Early years Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse, better known by his
pseudonym George Padmore, was born on 28 June 1903 in
Arouca District,
Tacarigua,
Trinidad, then part of the
British West Indies. His paternal great-grandfather was an
Asante warrior who was taken prisoner and sold into slavery at
Barbados, where his grandfather was born. His father, James Hubert Alfonso Nurse, was a local schoolmaster who had married Anna Susanna Symister of
Antigua, a naturalist. In late 1924, he travelled to the United States to take up medical studies at
Fisk University, a
historically black college in
Tennessee. He had recently married, on 10 September that year, and his wife Julia Semper would later join him in America. She left behind their daughter Blyden, who was born in 1925 (and died in 2012). According to Nurse's instruction, she was named in honour of the African nationalist
Edward Blyden of
Liberia. Nurse subsequently registered at
New York University but soon transferred to
Howard University.
Communist Party During his college years in the US, Nurse became involved with the
Workers (Communist) Party (CPUSA). When engaged in party business, he adopted the name George Padmore (compounding the Christian name of his father-in-law, Constabulary Sergeant-Major George Semper, and the surname of the friend who had been his best man, Errol Padmore). Padmore officially joined the Communist Party in 1927 (when he was in
Washington, D.C.) and was active in its
mass organization targeted to black Americans, the
American Negro Labor Congress. In March 1929 he was a fraternal (non-voting) delegate to the 6th National Convention of the CPUSA, held in
New York City. Padmore, an energetic worker and prolific writer, was tapped by Communist Party trade union leader
William Z. Foster as a rising star. He was taken to
Moscow to deliver a report on the formation of the
Trade Union Unity League to the
Communist International (Comintern) later in 1929. He was also used periodically as a courier of funds from Moscow to various foreign Communist Parties. In July 1930, Padmore was instrumental in organizing an international conference in
Hamburg, Germany. It launched a Comintern-backed international organization of black labour organizations called the
International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW). Padmore was deported to England by the German government, while the Comintern placed the ITUCNW and its
Negro Worker on hiatus in August 1933. The Comintern's disciplinary body, the International Control Commission (ICC), asked him to explain his unauthorized action. When he refused to do so, the ICC expelled him from the Communist movement on 23 February 1934.
Pan-Africanist Although alienated from
Stalinism, Padmore remained a socialist. He sought new ways to work for African independence from imperial rule. Relocating to France, where Garan Kouyaté was an ally from his Comintern days, Padmore began to write a book:
How Britain Rules Africa. With the help of former American heiress
Nancy Cunard, he found a London agent and, eventually, a publisher (Wishart). It published the book in 1936, the year the publisher became
Lawrence and Wishart, known to be sympathetic to communists. Publication of books by black men at that time was rare in the United Kingdom. A Swiss publisher distributed a German translation in Germany. In 1934, Padmore moved to
London, where he became the centre of a community of writers dedicated to pan-Africanism and African independence. His boyhood friend
C. L. R. James, also from Trinidad, was already there, writing and publishing. James had started
International African Friends of Ethiopia in response to
Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. That organization developed into the
International African Service Bureau (IASB), which became a centre for African and Caribbean intellectuals' anti-colonial activity. Padmore was chair of IASB, the Barbadian trade unionist
Chris Braithwaite was its organising secretary, and James edited its periodical,
International African Opinion.
Ras Makonnen from
British Guiana handled the business end. Other key members included
Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya and
Amy Ashwood Garvey. As Carol Polsgrove has shown in
Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause, Padmore and his allies in the 1930s and 1940s—among them C. L. R. James, Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, the Gold Coast's
Kwame Nkrumah and South Africa's
Peter Abrahams—saw publishing as a strategy for political change. They published small periodicals, which were sometimes seized by authorities when they reached the colonies. They published articles in other people's periodicals, for instance, the
Independent Labour Party's
New Leader. They published pamphlets. They wrote letters to the editor; and, thanks to the support of publisher
Fredric Warburg (of
Secker & Warburg), they published books. Warburg brought out Padmore's
Africa and World Peace (1937), as well as books by both Kenyatta and James. In a foreword to
Africa and World Peace,
Labour politician
Sir Stafford Cripps wrote: "George Padmore has performed another great service of enlightenment in this book. The facts he discloses so ruthlessly are undoubtedly unpleasant facts, the story which he tells of the colonization of Africa is sordid in the extreme, but both the facts and the story are true. We have, so many of us, been brought up in the atmosphere of '
the white man's burden', and have had our minds clouded and confused by the continued propaganda for imperialism that we may be almost shocked by this bare and courageous exposure of the great myth of the civilizing mission of western democracies in Africa." The Biographical Note on the cover describes Padmore as European correspondent for the
Pittsburgh Courier,
Gold Coast Spectator,
African Morning Post,
Panama Tribune,
Belize Independent and
The Bantu World. In 1941, Padmore argued that the British Empire should be transformed into "federated commonwealths based upon Socialist principles." Before
World War II, James left for the United States, where he met Kwame Nkrumah, a student from the Gold Coast who studied at
Lincoln University in
Pennsylvania. James gave Nkrumah a letter of introduction to Padmore. When Nkrumah arrived in London in May 1945 intending to study law, Padmore met him at the station. It was the start of a long alliance. Padmore was then organizing the 1945
Manchester Pan-African Congress (designated the Fifth Pan-African Congress), attended not only by the inner circle of the IASB but also by
W. E. B. Du Bois, the American organizer of earlier Pan-African conferences. The Manchester conference helped set the agenda for
decolonisation in the post-war period. Padmore used London as his base for more than two decades. He and
Dorothy Pizer, a white English writer and his domestic partner and co-worker, shared a flat that became a centre for African nationalists. Padmore maintained connections across the world, sending articles to international newspapers and keeping up a correspondence with American writers and activists
W. E. B. Du Bois and
Richard Wright. The latter was then living in
Paris, France. At Padmore's urging, Wright travelled to the Gold Coast in 1953 to explore the buildup to independence, and he wrote his book
Black Power (1954). Before Wright left the Gold Coast, he gave a confidential report on Nkrumah to the American consul; later he reported on Padmore to the American Embassy in Paris. According to the embassy's account, Wright said that Nkrumah was relying heavily on Padmore as he made plans for independence. When Wright published
Black Power in 1954, Padmore was finishing a book that he hoped would be both a history and blueprint for African independence:
Pan-Africanism or Communism? It was his attempt to counter
Cold War suspicions in Western nations that the African independence movements were fundamentally communist-inspired. As independence neared for the Gold Coast, the London community had splintered. In 1956, James had returned from the United States, but Padmore and Pizer referred to him with condescension in letters to Wright. Meanwhile, former Padmore ally Peter Abrahams published a
roman à clef entitled
A Wreath for Udomo (1956), which contained unflattering portrayals of the members of this London political community. George Padmore was identified by many as the model for the character "Tom Lanwood". But Padmore's alliance with Nkrumah held firm. From the time of Nkrumah's return to the Gold Coast in 1947 to lead its independence movement, Padmore advised him in long detailed letters. He also wrote dozens of articles for Nkrumah's newspaper, the
Accra Evening News, and wrote a history of
The Gold Coast Revolution (1953). With Dorothy Pizer (who was a writer and secretary), Padmore encouraged the leader to write his autobiography, and
Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah was published in 1957, the year the Gold Coast became independent Ghana. Padmore deputized for Nkrumah as
best man when Sir Stafford Cripps' daughter
Peggy married the anti-colonialist
Joe Appiah, who was one of Nkrumah's closest allies at the time. Padmore accepted Nkrumah's invitation to move to Ghana, but his time there as Nkrumah's advisor on African affairs was difficult. Padmore was talking with friends about leaving Ghana to settle elsewhere when he returned to London for treatment of
cirrhosis of the liver. Padmore died on 23 September 1959, aged 56, at
University College Hospital in London. A few days later, responding to rumours that the activist had been poisoned, his companion Pizer typed out a detailed statement about his death. She said that his liver condition had worsened in the previous nine months, before he sought treatment from a longtime physician friend. Due to his failing liver, he suffered haemorrhages that resulted in his death.
Legacy • After Padmore's death, Nkrumah paid tribute to him in a radio broadcast: "One day, the whole of Africa will surely be free and united and when the final tale is told, the significance of George Padmore's work will be revealed." In the
Pittsburgh Courier,
George Schuyler said Padmore's writings had been "an inspiration to the men who dreamed of a free Africa". Padmore's physician friend,
Cecil Belfield Clarke, wrote the obituary that ran in
The Times, describing Padmore as a writer who wrote books and studied them. Jamaican pan-Africanist and diplomat
Dudley Thompson wrote of Padmore in a letter to
The Guardian: "He was truly international and the entire colonial world has suffered a loss." • After a funeral service at a London crematorium, Padmore's ashes were buried at
Christiansborg Castle in Ghana on 4 October 1959. The ceremony was broadcast in the US by
NBC television. Nkrumah ranked Padmore as "one of the greatest architects of the African liberation movement ... dedicated to African union and liberty." • James, relocated to
Port of Spain, Trinidad, wrote a series of articles on Padmore for
The Nation. James also began collecting material for a biography but eventually produced only a slim manuscript, "Notes on the Life of George Padmore." For years James tried to publish his book
Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution; the book was published in 1977 (London:
Allison and Busby). In it, James omitted any reference to Padmore's own 1953 book on the Gold Coast revolution; his correspondence has numerous references to his idea that Padmore did not understand the revolution. • Ras Makonnen, who understood so well the importance of books about the African nationalist movement, published his own intimate account of the London-based community around Padmore,
Pan-Africanism from Within (1973). James R. Hooker wrote a biography of Padmore,
Black Revolutionary (1967). Padmore is the central figure featured in Carol Polsgrove's
Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause, published in 2009. • In 1991,
John La Rose founded the
George Padmore Institute (GPI), based in North London, with the aim of "continuing the traditions which shaped his life: independent, radical vision and outlook connecting the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, North America and Asia." Educational and cultural activities, including talks and readings, take place at the GPI, which occasionally publishes relevant materials. It is an archive, educational resource and research centre housing materials relating to the black community of Caribbean, African and Asian descent in Britain and continental Europe. La Rose also founded the George Padmore Supplementary School in 1969. • On 28 June 2011 – 98 years to the day since Padmore was born – the
Nubian Jak Community Trust unveiled a
blue plaque at Padmore's former address, 22 Cranleigh Street in the
London Borough of Camden, in a ceremony addressed by the
High Commissioner of Trinidad & Tobago, the High Commissioner of Ghana, the Mayor of Camden,
Selma James,
Nina Baden-Semper (related to Padmore's in-laws), and others. are named after him. ==Works==