E.R. Braithwaite
Edward (E.R.) Braithwaite, the Guyanese author of the seminal book, To Sir With Love, which became the basis of a hit move by the same name, has died at age 104.
Braithwaite passed away on Monday in Rockville, Maryland, in the United States.
He had taught at Howard University for many years.
Named Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite at birth, on June 27, 1912, he attended Guyana's prestigious high school, Queen's College, then City College of New York.
He later moved to Britain and fought in the Royal Air Force, but later, even with the benefit of a Cambridge degree in engineering, he was denied a job in a related field because he was Black.
Desperate for meaningful employment, he turned to teaching and wound up in an unruly class in a London slum school. It was that experience in which he helped to turn the lives of his students around while also detailing his experience of racism in Britain that he chronicled in To Sir With Love.
Later he served as a diplomat representing his country, Guyana, at the United Nations and in Venezuela.
He spent much of his later life as a lecturer and wrote several other books.
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