James’s freedom idea crystallized around self-government despite Whig framework

Evidence

I began to study the history of the islands. I collected Hansards, old White Papers, reports of Royal Commissions. There were plenty around which nobody wanted. It was all very simple and straightforward. For background I had the Whig interpretation of history and the declarations of the British Labour Party. For foreground there were the black masses, the brown professional and clerical middle classes, the Europeans and local whites, Stingo and Shannon, Maple and Queen’s Park. My hitherto vague ideas of freedom crystallized around a political conviction: we should be free to govern ourselves. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1209

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that James’s early ‘freedom’ meant political self-government within imperial categories, not yet revolutionary — defining the pre-Marxist stage of the tradition.