Black Man Listen

JR Ralph Casimir (1898-1996) was a Pan-Africanist and poet from the Caribbean island of Dominica. He was organizer and General Secretary of the island’s branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1912-1922) and agent for Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line.

This biography, lovingly written by his granddaughter Kathy Casimir MacLean, is the first in-depth look at the life of this courageous Dominican whose dedication to Pan-Africanist ideas is reflected in his writings and in his links with Garvey and other key African-American figures of the time. He was also a teacher, church cantor and poet, founding Dominica’s first literary society and publishing the first anthologies of Dominican poetry.