IN 2021, students at the University of Liverpool voted by a huge majority to rename Gladstone Hall, one of the halls of residence, Dorothy Kuya Hall. The wonderful irony of choosing a black Liverpudlian communist to replace the several-times prime minister of Britain speaks volumes. But who was Dorothy Kuya?

She was born on March 16 1933 in Liverpool, her mother a local woman and her father from Sierra Leone. The latter soon disappeared from their lives but her mother married a Nigerian seafarer, so young Dorothy took his name and he proved to be a loving father to her and her siblings. His influence alongside others like Ludwig Hesse, a communist seafarer from the Gold Coast, now Ghana, had a positive influence on her life.

The Kuya family lived in Liverpool 8, virtually a ghetto at that time with mainly black and mixed-heritage people suffering poor housing and constant unemployment. 

She later recalled: “You’d be hard pressed to find a black face in Liverpool city centre only 20 minutes away by foot.” Aware of both class and race oppression, Dorothy Kuya joined the Young Communist League and was soon addressing street meetings and selling the Daily Worker on a regular basis. One of her proudest moments was when she presented Paul Robeson with a bouquet of flowers during his tour of Britain in 1949.

She qualified to be a nurse and then decided to become a teacher, moving to London. She was an active member of the Communist Party in north London and worked with other communist and radical women in education creating a groundbreaking journal, Dragon’s Teeth, which exposed racism in children’s books and suggested anti-racist alternatives. 

I personally remember as a young teacher in Lambeth at that time, finding Dragon’s Teeth a remarkable and inspiring magazine. Kuya set up a Racism Awareness Unit, funded by the Greater London Council which was later disbanded when the Thatcher government abolished the GLC. Kuya worked alongside the late Bernie Grant MP in Haringey and was deeply involved in anti-racist activities. 

As a firm communist, she was a member of the National Assembly of Women, making sure anti-racism was on their agenda and eventually she was elected general secretary of that organisation. 

When the Communist Party held a conference on racism and the police in 1981, she made one of the most powerful contributions. The speeches at that conference were published as a pamphlet titled Black and Blue Racism and the Police and Kuya’s speech not only exposed the historic police racism in her native city, Liverpool, but she also took her party to task with these words:

“What’s the reaction when black comrades get together on their own to have a meeting? Some white comrades take strong objection to it. They want to be in there, maybe dictating to black people how they should play the game. They assume that blacks can’t do anything, can’t control anything, can’t organise themselves.”

She continued membership of her party into the late 1980s and moved back to Liverpool where she carried on her anti-racist work and organising resistance to the Tory government’s attempt to demolish 10 streets in Liverpool 8, where she had resumed living. 

Although not successful against the demolitions, she became highly respected as a community leader, especially among those of African and Caribbean descent and was soon throwing her energies into creating a slavery museum in the city. 

She was well aware that Liverpool’s wealth had been a result of the enslavement of Africans over centuries being transported to the Caribbean as unpaid labour. Eventually her dream came true and the Slavery Museum is a great symbol of her lifelong struggle against capitalism and racism and for a world where there is peace and justice for all.

I would like to thank lifelong anti-racist Jean Tate who worked with Dorothy Kuya for sharing information on her.

David Horsley is a member of the anti-racism anti-fascism commission of the Communist Party.