SELMA JAMES

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.

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Book 2

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

Upcoming Event : Resistance Exhibition – Day of Workshops and Talks – Saturday 12 November.

9th November 2022

Event organised by Stonehenge Heritage Action Group, Global Women’s Strike and Resistance Exhibition Address : Black Door, Soho Studios, 17-19 Archer Street, London, W1D 7, United Kingdom. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐞: 𝟐𝒑𝒎: 𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏’𝒔 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒌𝒆: 𝟓𝟎 𝒀𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑶𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝑺𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝟑.𝟑𝟎𝒑𝒎: ‘𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑬𝒏𝒆𝒎𝒚’ 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉 𝟓𝒑𝒎: 𝑹𝒐𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆! 𝑷𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒍 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 fellow 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬:  𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡:…

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A ‘front loaded’ child benefit avoids the financial recognition mothers are campaigning for

2nd November 2022

As the Wages for Housework Campaign celebrates its 50th anniversary, money for mothers is increasingly on the agenda.  The think tank Civitas proposes that parents with children under the age of four should be paid £8,000 a year to look after them. See here. This would be done by “frontloading” child benefit, that is more of the…

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What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want: Fill in the International Survey.

19th October 2022

We write to bring to your attention our What do mothers and caregivers want? international survey. We urge you to fill it in and/or circulate it among family, friends and social networks if you haven’t already. The survey is being circulated in different countries and four languages so far – English, Italian, Spanish and Thai – and has…

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Hookers in the House of the Lord: The Reunion, 21 October 2022.

19th October 2022

This autumn marks 40 years since the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) occupied the Church of the Holy Cross in the red-light area of King’s Cross, London, for 12 days to protest “police illegality and racism” against sex workers. Tickets for our event below were snapped up before we had a chance to publicise it!…

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Selma James is speaking at the Anarchist Bookfair, London

17th September 2022

16.30-17.30pm : Autonomy – Central to Organizing and Unity. UPCOMING EVENT : Selma James is speaking at the Whitechapel Gallery this weekend! Workshop with Q&A at the London Anarchist Bookfair Clore Creative Studio in the Whitechapel Gallery (close to the Bookfair) 77-82 Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. The Global Women’s Strike is also having…

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Race and Wrongful Convictions in the US, published by the National Registry of Exonerations.

4th September 2022

Download the report here…

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Islington Tribute: It’s 50 years since the Wages for Housework campaign was launched. Angela Cobbinah asks how far it has come

24th August 2022

Waging war It’s 50 years since the Wages for Housework campaign was launched. Angela Cobbinah asks how far it has come Thursday, 11th August — By Angela Cobbinah Women’s Centre premises in King’s Cross in the 1970s IT is some time in the mid-1970s and a pensioner is stopped in a London street by a BBC…

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Screening Great Archive Films: Friday 8 July, 6pm at Crossroads Women’s Centre.

6th July 2022

Our Time is Coming Now, 1971 : Selma James, a socialist and feminist uses her own experiences working in low paid jobs and being a mother and housewife as a starting point in this investigation into whether women are exploited in all areas of society. All Work and No Pay, 1976 : Made for Open…

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Selma James has been invited to speak at Refugee Week in Brighton & Hove Library

15th June 2022

UK – Rwanda migration plan: What does it mean for the Refugee Convention? About this event: Activists, a thinker, and a newly arrived asylum seeker will address the questions, how does the UK in fact, treat forced migrants? Who really supports them? And what must be done?  The United Kingdom is portrayed as one of…

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Vital Discussions: RSL Remembers C. L. R James with A Lloyd Banwo, Margaret Busby & Selma James

20th April 2022

ONLINE ONLY. Free for RSL Members and Digital Events Passholders. Members can also book one discounted online ticket for a guest for £3. LOG IN to book or join HERE. Non-Members can book public tickets through the BRITISH LIBRARY. Ahead of a special event on James’s life and times at Trinidad and Tobago’s premier literature festival, the NGC Bocas…

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