
Published in The San Francisco Standard 10 December. In 1917, hundreds of San Francisco sex workers confronted a Tenderloin church pastor for trying to chase them out of town with his sermons, effectively giving him a crash course on their inability to survive economically. That direct action laid the groundwork for sex workers in France, Canada and…
Read MoreSelma James talk on KPFA radio Letters and Politics is published
https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20221206-Tue0500.mp3?_gl=11a0pji_ga*ODQzNTI Monday, December 5, to Letters and Politics with Mitch Jeserich for an interview with Selma James of the Global Women’s Strike. The interview will be aired at either 10.08am or 10:30. Selma spoke about the historic 1982 occupation of the Holy Cross Church by sex workers in London. She was their spokeswoman at the time and…
Read MoreEvent: meet Selma James – the celebrated author & campaigner
Dear friends, You are welcome to come and meet the celebrated author and campaigner Selma James on Thursday, 15 December, 5pm at our local Kentish Town Library, NW5 2AA. Selma will speak about her latest anthology Our Time is Now – Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet, followed by discussion.Please RSVP.
Read MoreNadja News: Ten times women’s unpaid care work was recognised in history.
Cooking, cleaning, gathering food and water, and caring for children and the elderly are vital for families and societies. Yet this work, performed by women 75% of the time, has seldom been given the recognition it deserves, creating huge inequality around the world. Here are ten times unpaid care work has been recognised for what it…
Read MoreEvent : Black Women’s Lives Count: Reclaiming Our Sisters Everywhere.
Support a permanent memorial for South Los Angeles victims of serial murders. ONLINE Thursday, December 8, 2022 3:30pm PST / 5:30pm CST / 6:30pm ESTRegister at https://bit.ly/rosesladec8 Event organized by Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial MurdersDonate: http://rosesouthla.org/donate For more info: http://rosesouthla.org/contact-us.
Read MoreEvent : Hear Selma James speak at KPFA’s Letters & Politics, on Hookers in the House of the Lord
Tune in to KPFA on Monday, December 5, to Letters and Politics with Mitch Jeserich for an interview with Selma James of the Global Women’s Strike. The interview will be aired at either 10.08am or 10:30. Selma will speak about the historic 1982 occupation of the Holy Cross Church by sex workers in London. She was their spokeswoman at…
Read MoreWhy a retrial for Mumia Abu-Jamal is necessary…
On December 16, 2022, Judge Lucretia Clemons (Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas) Will Hold the Final Hearing Where She Will Grant or Deny Formal Review of New Exculpatory Evidence, Abu-Jamal’s Best Chance at a New Trial Prepared by Dr. Johanna Fernandez (jfernandez1202@gmail.com) and Ira Arlook iarlook@gmail.com [1] J. Patrick O’Connor, The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008):…
Read MoreHam & High podcast : Selma James speaks about the campaign’s success, initial resistance from feminists, and how, if at all, things have improved for women and unpaid carers across the world.
https://podfollow.com/hamhigh/episode/4c268891beb680672a3aa2e7b9997926a1876ca0/view
Read More