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Monday, February 24, 2025

Prof Tony Martin dies at 70

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20130118

Tony Mar­tin, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at Welles­ley Col­lege, Boston, died on Thurs­day night at the West Shore Med­ical Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal, Co­corite. Mar­tin, 70, was a not­ed schol­ar on Mar­cus Gar­vey and au­thor and ed­i­tor of 14 books. Mar­tin's cousin Pa­tri­cia Dy­er, his on­ly rel­a­tive in T&T, told the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day she did not wish to dis­close the cause of death. Mar­tin's ill­ness was sud­den and his con­se­quent death was shock­ing, she added.

Mar­tin is sur­vived by his broth­er Hen­ry Mar­tin and son Shaba­ka Mar­tin. Dy­er de­scribed her cousin as very warm, re­spect­ful and in­tel­li­gent and said he would be missed. Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee chair­man Khafra Kam­bon told the T&T Guardian Mar­tin checked him­self in­to the hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day. Kam­bon was a close friend of Mar­tin's and was at his bed­side at un­til 5 pm on Thurs­day.

When he left, Mar­tin was un­re­spon­sive, said Kam­bon. Still, he said the news of Mar­tin's death lat­er that night was un­ex­pect­ed. Kam­bon said Mar­tin was both a schol­ar and an ac­tivist. "He was a tremen­dous and metic­u­lous re­searcher and his works sur­pass any­thing else that has been writ­ten about Mar­cus Gar­vey," he said.

He added that Mar­tin was al­so gen­er­ous in spir­it and very com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of young peo­ple. Fu­ner­al arrange­ments have not yet been made.

Tony Mar­tin's ca­reer

Mar­tin taught at Welles­ley Col­lege from 1973-2007 in the Africana Stud­ies de­part­ment, of which he was a found­ing mem­ber. His most re­cent book, Caribbean His­to­ry: From Pre-Colo­nial Ori­gins to the Present, was pub­lished last year. Oth­er in­sti­tu­tions where he worked in­clud­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty, Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege and UWI, St Au­gus­tine.

His most no­table pub­li­ca­tion was Race First: the Ide­o­log­i­cal and Or­ga­ni­za­tion­al Strug­gles of Mar­cus Gar­vey and the Uni­ver­sal Ne­gro Im­prove­ment As­so­ci­a­tion (1976). Mar­tin's schol­ar­ship al­so caused much con­tro­ver­sy, par­tic­u­lar­ly his work on the in­volve­ment of Jews in the transat­lantic slave trade.


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