The C.L.R. James Institute: Jim Murray Memorial: Tributes

In Memoriam:
Jim Murray
Director, The C.L.R. James Institute
April 10, 1949 - July 21, 2003

Tributes to Jim Murray

(For information on the Jim Murray Memorial & the Jim Murray Memorial Fund see
In Memoriam: Jim Murray)

A man on a long and dusty journey stops for a drink of water, and grateful for it gulps it down. Thoughts of the divine miracle of this innocent life-giving liquid course through his mind as he drinks. He hands over the calabash, utters his profuse thanks, and without a further thought, walks off on his way. Jim was like that unobtrusive calabash.

His whole life was that of the facilitator, the bearer of goodwill without desire for recognition. The CLR James Institute, housed in his apartment in New York, was the embodiment of all his life and not just in terms of his intellectual commitment to the work of James. The Institute was itself the facilitative domain of numerous human interactions. He was a great listener and attended dreams with equal enthusiasm. You had the feeling that Jim would always believe in your capacity to achieve whatever you had set out to do regardless of all the evidence pointing to the contrary. He had that rarest of gifts: belief in the full worth of human endeavour. And he cultivated his friendships gently. Months could pass without a word, but on reconnection conversations would be continued as if there had been no break. And what am I to say of his tireless capacity to introduce the newness of New York? Every watering hole, restaurant, street corner was the location of a story for him. Sometimes tied into the political landscape of the city, at others connected to the struggle for self-definition, frequently pointing to the anguish of the contradictions that made this city one of the most vibrant of places and yet tolerated homelessness and despair. But at all times, whether he was introducing you to one of his favourite breakfast places or just walking along Broadway admiring the many young men and women, he conveyed the sense of being on the verge of great and beautiful things. Everything Jim saw had a potential newness of the world ingrained in it.

And yet this expansiveness of spirit, this capacity to break bread with fellow travellers concealed a radical will and clear vision. For him it was important not only to understand the work of James, but to draw from it to revision the world at large. In countless conversations he rehearsed this ideal. He had a voracious appetite for knowledge and a tireless curiosity about the details of everyday existence in his own New York and elsewhere. When meeting him after a journey, his first questions were about what was happening in the world ‘out there’? And yet the ‘out there’ was always intimately felt, for he often expressed the idea that there was no possibility of true freedom when people elsewhere experienced any form of unfreedom whether at work, politically, or in the invisible but no less pernicious realm of prejudice and misunderstanding.

To say the world of CLR James scholarship has lost one of its greatest advocates is a gross understatement, especially because it runs the risk of memorializing as a one-dimensional man. Jim was more than that: a mentor, a friend, an enthusiastic lover of life, and a man of great spirit.

May we find echoes of him in our individual lives and may his soul rest in everlasting peace.

when death rips the fabric of your life
tears out a favorite part
leaves a big dark ragged hole
"There. See what I done" — spits —

Jim's first words to me —"Mike! What are your needs?"
always The Great Provider
made the city your friend
made you special — Ato's right —
much light beneath that bushel
and Nello would know

my last e-mail July 14:
"Jim, I'm comin' at ya . . . soon"
(for a sixth visit in sixteen years —
such infrequent friends — not to be now)
got strange reply: "sick to the stomach — back to bed"
and me thinking nothing, inquire some other time

thanks for telling me Ralph
for forcing it into words
— a good friend's duty —
I'll be checking his website
to feel a bit closer
contribute somehow some way

I didn’t know Jim very long. I first emailed him in the fall of 2000, I believe, having gotten his address from Anna Grimshaw. ( I had only met Anna once at a conference in London in 1995, but she responded immediately to my request.) Jim’s immediate reply to my email containing vague questions about C. L. R. James was generous and fascinating. (I was working on a long book on race and culture and wanted to include a chapter on James, whom I had talked with a couple of times when I taught at Federal City College/ University of the District of Columbia.) Anyway, particularly from that fall of 2000 until the summer of 2001, we exchanged lots of emails and that same generosity, manifested in a willingness to share his vast knowledge of C. L. R. James, of James’ various circles, and his (Jim’s) personal experience with the New Left and the Old Left, Trotskyists, trade unionists and academics, and all points in between and beyond—was always present. He loved ideas and he loved gossip; he could talk with activists and with academics; he moved literally and spiritually from the US to the Caribbean to Britain. What he communicated was a richness of insight and just plain old curiosity about the world to me and, I suspect, with all those who gave him a chance to do so.

Through Jim, I also met his good friend and sidekick, Ralph Dumain. It was great when the James Institute went “on-line,” which I think was largely Ralph’s doing. I met Ralph in DC in April 2001 and then encountered them both, along with a few other James’ specialists, at a stimulating seminar/small conference generously sponsored by Donald Pease in early April 2002 at Dartmouth. Sure enough, Jim was the same open and generous man in person that he was over the email. With the creation of the website and the increasing recognition of C.L. R. James’ stature as a thinker and writer, the James Institute, under Jim’s leadership and with Ralph’s indispensable aid, promised to grow and prosper.

And that is why his sudden and unexpected death was so shocking. There seemed to be great prospects for the Institute and Jim’s own involvement with teaching and writing were gaining momentum—and recognition. Everyone he helped find out something about C. L. R. James and his world is in Jim Murray’s debt. I hope we all can pay him tribute by helping the Institute to continue and to prosper. It would be appropriate thanks to a man who gave so much to the life of the mind and the continuing effort to create a just society. I already miss him very much.

For years I haven't been able to walk on West End Avenue along the blocks stretching between 79th and 84th Streets without envisioning Jim Murray ensconced in the large, top-floor, utterly Upper West Side apartment he occupied for most of his adult life. That's where I saw him day after day during the 1980s, when he was my pal, my buddy, my supporter, my first real friend in New York City.

During the years I knew him best—before the death of C.L.R. James, before the names "Saddam" and "Osama," or even "Bill" and "Hillary" and "Monica" (Americans so love calling strangers by their first names) were being spat off the tongues of talk-show hosts across the country—Jim's primary activity was doing whatever he could to make the lives of his friends, acquaintances, and colleagues better, happier, more comfortable, more productive. I see him as a sort of impresario of the well-being of others—including me.

How many things Jim helped me with: learning to use a computer; understanding a few of the subtleties of class and race analyses; staying sane amid the treachery & narcissism of New York's activist art community; producing and publicizing a video tape about the politics of cancer care in America; surviving the desperation of having become a nearly full-time caregiver; organizing a memorial for my companion Ron Wolin, who, like Jim, died far too early, at the age of 54.

Ostensibly I was Jim's administrative assistant (or did he use the term "managing editor"?) for Cultural Correspondence, Jim's Letter, and some of his initial work on James. That's what he paid me for. In fact, I have often thought the truth was quite the reverse: as a rationale for giving me some money during the worst years of my life, and to give himself and me a framework within which we could hang out and share late breakfasts, he came up with some part-time typing and photocopying and mailing and editing that I could do. Mostly what we did, however, was talk.

In my mind's eye I see Jim's coffee thermos, his kitchen cupboards & kitchen stools, the tiny old lemon-yellow BMW he inherited. I see his sturdy frame; I hear his pleasant voice and appealing laugh. I see his heart's companion, Priscilla, sitting in his living room at a party, wearing white. The thought that Jim has died is still too ghastly to accept. Surely I can call him. The number is still in my head: 787-1784. Even after all these years, I can hear the utterly friendly voice on his message machine, reassuring me that aid and comfort are at hand.

Although some time has passed, it is still with sadness that I write this letter to you. And it is only as a letter that I feel that I can properly write this memorial tribute to Jim Murray.

As you know, I’ve known Jim since you began working as his colleague at the CLRJI in the early ‘90s when I started doing research on behalf of the Institute while I was living in Minneapolis. Jim and I e-mailed and phoned each other throughout the years, but the first and only time I met him was when I visited him in New York last year. That experience and the conversations we had will last a lifetime with me.

Ralph, I know that Jim highly admired you. He admired you as an equal partner in the Institute, stating to me that your various endeavors were essential and valuable in growing the Institute. Such endeavors included your wonderful website work and your insights into various organizational aspects like seminars, etc. He told me that the Institute was blossoming, especially with your help. There is no doubt that Jim would want the Institute and its mission to be carried on only under your direct leadership.

What I learned from and about Jim was that he was most interested in people who—and please excuse and old ‘60s cliché—self-actualize themselves. In you he saw a person developing as an autodidact and a brilliant and original thinker and writer. The word Jim used was “rigorous”. When I told him about my wish that you write a book or two, he asked “Why?” He said that he’s noticed such vital growth and sophistication in you just by doing the various activities you’re presently engaged in: websites, writing book reviews, engaging with people on your own and other’s cyberial discussion lists, attending intellectual conferences (including your Moby Dick presentation) and even attending Café Philo discussions. He said that he felt that all these activities were more fulfilling for you than focusing all your time on writing a book.

With me, Jim strongly encouraged my intent to do a fellowship with the Institute. Initially, my thought was to do one on understanding realistic alternatives to capitalism. This is a genuine interest of mine, and I thought he’d be interested too as one who was an activist since the ‘60s. But, perhaps because he’d been through all that ad nauseam, Jim wanted to dissuade me. Instead, he asked, “Why don’t do something that you’re truly passionate about, like music?” And what he got most excited about was my idea of trying to figure out the common elements in my very diverse musical tastes and collection. Indeed, the last message Jim sent me, an e-mail dated June 28, 2003, was one of strong encouragement. He wrote:

It saddens and frustrates me that Jim didn’t keep himself in better health. We could today be brainstorming and working together developing this and other projects.

I don’t know how, but somehow, someday, I will find a way to write this up as an Institute fellowship project. That may be the best way that I can keep Jim’s unique spirit alive, a most proper tribute to a special human being.

Jim Murray was a poet. He was not prolific but he was always original, always interesting, always Jim. He lived that kind of life, becoming more open-ended and inventive as he went along. We are the lesser for having lost his wit and passion. Poets, of course, are the unacknowledged legistlators of the world.

I cannot say that I really knew Jim that well. In fact, I spent a week with him many years ago while on a study trip to the USA to do some research. After a month in Washington DC, in which I had picked the brains of Ralph Dumain, I moved on to New York and it was there that Ralph introduced me to Jim. I was greeted like the prodigal son. The memory is vivid. There they were, like two peas in a West Side pod, and there was I, a million miles from home. But within minutes, I was ensconced within their world; not a stranger but a brother. "So tell me", Jim said intently, "what are your needs?" Of course, Jim and Ralph understood my needs far better than I did. What I needed was a tour of some extraordinary bookshops, some good cheap food, a few beers, great company and a plethora of contacts, fascinating books to read and ideas to ponder. Jim and Ralph provided all these in abundance. It appears that they had been doing so for a long time and continued to do so a long time after I left. My time with Jim was very short. I was in New York for only a week but what a wonderful, unforgettable week. The hospitality was overwhelming and their help was invaluable in getting me on my way. So goodbye Jim, and thank you to you and Ralph for making a stranger so welcome. But this memorial is as much for the living as it is for the dead. So, to Ralph, who has lost such a friend, my heart goes out to you.