The an­nounce­ment on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day by the Act­ing May­or of Port-of-Spain, Hillan More­an, that the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion will host con­sul­ta­tions on the re­quest from the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee to re­name Ox­ford Street in Port-of-Spain af­ter the Trinida­di­an-born Black Pow­er ac­tivist Kwame Ture (pre­vi­ous­ly known as Stoke­ly Carmichael) will open the door to a high­ly-rel­e­vant po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion. What will make this dis­cus­sion rel­e­vant is the fact that in 2020 this coun­try will com­mem­o­rate the fifti­eth an­niver­sary of the 1970 Black Pow­er up­ris­ing.

In 1970, at the height of the up­ris­ing, the Gov­ern­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams an­nounced that it would refuse ac­cess to Ture (then known as Stoke­ly Carmichael) from en­ter­ing the land of his birth for a vis­it.

Po­lit­i­cal­ly, Williams recog­nised that the ar­rival of Carmichael and his con­nec­tion to the Black Pow­er lead­er­ship of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) at a time of ris­ing civ­il un­rest in 1970 would pose a di­rect threat to his PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. Williams was prob­a­bly right in his po­lit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tion as Carmichael had been a ris­ing star in the civ­il rights move­ment in the Unit­ed States and was in­volved in the Black Pan­ther move­ment at the time. How­ev­er, the lega­cy of that de­nial is a wound that needs to be healed.

 Act­ing May­or More­an has made a bold step to put this re­quest for­ward for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion hav­ing re­gard to the con­tro­ver­sial po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry be­tween Er­ic Williams and Kwame Ture. How­ev­er, that con­sul­ta­tion must be able to re­vis­it the ban on Kwame Ture in 1970 from en­ter­ing T&T as part of the over­all heal­ing process in or­der to give him his due in nam­ing Ox­ford Street af­ter him. In 1996, Ture vis­it­ed this coun­try and was wel­comed by the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Val­i­dat­ing his sta­tus in the land of his birth is an at­tempt to heal an old wound that needs to be healed. Of course, the deep­er is­sue is to forge an un­der­stand­ing about why promi­nent West In­di­an lead­ers at the time of the late 1960s/ear­ly 1970s had dif­fi­cul­ty iden­ti­fy­ing with a cadre of peo­ple who had ide­o­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al con­nec­tions to the Black Pow­er move­ment in the Caribbean. The Ja­maican gov­ern­ment had ex­pelled Dr Wal­ter Rod­ney from the UWI Mona cam­pus, the T&T gov­ern­ment had re­fused Carmichael en­try to T&T, and Er­rol Bar­row banned the hold­ing of a Black Pow­er con­fer­ence in Bar­ba­dos.

The ma­jor clue that Er­ic Williams was con­cerned about the link be­tween the Black Pow­er ac­tivists in T&T and the USA can be found in his ad­dress to the na­tion on May 3, 1970. The fol­low­ing ex­tract is rel­e­vant:

 "For some years now we have been aware of dis­si­dent el­e­ments in the so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly among a mi­nor­i­ty of trade unions, seek­ing to dis­place the Gov­ern­ment. At first, they tried to do so by the elec­toral process, no one can have any quar­rel with that. When that failed, how­ev­er, they turned in­creas­ing­ly to un­con­sti­tu­tion­al means and armed rev­o­lu­tion. This em­braced cer­tain sec­tions of the Black Pow­er move­ment copied from the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca…”

In this con­text, one can glean the con­nec­tion to Kwame Ture by Williams and this can as­sist in putting his ban on Ture in­to con­text. Williams’ po­lit­i­cal cri­sis was re­al. The de­clas­si­fied con­clu­sions of the British Cab­i­net meet­ing on April 23, 1970, chaired by Prime Min­is­ter Harold Wil­son re­veal the fol­low­ing:

 "The Chan­cel­lor of the Duchy of Lan­cast­er said that there had been a se­ries of dis­tur­bances in Trinidad in­sti­gat­ed by the Black Pow­er move­ment…At the out­set, Dr Williams had asked us to trans­mit re­quests to the Head of the Fed­er­al Mil­i­tary Gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria, Gen­er­al Gowon, and to the Pres­i­dent of Tan­za­nia, Mr Ny­erere, for the dis­patch of troops to as­sist him in restor­ing or­der. He had al­so sought British as­sis­tance in trans­port­ing these troops to Trinidad and had asked us to sup­ply light weapons to re­place those seized by the mu­ti­neers. Dr. Williams had sub­se­quent­ly de­cid­ed not to pur­sue his ap­proach to Nige­ria and Tan­za­nia, but ur­gent con­sid­er­a­tion had been giv­en to our re­sponse if he pur­sued his re­quest for arms."

One has to view Williams’ ban on Ture against this back­drop which makes the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s con­sul­ta­tion on the re­nam­ing of Ox­ford Street im­por­tant as it in­volves the recog­ni­tion of a na­tive-born in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-ac­claimed ac­tivist re­gard­less of his ide­ol­o­gy or his pol­i­tics.