E R Braithwaite

Life

Braithwaite was born in Georgetown, Guyana, on June 27, 1912. He had a privileged beginning in life; both of his parents went to Oxford University and he described growing up with education, achievement, and parental pride surrounding him. His father was a gold and diamond miner and his mother was a homemaker. He attended Queen's College, Guyana, a high school, and then City College of New York (1940). During World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot – he would later describe this experience as one where he had felt no discrimination based on his skin colour or ethnicity. He went on to attend the University of Cambridge (1949), from which he earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in physics.

After the war, despite his extensive training, Braithwaite could not find work in his field and, disillusioned, reluctantly took up a job as a schoolteacher in the East End of London. The book To Sir, With Love (1959) was based on his experiences there. It won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. To Sir with Love was adapted into a film version, starring Sidney Poitier. Although the film was a box-office success, critical opinion and Braithwaite himself considered it too sentimental and he also objected to his mixed-race romance being given lower prominence. He is quoted as saying in a 2007 BBC Radio 4 programme entitled To Sir With Love Revisited, written and presented by Burt Caesar, exploring the story behind the book: "I detest the movie from the bottom of my heart."

While writing his book about the school, Braithwaite turned to social work and it became his job to find foster homes for non-white children for the London County Council. His experiences resulted in Paid Servant: A Report About Welfare Work in London published in the UK in 1962. Braithwaite's numerous writings primarily deal with the difficulties of being an educated black man, a black social worker, a black teacher, and simply a human being who found himself in a set of inhumane circumstances.

In 1973, the South African ban on Braithwaite's books was lifted he subsequently visited the country. While there he was granted the status of "honorary white" which gave him significantly more privileges than the indigenous black population, but less than the whites, a honorific he found detestable. He recorded the experiences and horror he witnessed during the six weeks he spent in South Africa in his book Honorary White (London: The Bodley Head, 1975, ISBN 978-0370103570).

Braithwaite continued to write novels and short stories throughout his long international career as an educational consultant and lecturer for UNESCO, the first permanent Guyana representative to the United Nations (1967–69), and later Guyana's ambassador to Venezuela. He taught English studies at New York University and in 2002, was a writer-in-residence at Howard University, Washington, D.C. He associated himself with Manchester Community College (Connecticut), during the 2005–06 academic year as a visiting professor. Therein he also served as the aforementioned educational institution's commencement speaker for that year and received an honorary degree.

He turned 100 in 2012, and on a visit to Guyana in his capacity as the patron of the Inter-Guiana Cultural festival he was conferred on August 23 that year with a national award, the Cacique Crown of Honour, by then-President Donald Ramotar. Braithwaite lived in Washington, D.C..

Braithwaite died at the Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville, Maryland, on December 12, 2016, at the age of 104.