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COMMUNITY/POLITICAL
The Leeds West
Indian Carnival
Since the early 1970s I have taken an active part in the
Leeds West Indian Carnival, which I regard as the most
important cultural festival in Leeds. I was commissioned
by West Yorkshire Archive Service to write a short history
of the Carnival, which is available from the archives,
or may be downloaded here:
'A Short History of the Leeds West Indian Carnival,
between 1967 and 2000'
Download as (word
file) or (pdf)
My more academic analysis of Carnival ['Carnival
in Leeds and London, UK:
Making New Black British Subjectivities' by
Geraldine Connor and Max Farrar.] may be downloaded from
the Academic articles section of this web-site:
Leeds Carnival Photos
As small selection of my very large archive of photographs
of the Carnival can be viewed in the photos section
of this web-site
Leeds Carnival archive
My collection of Carnival documents and some of my photographs
of Carnival are stored at West Yorkshire Archive Services, Chapeltown
Road, Sheepscar, Leeds, LS7 3AP.
http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/index.asp?pg=indexhome.htm
Chapeltown Community Association
I joined the CCA in 1972 when Ruth Bundey was Secretary,
and the founder of the CCA, Tim Mobbs, was still involved. I
was Association’s Secretary from 1973-4 or 5 and
my analysis of this activity can be read in Chapter 6 (pages
183 – 197) of my book The Struggle for ‘Community .
. . ’ Chapter 6 of this book can be
downloaded here:
Download as (word
file) or (pdf)
‘The
Struggle for Community . . .’ Chapter 6.
CCA
archive
My extensive collection of papers relating to the Chapeltown
Community Association (1971 – 1975) is deposited
with the West Yorkshire Archive Service
http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/index.asp?pg=indexhome.htm
Chapeltown News
From 1972 to 1976 I was
deeply involved with the Chapeltown News Collective, which
produced a community newspaper aimed at the residents of
the Leeds 7 and 8 neighbourhoods. We were a small
group of young white and black radicals who lived in Chapeltown.
For most of its short life, Chapeltown
News was literally produced on our dining room table. Our means
of production were an electric typewriter, Letraset, a set square, scalpels
and Cow Gum, and the new-fangled ‘offset litho’ printing presses
that were just appearing. Each month we chronicled the racism, police
brutality, resistance and cultural creativity which made Chapeltown such a
distinctive neighbourhood. Its critique of the police led to their decision
to fabricate charges against me of incitement to riot after the violent urban
protest in Chapeltown on Bonfire Night in 1975.
Chapeltown News archive
One or two facsimiles of Chapeltown News can
be found on the Moving Here web-site.
http://www.movinghere.org.uk/search/hitlist.asp?
keywords=max+farrar&fuzzy=false&search=Search
A more or less complete set of Chapeltown News is
stored at the West Yorkshire Archives in Sheepscar, Leeds.
http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/index.asp?pg=indexhome.htm
Big Flame
I joined the revolutionary socialist organisation Big Flame in 1975
and left around 1983-4, figuring the Thatcher had eliminated the space for the
kind of libertarian, autonomous, social movement-oriented organisation I had
put so much into, and learned so much from. Many of us left Big Flame at
that time and the organisation ceased to function around 1985. I played
a small part in writing the account produced by the Big Flame National Committee
which appeared in Socialist Register in 1981. The article is available
here.
‘Big Flame: Resituating Socialist Strategy
and Organisation’ by John Howell
Download as (pdf)
The Socialist Register article underplays the distinctively
libertarian elements in Big Flame and says even
less about its links with the autonomist sections of the
Italian far left in the 1970s. My article in Edinburgh
Review (1989) on the Leeds Libertarian movement, from
which the Leeds branch of Big Flame emerged, explains
where my solidarity lies: with the anti-authoritarian,
autonomous social movements .
The Libertarian Movements of the 1970s – What
can we learn? By Max Farrar
Download as (pdf)
Big Flame archive
My collection of Big Flame journals, pamphlets
and internal discussion documents are deposited with the
University of Leeds’ Brotherton library, in their
special collections. To view these (and my other
political documents of the 1970s, 80s and 90s) contact
the Brotherton library at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/.
Politics today
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