Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow DBE (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020)[2] was a British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.
Named after a Caribbean sun-deity, Arawidi published children's books in a variety of language forms including West Indian dialects and Glaswegian.
[10][11] Between 1981 and 1988, Barrow served as a governor of the BBC,[12] the first black woman to have been appointed to the board of the corporation, which in 2001 was controversially described by its then director-general Greg Dyke as still "hideously white".
She was a Trustee of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside and a Governor of the British Film Institute, as well as the first patron of the Black Cultural Archives (BCA).
"[20] Jocelyn Barrow was married in 1970 to barrister Henderson (Hendy) Downer (d. January 2023)[21] of Lincoln's Inn and the Jamaican Bar,[6] and they lived in Long Yard, Lamb's Conduit Street.