Dr Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago's first Prime Minister and acclaimed "Father of the Nation", was an apostle of the ideals of Black Power.
Williams spoke and wrote liberally on the subject before and after he imposed a State of Emergency on Monday April 20, 1970, and snuffed out the Makandal Daaga-led uprising. The issue has returned to relevance in light of Daaga's election candidacy and, especially, Prime Minister Patrick Manning's stout criticism of the alleged desecration of the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Port- of- Spain by Black Power protestors. The Black Power Movement "enlisted the sympathy of a number of people, especially young people, who bitterly resented discrimination against black people, both here and abroad," Williams told the nation in a television and radio address on May 3, 1970. He added: "This is a legitimate grievance and I would have been no party to any attempt to repress it."
But he voiced concern that the Black Power slogan "degenerated into race hatred and even attacks on black business in Tobago and Point Fortin." Daaga and his cronies led public marches for weeks across the country and Williams said he decided to act "when the total breakdown of the trade union movement was imminent." In a speech on March 23, 1970 –before his State of Emergency crackdown–Williams also upheld the pillars of the Black Power cause. The fundamental feature of the demonstrations, he said, "was the insistence on black dignity, the manifestation of black consciousness and the demand for black economic power." He surmised: "The entire population must understand that these are perfectly legitimate and are entirely in the interest of the community as a whole." If that is Black Power, "then I'm all for Black Power," Williams said. He had made similar points in an earlier article in the PNM's Nation newspaper.
Daaga's campaign was prompted by various international protests against deprivation and injustices against Africans and Afro-Americans. In T&T, unemployment among youths and alleged racial discrimination facing job hunters sparked the protests and eventual turmoil. While Manning has cited an invasion of the cathedral, he has not spoken of the "Africans and Indians Unite" demonstrations, including a march from Laventille to Caroni. For his part, Williams acknowledged the ideal of the Black Power advocates. He told the nation: "Our goal has always been Afro-Asian unity." That harmony, he stressed, "is the only way to achieve the genuine national integration to which many of us are dedicated." He also said: "We have consciously sought to promote black economic power." The assertion was a reference to Daaga's call for the working masses to enjoy greater economic power.
Williams argued that his administration had created 1,523 black small farmers, had encouraged small businesses in manufacturing and tourism and had boosted free education and training. He insisted: "We have unceasingly sought to control or at least alleviate the unemployment which we inherited..." Still, the issue was larger than that: It was about greater people participation in the critical economic sectors. Interestingly, in the decade after the Black Power flare-up, Williams launched initiatives for localisation of the oil industry, a thrust partly prompted by trade unionist George Weekes' "Texaco Must Go" campaign. Even earlier than that–on July 1, 1970, to be exact–Williams localised the Bank of London and Montreal, which he turned into the National Commercial Bank, a forerunner to the current First Citizens' Bank.
Williams also boosted the cooperative sector, and, before long, outlined a five-year plan aimed at giving nationals a larger piece of the national pie. That, of course, had been a rallying call of Daaga's Black Power revolution. Williams termed his agenda "national reconstruction". He defined it as "increasing the degree of national control over the national economy." Diversification of the economy and full employment were other hallmarks of the Williams post-Black Power programme. "Workers would be encouraged to play a more positive role in the economy of the country," he vowed. He was adamant that "the claims of black people to social justice, economic dignity and a fuller life would be unequivocally supported and encouraged by my Government." Forty years later, Daaga has stated this dreams and aspirations were now being fulfilled. Manning, Williams' successor, has plucked an incident of the heady Black Power days to tar Daaga, in the latter's makeover as electoral foe of the PNM. In all of this, truth is becoming a major casualty.
