By Gail Lewis
10 March 1955 – 25 September 2024
Picture a black woman and her daughter duetting to Andra Day’s Rise Up; or offering outstretched hand and reassuring smile so an early years’ child can overcome their hesitancy and join the reading circle; see her on demonstration for social justice or halting on an urban street to pay witness to the wondrous beauty of a delicate flower.
Claudette Williams © Jane Diblin
Picture this and more and you gain a sense of Claudette Christine Williams in her beauty, kindness, warmth, and dedication. She died aged 69 leaving a chasm in the hearts and lives of so many people in the UK, Jamaica, the USA and beyond.
Claudette remained a child of her beloved Jamaica, born in Heartease, St. Thomas where she grew up until she was 10 before travelling with her younger brother, Oneil, to join their older brother, Errol and parents, Enid and Malcus, both working for London Transport. Settling in Brixton, South London, attending Dick Sheppard Comprehensive School, Claudette’s commitment to social justice and global freedoms for all, across social and geographical location, showed itself from a young age. At school she met people who would become her lifelong friends; was a volunteer at the Recreation Centre on Brixton’s Railton Road; and joined the Black Panthers.
Later, her commitment to the collective pursuit of equality and freedom led her to participation in ‘the Ahfiwe Black supplementary school, set up in the 1970s by Ansel Wong to raise the educational attainment standards of Black Children’*; the Brixton Black Women’s Group, (where I first met her), and the Organization of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD). In the mid-1980s she joined a women’s delegation to Nicaragua.
From her childhood transoceanic travel, Claudette learned early about the challenges children can face and their capacities to grow from them. Grounded in this experience she entered public service as an early years’ teacher. Training at Furzedown College of Education, she began her teaching career in the late 1970s, before moving to train future generations of teachers at London Metropolitan University in the late 1990s. Her commitment to promoting equality extended into her visions of what education should be in both the classroom and lecture hall. Hers was a child-centred pedagogy which she thought foundational for the development of excellent skills of teaching and learning.
Her talents and expertise as a teacher, her internationalism and diasporic sensibility led to the Pre-school Division of the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Education where she was Advisor (1987-88), and an Honorary Fellowship in the School of African American Studies at the University of California, where she also worked in a local elementary school (2007-10).
Claudette’s pedagogic commitments were also realised in publications including children’s books Make it Balance; Make it Change, with David Evans; and Realising Potential: complementary schools in the UK, co-authored with Tözun Issa (2009).
Claudette’s passion for teaching was matched by endless curiosity and desire for learning, completing two MA’s — Sociology of Education (Goldsmith’s College 1979-83), Educational Research (Sheffield University 2004-2007). But it was motherhood that most fundamentally nourished Claudette’s capacity for learning and expressed her integrity, capacity to care, love and work in the service of others. In 2002 she adopted her beloved daughter Sado, and was dedicated to, (in her own words) ‘ensuring her ongoing health, happiness and security [alongside] her learning and development’. Mothering Sado helped her to grow in unexpected ways, influencing her professional life, enabling her to adapt and relate more openly. Lessons from her mothering that she thought had much to teach movements for social justice: Love, listening, and autonomy. A treasured gift from a treasured daughter.
Claudette with Sado, her daughter
The last years of her life, Claudette succumbed to Alzheimer’s. Its progression caused her distress, but in more lucid moments she engaged the professionals, insisting they be clear and direct with her. Sado, with the unwavering support of close friends, increasingly assumed Claudette’s care; caring for her as she had been cared for by her mother. Sometimes enjoying a song together.
Claudette is survived by Sado, her brothers, nieces, nephews and godchildren — and a host of black feminist fellow travellers who will miss her terribly but continue to struggle in honour of our beloved sister: Claudette Williams.
*Black Cultural Archives: archives@bcaheritage.org.uk
This is a longer version of an Other Lives Obituary by Gail Lewis published in the Guardian 18 December 2024
By Pat East
My friend and colleague Claudette Williams aged 69 died suddenly, in September 2024, after a heart attack.
We first met in the Teaching Studies department (TS) at The Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University). The remit of the department was to train Primary and Secondary students to teach in London schools. Access courses, which encouraged applicants to teaching who did not have the usual qualifications, were being set up as a partnership between Universities and Colleges of Further Education. City of London College developed an Access Course attracting Black students who would go on to join the Bachelor of Education (Primary Route) at PNL. This was a pioneering venture – the only Access Course set up exclusively for Black students to train as teachers.
At this time tutors at the University department did not represent the intake from this Access Course – being without a single Black tutor/lecturer. In 1983, a deputation was organised to consult Francis Morrell, who was then the director of the Inner London Education Authority. She agreed to second a Black teacher to the Teaching Studies Department. Claudette joined soon after this and the department changed in significant ways with tutors now recruited from those of with Indian, Chinese, Greek and Irish background. The department at this time was focusing on an anti-racist approach in terms of content and delivery. Claudette’s commitment to this approach inspired those working with her and this resulted in significant changes to the curriculum and teaching methods.
Her experience in early Years Education was invaluable to her colleagues and she took the lead in this part of the B.Ed. She believed in child-centred learning, and this had an impact on colleagues who followed this approach. From her own experience Claudette knew about challenges that children can face and was always looking for ways to support her students in their placements in schools when problems arose in classrooms where she was the tutor.
Claudette Williams © Jocelyn Wolf
She headed up the Science pathway on the B.Ed. She was exceptionally well qualified for this, having co-authored children’s books for the Let’s Explore Science series in the early 1990s.
Equality was always crucial for Claudette and this informed her vision of what education should be. TS department changed over the period Claudette was there, in response to the contributions she made. So much so, that the department was able win a large prestigious 5-year project from the Teacher Training Agency, ‘Diversity and Achievement’, looking at how race, gender and class were determinants of achievement.
On a more personal note, Claudette was a great friend as well as a much loved colleague. We shared an office, in fact shared a desk, seated opposite to each other. Much of the day we chatted away but occasionally breaking off to do some work. Looking back, I am surprised that we managed to do any work at all. But we did!
Claudette Williams
I shall miss her greatly.