Tues­day is the 45th an­niver­sary of the State of Emer­gency de­clared by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams as he tried to quell the Black Pow­er "rev­o­lu­tion." I re­mem­ber well the start of the move­ment when uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents staged a protest march in Port-of-Spain in sol­i­dar­i­ty with stu­dents of Cana­da's Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty. Em­ployed then at Geo F Hug­gins Co, I had a bird's eye view of the marchers as they de­scend­ed on the build­ing on South Quay which housed the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion.

The sen­ti­ments, fer­vour and ex­cite­ment quick­ly in­ten­si­fied na­tion­wide and across the land groups of ac­tivists mush­roomed, spawn­ing en­ti­ties like the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) and the Na­tion­al Union of Free­dom Fight­ers (Nuff). As black con­scious­ness and African­ism took deep­er root, oth­er groups were formed in dis­tricts like Co­coyea, Point Fortin, Bel­mont and Laven­tille. Most groups adopt­ed African-root names like Uja­maa Com­pound, Am­bat­aana and Kil­a­man­jaro.

Con­scious youth adopt­ed African names as they iden­ti­fied with Black Pow­er move­ment in Amer­i­ca and hu­man and civ­il rights strug­gles there. Lead­ers of the lo­cal move­ment changed their Chris­t­ian names from Ged­des Granger to Makan­dal Daa­ga and Dave D'Abreu to Khafra Kam­bon.It be­came quite com­mon to meet front­lin­ers and con­scious youth iden­ti­fied as Aiye­goro Ome, Em­bau Mo­hani, Mansa Musa, Anum Bankole, Kwasi Sen­g­hor, Dela Obi­ka, Ade Bar­ca, Sha­ka Nkhosi, Hes­himu Olatun­ji, Tzad­dik Melchisedek and Oma­ta Gam­ba.

The Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion ac­tu­al­ly be­gan in 1970–though up­heavals took place be­fore in 1968–when a Car­ni­val band pro­duced by Pine­top­pers hit the streets of Port-of-Spain with a pre­sen­ta­tion named The Truth about Africa. Mas­quer­aders por­trayed "rev­o­lu­tion­ary he­roes," in­clud­ing Fi­del Cas­tro, Stoke­ly Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and Tubal Uri­ah But­ler.

The so­cial and cul­tur­al up­heaval al­so had a sig­nif­i­cant ef­fect on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams and his rul­ing PNM were at its wit's end try­ing to har­ness the surg­ing move­ment. The gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced the Sedi­tion Bill, pi­lot­ed by serv­ing AG Karl Hud­son Phillip, which car­ried se­ri­ous fines and jail time for the in­car­cer­at­ed.

Cer­tain books and lit­er­a­ture were out­lawed, like Mao's Lit­tle Green Book; any­thing writ­ten by Bo­li­vian rev­o­lu­tion­ary Ernesto Che Gue­vara; the writ­ing of Franz Fanon; and, Cuban news­pa­per Gram­ma. Williams al­so in­tro­duced the Pub­lic Or­der Act which re­duced civ­il lib­er­ties in an ef­fort to con­trol protest march­es.

On April 6, 1970 pro­tes­tor Basil Davis was killed by the po­lice. The rest of April that year was tu­mul­tuous and events in­clud­ed the res­ig­na­tion of To­ba­go East par­lia­men­tar­i­an ANR Robin­son; the ar­rest of 15 Black Pow­er lead­ers on the day the State of Emer­gency was de­clared; threats of a na­tion­wide strike fu­elled by a sug­ar work­ers strike on April 18; and, a sub­se­quent at­tempt­ed mil­i­tary coup at the Reg­i­ment's Teteron Bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

In spite of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of dra­con­ian laws aimed at stiffling protest ac­tion, protests con­tin­ued and thou­sands of dis­en­fran­chised youth found in­no­v­a­tive ways to keep the fires of con­scious­ness and pro­tect burn­ing.

Ral­lies and con­certs were held na­tion­wide, show­cas­ing artistes of the con­scious move­ment like ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Broth­er Valenti­no, Black Stal­in, Chalk­dust, Ex­plain­er and Broth­er Mu­da­da, po­ets Kwasi Sen­g­hor, Broth­er Book, Roi Kwabena, and Cetswayo Mu­rai, An­dre Tanker, El­la An­dall, As­tor John­son, Bro Book and Net­work Rid­dim Move­ment.

In the North, in­spi­ra­tional Sun­day evening con­certs were held at venues like the home of Boboy and Rosie Adams on Belle Smythe Street, Wood­brook, and the Bel­mont and Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tres. Co­coyea Vil­lage was al­so a reg­u­lar meet­ing place for ed­i­fi­ca­tion in the south­land.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the po­lit­i­cal side of the move­ment was en­er­gised by in­dus­tri­al protest from a vi­brant trade move­ment led by stal­warts like George Weekes, Clive Nunez, Win­ston Leonard, Joe Young and as­pir­ing, young at­tor­ney Bas­deo Pan­day.

There was al­so a mil­i­tant side to the move­ment, led by Nuff. Mem­bers of this group, brand­ed as "crim­i­nals," were placed on the coun­try's Most Want­ed list and hunt­ed by the state's pro­tec­tive agen­cies. Many of its young mem­bers, in­clud­ing Guy Hare­wood, Bev­er­ly Jones and Clem Haynes, were killed by the po­lice in fierce gun bat­tles.

Black con­scious­ness spread like wild fire af­ter 1970 and the resid­ual ef­fects of it are ev­i­dent til to­day. One just has to look at the names of peo­ple now aged 40 and younger and the in­flu­ence of Africa is ob­vi­ous. The ac­cep­tance, as­cen­dan­cy, pro­lif­er­a­tion and achieve­ments of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist move­ment, as well as the African Orisa an­ces­tral be­lief sys­tem, is tes­ti­mo­ny of this.

In­dige­nous mu­sic was al­so en­hanced by the Black Pow­er ex­pe­ri­ence, its flag­bear­ers be­ing artistes like ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Duke, Mer­chant, Mae­stro, Singing San­dra and the Unit­ed Sis­ters, and or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Net­work Rap­so Rid­dim Band, led by cur­rent Tu­co pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Broth­er Re­sis­tance).

In a num­ber of tan­gi­ble ways the Black Pow­er era im­proved re­la­tions be­tween the coun­try's two ma­jor races, dri­ven by the NJAC mantra of "In­di­ans and Africans Unite." The African com­mu­ni­ty learned more about the re­li­gious, so­cial and cul­tur­al prac­tices of their In­di­an broth­ers and sis­ters and vice ver­sa, and there was ac­cep­tance of each oth­er of both sides of the di­vide

The his­toric March to Ca­roni in 1970 saw thou­sands of North Trinidad res­i­dents walk­ing to Ca­roni to unite with East In­di­an sug­ar cane work­ers.

The march was high­light­ed in 2010, when the Hin­du Prachaar Kendra, led by Ravi Ji, in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture, Cit­i­zens for So­cial Jus­tice, Chin­maya Mis­sion, Amar Jyoth Sab­ha, the As­so­ci­a­tion of Tra­di­tion­al Re­li­gions and the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for UN­ESCO, held a trib­ute to Makadal Daa­ga.

The con­scious­ness of Black Pow­er al­so changed the in­dus­tri­al land­scape open­ing the doors of em­ploy­ment in state, cor­po­rate and pri­vate en­ter­pris­es to peo­ple of African de­scent. Na­tion­al air­line BWIA was one of the first state com­pa­nies to ac­tu­al­ly hire a man with dread­locks. To­day, it is com­mon­place, even with­in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, to see per­son­nel sport­ing ras­ta and nat­ur­al hair­styles.

As a na­tion and as a peo­ple we have evolved in these past 45 years, the em­bryo and cat­a­lyst for lev­el­ling the play­ing field be­ing the Black Pow­er move­ment and giv­ing le­git­i­ma­cy to the words of our an­them, "here every creed and race find an equal place."