1927–2006
○ Natural causes
A communist journalist who chose the scene over the party line
At a workers’ council election, hearing “we have absolutely no experience of electing people,” he thought: “So much for ‘people’s democracy.”
Peter Fryer was an English Marxist writer and journalist who sought both truth within the communist movement and international solidarity. In Hungary in 1956 he reported a workers’ and students’ uprising, but the Daily Worker censored or suppressed his dispatches, and he answered with Hungarian Tragedy. The conflict led to his expulsion from the Communist Party and contributed to the crisis that split British communism, after which he became a major historian of Black Britain.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1942Joined the Young Communist League
- 1943–1947Reporter, Yorkshire Post
- 1945Joined the Communist Party of Great Britain
- 1948–1956Parliamentary and foreign correspondent, Daily Worker
- 1956Covered the Hungarian Revolution and wrote Hungarian Tragedy
- 1957–1959Editor of The Newsletter and founding member of the Socialist Labour League
- 1984Published Staying Power
- 2006Died in London
Related historical events
Documenting Black British history and Staying Power
Fryer’s work on Black British history grew partly from his 1948 reporting for the Daily Worker on the Empire Windrush and the Jamaican workers who arrived at Tilbury, as well as his longstanding interest in Black musicians and jazz. He undertook research on the history of Black people in Britain from the third century AD to 1981. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, published in 1984, traced the long history of Black presence in Britain and included the Black Chartists. A contemporary obituary described the 632-page book as pioneering and noted that its extensive notes and documentation provided a foundation for later researchers. Fryer followed it with Black People in the British Empire (1988), a book for young people, and Rhythms of Resistance (2000), on the impact of African music.