Una Marson: A pioneering journalist, activist and poet

Raised in a middle-class home and the last of nine children, Una would soon win a scholarship to attend Hampton Girls School. Thereafter, she left to work at the Salvation Army and YMCA.  Her industrious work ethic is echoed in one of her first staged works, which presented a working female protagonist. This work was the start of many public-facing pieces, addressing cultural forms, class systems, and the feminine's positionally in colonial patriarchal society.

From being the first Jamaican female editor-publisher for The Cosmopolitan, a political magazine in Jamaica, to becoming the first Black female producer at the BBC alongside her plays and poetry, Una Marson's work produced safe spaces for important conversations.

Listen to the audio from Connie Bell (Broadcaster and Memory Worker) on DTA LIVE Radio, explaining her pioneering impact on Black women globally. You can also hear the full version here.

Una Marson never sought fame, her contribution to Pan Africanism and cultural nationalism has often been neglected by history. Through her life and work she demonstrated the early stirrings of a Black feminist-nationalist agenda. She recognised the use of literary culture in activism and addressed the dichotomy of the lived experiences of her people, as opposed to how those experiences were documented academically. 

The staging of her socio-political play and landmark production, At What a Price in 1933 at the YMCA hostel in Great Russell Street, and then again in 1934 on the West End at The Scala, brings into sharp focus her technique and talent to include the stories of her people, by her people, as the play showcased a diversity of African, Caribbean and Black British voices. 

Thus further registering Marson’s understanding of the Black internationalist perspective regarding people of African descent.

As an advocate and ally for Pan Africanism and social justice, she offered her services to the Ethiopian minister Dr. Charles Martin and further to that offered secretarial support to His Majesty Haile Selassi, Emperor of Ethiopia.