23 Facts About Gus John

Gus John has worked in the fields of education policy, management and international development.

Gus John has worked in a number of university settings, including as visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London, and visiting professor at Coventry University.

Gus John was born in the village of Concord in Grenada, Eastern Caribbean, to parents who were peasant farmers.

Gus John became Chair of the Education Subcommittee of the Oxford Committee for Racial Integration, and recalls:.

Gus John was a member of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations in the early 1970s.

In 1972, Because They're Black, a book on which he collaborated with Derek Humphry, was awarded the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for its contribution to racial harmony in Britain, and Gus John went on to produce many other notable publications.

Gus John was the co-ordinator of the Black Parents Movement in Manchester, founded the Education for Liberation book service and helped to organise the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books in Manchester, London and Bradford.

Gus John was a member of the 1987 Macdonald Inquiry into Racism and Racial Violence in Manchester Schools and subsequently co-authored Murder in the Playground: the Burnage Report.

Gus John was a founder trustee of the George Padmore Institute under the chairmanship of John La Rose.

In 1989 Gus John was appointed Director of Education in Hackney and was the first black person to hold such a position.

Gus John's writings encompass reports, journalism and a variety of non-fiction books, including in 2023 Don't Salvage the Empire Windrush and Blazing Trails: Stories of a Heroic Generation, both published by New Beacon Books.

Gus John has contributed to such UK outlets as The Guardian and The Voice, and is a regular guest columnist for The Jamaica Gleaner.

Since leaving Hackney in 1996, Gus John has worked as an education consultant in Europe, the Caribbean and Africa, and is director of Gus John Consultancy Limited.

Gus John has been Chair of the Communities Empowerment Network, an advocacy and campaigning service working for equality and justice in education founded in 1999, and is Chair of Parents and Students Empowerment, an organisation devoted to empowering students and parents in schooling and education.

Since 2006, Gus John has been a member of the African Union's Technical Committee of Experts working on "modalities for reunifying Africa and its global diaspora".

Gus John has advised member states in Africa and the Caribbean in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals related to education and youth.

Between 2004 and 2012 Gus John worked on Niger Delta affairs and in 2012 collaborated with Kingsley Kuku, the then special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, and David Keighe on a development manual entitled Remaking the Niger Delta: Challenges and Opportunities.

Gus John was commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to undertake a comparative review of how the SRA has dealt with disciplinary cases and especially the over-representative number of black and ethnic minority solicitors that are sanctioned by that regulator, John's report being published in 2014.

Gus John made a submission to the United Kingdom Parliament's 2017 Youth Violence Commission, which he subsequently published in digest form.

In 2019, Gus John quit from an advisory body to the Church of England, after Archbishop Justin Welby endorsed the criticism of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by the chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, making allegations of antisemitism.

In October 1999, Gus John was asked by Tony Blair to accept a CBE in the New Year Honours List, 2000.

Declining, Gus John said that he believed such honours to be anachronistic and indeed an insult to the struggles of African people like himself who have spent their life trying to humanise British society and combating racism, which is a core part of the legacy of Empire and which the society and its institutions are perennially failing to confront.

Professor Gus John was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons" in the 2020 poll and book initiated by Patrick Vernon.