Sarah Swinburne White, the bookseller, publisher and activist whose "contribution to educational, racial justice and social justice campaigns in Britain and internationally will never be forgotten," died on February 4 at the age of 80.
In 1966 she and her partner John La Rose founded New Beacon Books in London, a publishing house, bookstore and book distributor created to serve the Black community in Britain. The bookstore, which has operated out of its home at 76 Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, London, since the mid-1970s, also promoted books, authors and writing from the Caribbean and Africa.
In addition to operating the store for decades, White edited and proofread New Beacon titles and helped create and organize the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books. Run in conjunction with Bogle L'Ouverture Publications and Race Today Publications, the book fairs were held from 1982 to 1995. White would later edit and produce two books recording the book fairs.
White was also instrumental in the creation of the George Padmore Institute, an archive of the struggle of people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent in Britain. Named after Pan African activist George Padmore, the GPI was established on the floors above the New Beacon bookstore in 1991. White was the institute's secretary from its founding until last year.
In 2013 she was the co-recipient of the first Bocas Henry Swanzy award from the Bocas Literary Festival in Trinidad and Tobago. White retired from the bookstore in 2016 and remained a director until 2019.
Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o said of White after her passing: "She and John are everything to me and our struggles."