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.

The labour newspapers allowed the expression of radical leaders such as Tubal Butler and other reformers. This medium was easily accessible to the working class and provided the much-needed forum for criticisms, suggestions, and recommendations. The circulation was mainly among the working class and thus indirectly promoted literacy. These publications served to empower, inspire, and educate the disenfranchised and exploited masses. The print media was also an asset for political candidates seeking the approval from a public still grappling with the limited political power they had been granted. The media served as an outlet for the working class to air their grievances. And, without responsible and charismatic leadership, the protests of the masses would have been derailed by the police authorities.

Marcus Garvey, the radical Jamaican, not only played an invaluable role in promoting race consciousness among Africans and the African diaspora but also helped promote solidarity among the Black working class. Garveyism (the ideology of Garvey), which drew heavily on the ideology of Pan-Africanism which existed in the nineteenth century, appealed to the Black working class in the Caribbean colonies.

CLR James, a Trinidadian, was partly influenced by the race ideology of Garveyism. James spent most of his life involved in activism and politics in the USA and Britain. He was a Marxist and also Pan-Africanist and thus able to combine race consciousness and class solidarity in his writings and speeches. New research materials from the CLR James Collection in Trinidad and the former CLR James Institute in New York were used in determining if class or race had more influence on one of the Caribbean’s finest intellectuals—CLR James. There is a re-examination of his contributions to politics and trade unionism in Trinidad, links with Africa, and involvement in Pan-African conferences.

In the portrayal of George Padmore, two working-class newspapers, published in Trinidad and Tobago, have been utilized—The Vanguard and The Clarion—to demonstrate that this fearless activist had a significant influence on the global trade union movement and also emphasize his contribution to journalism. This will allow a more balanced assessment of Padmore’s growing Caribbean influence and also his bitter anti-colonial commentaries and anti-imperialist stance. During 1930–1935, Padmore undertook the organization and education of Blacks on a global scale. Thousands of Black workers were informed of modern trade unionism, political parties, and a need for solidarity via The Negro Worker in which Padmore edited.

Padmore’s involvement with Communism and militant trade unionism contributed to the development of a left-wing Pan-African ideological outlook which was shared by James. Both men envisioned an international Black working-class movement that would be well organized to unite Africans and the African diaspora and eventually reject racism, colonialism, and capitalism. James and Padmore were unique in that they grafted racial consciousness unto working-class concerns to produce a hybrid ideology.

Padmore was also a close friend of CLR James and one of his fellow Pan-Africanists. One of my arguments is that Padmore was one of the major actors in the global Pan-African movement in the post-World War Two era. In the historiography of Pan-Africanism, Padmore has been sidelined and not given sufficient credit for his role in overthrowing colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean, and contributing to the unique identity and ideology of the Afro-Caribbean.

I have focused on the trade union activities and political contributions of Tubal Uriah Butler, a Grenadian immigrant of African descent. Butler migrated to Trinidad and formed a political party and trade union. Butler was also influenced by Garveyism. Interestingly, the supporters of the ideology of Butlerism (Butlerites) were also supporters of Garvey. Some of these Butlerites would later support the emergence of Black Power and Kwame Ture in the 1960s. There will be a re-assessment of Butler’s important role in the June 1937 riots and his relationship with other local leaders of that era—Adrian Cola Rienzi and Arthur Cipriani. There is also some engagement with the secondary sources on Butler and his attempt to dominate the working-class movement.

Butler formed a political party and trade union. He contested the 1950 elections and won the largest bloc in the Legislative Council. However, the prejudices of Governor Hubert Rance denied Butler any further political prominence. It was obvious to Rance that the militant, confrontational, and unorthodox leadership style of Butler was not suitable for inclusion in the succession plan of British trusteeship which preferred to entrust governance but only to a politically mature local leadership. It was a struggle from 1946 which leaders such as Butler and later Eric Williams spearheaded. Their struggle was not restricted to contacts among Blacks but other coloured individuals. Others such as Padmore undertook a more international struggle as he corresponded with Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru of India to discuss the impact of British colonialism.

The chapter on Sir Arthur Lewis (Chap. 6) assessed his impact on the Caribbean economy and scholarship. Lewis, the Nobel Prize winner and diligent academic, was the mastermind who humbly served as one of the many catalysts for the socio-political, economic, and intellectual upheavals which shook the developing world in the twentieth century. He certainly must be credited for contributing to the evolution of the modern West Indies. Lewis has sometimes been portrayed as a conservative academic but his writings were radical and he sought to attack the status quo who contributed to economic and social problems. Additionally, there will be an assessment of the possible reasons that the advice of Lewis has been ignored in the Caribbean. This will incorporate analyses of his writings and speeches. And this chapter is linked to the chapters on Eric Williams (Chap. 7) and Walter Rodney (Chap. 8) as emphasis is placed on the academic and intellectual contributions of Black academics to politics, economics, history, and ideology.

The main thesis in the chapter on Dr. Eric Williams (Chap. 7), an academic and the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, is that he had a love–hate relationship with the trade union movement, in Trinidad and Tobago. This is obvious as he often selected trade unions to gain and maintain political power. There will be some emphasis on the pre-1956 links between Williams and international trade unions which encouraged him to display an interest in local unions. Williams was one of the few Afro-Caribbean academics of the 1950s who opted to leave academia and successfully enter the political arena.

There is a re-examination of the reasons why the membership of trade unions supported Williams despite his government’s anti-working-class stance during the 1960s and 1970s. Williams was close friends with two Pan-Africanists—CLR James and George Padmore. Not surprisingly, Williams was partly influenced by James’s political and Pan-African perspectives.

Dr. Walter Rodney, an Afro-Guyanese, was one of the few Caribbean intellectuals who combined activism and academia. In this chapter, there is an attempt to gauge Walter Rodney’s impact on Caribbean peoples and the extent of his ideological weaknesses. Rodney’s ideas and writings were not limited to the Caribbean and his influence was felt in North America, Europe, and Africa. This chapter includes recent interviews of Indo-Caribbean persons who knew Walter Rodney. The main thrust of this chapter is that Rodney made a major contribution to Pan-Africanism and radical political thought in the Caribbean.

The chapter on Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) (Chap. 9) examined the forces that shaped this personality. Ture was a Trinidadian who spent most of his life in the USA fighting against injustices against Blacks across the globe. New material from newspapers and interviews will assist in revisiting Ture’s contribution to Black consciousness. The main argument is that Ture played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Undoubtedly, the race ideology of Garveyism of the 1920s and 1930s had a long-term effect and later influenced the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s. There will also be an examination of the race consciousness that occurred after Ture’s visit to Trinidad.

These Afro-Caribbean personalities faced some form of discrimination and some were blacklisted and humiliated. These Caribbean patriots utilized their literary and oratory gifts to produce invulnerable and anti-imperialistic forces. This was the long-awaited antidote for the oppressed and downtrodden in the Caribbean.

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.

In 1907, he identified with trade unionism and was elected as Vice-President of the Compositors branch of the Kingston Typographical Union, an affiliate of the International Typographical Union of the American Federation of Labour. Later, as a timekeeper on a banana plantation of the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, he was arrested for instigating fellow West Indian labourers to protest against labour conditions in the banana industry. Similarly, in Panama where West Indians were employed, Garvey identified with the work of the Colon Federal Labour Union in 1911.

Garvey’s subsequent formation of Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League (ACL) coupled with the propagation of a philosophy of race consciousness infused new inspiration into the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the Americas. Many Blacks, especially those who were ruthlessly exploited and who were politically and socially marginalized, responded to Garvey. The publication of the Negro World during the period 1918–1933 served as a powerful medium for the promotion of African race consciousness, and the mobilization of the African communities in the Americas. William L. Katz estimated that the weekly circulation was 100,000 copies, some of which were distributed in the British West Indies. ²

Garvey’s ideas pertaining to socio-political development were widely acclaimed by West Indians during those critical decades when colonialism was being challenged by the emergence of an independent spirit in the British Caribbean colonies. The racism encountered by the Caribbean troops in the British West Indies Regiment during World War One challenged them to oppose discrimination when they returned from the war. ³ In Taranto, Italy, West Indian troops were given menial jobs and not treated equally with their British peers, and Captain Arthur Cipriani (a White creole) was one of the outspoken voices against this discrimination. ⁴ The Governor of Barbados informed the Secretary of State for the Colonies, “There is some ...