Ideology, Politics, and Radicalism of the Afro-Caribbean

There were local, regional, and international forces which guided and influenced the ideology and political behaviour of the educated and radical Afro-Caribbean in the twentieth century. Additionally, the role of the working-class organizations coupled with political newspapers as educational tools should not be underscored. In Trinidad and Tobago, the apathy of the élite was visible in newspapers as the Trinidad Guardian and Port-of-Spain Gazette, especially in their refusal to publish positive articles on labour. The limited coverage of the colony’s labour movement meant that working-class organs such as the Labour Leader and The People performed the role of educating the masses. These newspapers would be replaced by The Clarion, The Vanguard, and The Nation which emerged during the post-World War Two era. Articles from The Vanguard, organ of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), during the 1940s, were helpful in understanding the input of Padmore in the education of the working class in Trinidad and Tobago. This medium was useful in assessing the reaction of trade unions to Williams and the People’s National Movement (PNM). Likewise, the PNM’s The Nation, of the 1960s and 1970s, provided insight into the love–hate relationship between Eric Williams and trade unions.

During his childhood, Marcus Mosiah Garvey heard of stories of maroon leaders as Quaco and Cudjoe. These served to inspire Garvey and influenced his course in life.¹ Employed as a printer at St. Ann’s Bay and later in Kingston, Garvey understood the privations and challenges of the working class. He was a child of the working class who rose to prominence and made an impact on the global Pan-African movement. Undoubtedly, Garvey, the Jamaican national hero and freedom fighter, was one of the most influential leaders of the African diaspora in the early decades of the twentieth century. His emphasis on race consciousness, African economic self-reliance, and the political regeneration of Africa was appealing to millions of persons. Garveyism was to have both a positive and a negative impact on the labour movement in the Caribbean.

Cyril Lionel Robert James was born in 1901 in the colony of Trinidad and Tobago. As a precocious teenager, he attended the prestigious Queen’s Royal College in the colony’s capital of Port-of-Spain. James displayed early traits of being both a rebel and idealist. He found it difficult to accept the yardstick used by the colonial society to judge success and failure. For instance, the Caribbean society believed that respect and success could only be achieved by becoming a doctor, lawyer, or politician. James never sought to conform to the established order who viewed the Black man as inferior. James became a respected thinker through his books which included State Capitalism and World Revolution, Beyond a Boundary, A History of Pan-African Revolt, and Minty Alley.

Malcolm Nurse (he adopted the alias of George Padmore in 1927) was the grandson of an enslaved African, Alphonso Nurse, who was born in the Belle Plantation in Barbados, West Indies. Alphonso Nurse learnt the trade of masonry and later migrated to nearby Trinidad. Padmore’s father, James Nurse, was a member of the prestigious London-based Entomological Society and a renowned Caribbean botanist. The rebelliousness and radicalism of his grandfather combined with the intellect of his father was an essential component of the psyche of George Padmore, who eventually became the “chief theoretician of the Pan-African movement.”¹ James described him as “the father of African emancipation.”²

When Tubal Uriah Butler decided to reside in Trinidad in January 1921, he had already distinguished himself in leadership positions in socio-political organizations in his homeland—Grenada. He was the founder of the Grenada Union of Returned Soldiers and member of the Grenada Representative Government Movement. Butler was a volunteer in the British West Indies regiment in World War One. In 1931, he joined the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association (TWA) which was led by Captain Arthur Cipriani, one of the “Returned” soldiers whose interests included self-determination for the West Indian colonies.

William Arthur Lewis was born in 1915 in St. Lucia, a British West Indian colony. After completion of high school, he attained an Island Scholarship. However, before entering university, he worked as a clerk in the public service. During this time he became close friends with Eric Williams—the future prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Lewis completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the prestigious London School of Economics. He would be best known for his contribution to the field of Development Economics. During the 1950s and 1960s, this was a particularly useful field for developing countries that were in the transition stage of decolonization.

Eric Williams was born in 1911 in Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. He attended a renowned high school, Queen’s Royal College, and one of his teachers was C.L.R. James. After secondary school, Williams decided to pursue history at Oxford University in England. Whilst in England, Williams attended meetings and lectures where he was able to meet political activists such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya. Interestingly, Williams met two Trinidadians based in London—his former high school teacher, C.L.R. James, and George Padmore. Both Padmore and James were anti-imperialists and strongly denounced colonialism. Williams briefly taught at Howard University in the USA and then returned to Trinidad where he embarked on a political career that spanned 25 years.

Walter Rodney was born in 1942 in Georgetown, Guyana. Upon completion of high school in 1960 he won a scholarship to pursue a degree in History at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. In 1963, Rodney completed his undergraduate degree and went to England to pursue a postgraduate degree. In 1966, he was awarded the PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He briefly taught at the University College, Tanzania and later in January 1968 began lecturing at the fledgling History Department at the Mona campus in Jamaica. Walter Rodney was a historian, activist, and politician who became one of the region’s most distinguished grassroots intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) was born on 29 June 1941 at 54 Oxford Street in Port-of-Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. He attended Ms. Stafford’s private school, Eastern Boys’ Government School and in 1951, he began Tranquility Boys Government Intermediate School.¹ At the age of 11, he migrated with his parents to the USA in June 1952. He showed great promise, “As a child he was quiet and unassuming, often acting wise beyond his years.”² Evidence of this is his reaction at nine years of age when he entered a polling station, “on the corner of Belmont and Observatory Street, and declared to the returning officer, “I come to vote, for Uriah ‘Tubal’ Butler, and his Citizens Empire and Home Rule Party.”³ Elaine Letrin, one of Ture’s three paternal aunts, was a member of Butler’s Party and vice president of the Clerical Workers Union.⁴ She must be credited and thanked for Kwame’s early entry into politics and revolutionary politics.

Black activists and organizations were the vehicles for fiery ideas and unorthodox actions. They inspired millions of working-class persons to envision the end of colonialism and imperialism. These Caribbean stalwarts in the twentieth century were thorns in the sides of the colonial authorities and the capitalist interests who comprised the status quo. These Blacks were larger-than-life heroes who risked life and reputation to ensure the dreams of a few could be shared by many. The intellectual and academic had as important a role as the politician and activist in contributing to the dismantling of colonialism in the Caribbean. They were also responsible for addressing grievances and acute social injustices in the post-colonial era.