IRA MATH­UR

This week, Book­shelf shines its light on a pow­er­ful new mem­oir that pro­vides an eye­wit­ness ac­count of one of T&T’s most sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal mo­ments—the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion.

This move­ment, which took place in 1970, saw thou­sands of Trinida­di­ans, in­spired by the glob­al civ­il rights move­ments, rise up against the en­trenched eco­nom­ic, racial, and so­cial in­equal­i­ties of the time. It was a trans­for­ma­tive pe­ri­od that shook the na­tion, chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo and de­mand­ing rad­i­cal changes to how pow­er was dis­trib­uted.

The rev­o­lu­tion not on­ly left a last­ing mark on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape of Trinidad but al­so deeply im­pact­ed the lives of the young gen­er­a­tion who par­tic­i­pat­ed in or were in­flu­enced by the move­ment.

An­drea’s Jour­ney: From Free­dom Fight­er to True Lib­er­a­tion chron­i­cles the life of An­drea Ja­cob, a young woman who start­ed her ca­reer as a teacher in a small vil­lage in south Trinidad dur­ing this era of up­heaval.

Her sto­ry, how­ev­er, soon took a dif­fer­ent path as her de­sire for truth and jus­tice led her to join the Na­tion­al Unit­ed Free­dom Fight­ers (NUFF)—a clan­des­tine group wag­ing a class strug­gle against cap­i­tal­ism and im­pe­ri­al­ism.

Through Ja­cob’s eyes, the read­er is tak­en on a jour­ney of rev­o­lu­tion, re­sis­tance, and re­demp­tion. Her in­volve­ment in NUFF, her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the largest bank rob­bery in T&T’s his­to­ry, her life on the run, and her even­tu­al cap­ture and im­pris­on­ment form the back­bone of this com­pelling nar­ra­tive. ‘

Yet, it is not just a sto­ry of con­flict—it is al­so a sto­ry of per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion. Ja­cob’s jour­ney ul­ti­mate­ly led her to spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing, a ca­reer as a med­ical so­cial work­er, and a new-found sense of pur­pose.

In her own words, Ja­cob ex­plains why she had to tell her sto­ry: “I need­ed to speak for my­self. We all lived it dif­fer­ent­ly, car­ried our own dreams and bur­dens. Oth­ers from NUFF might see it their way. But this is mine—the sto­ry of my jour­ney, of the fire we all felt in­side.”

She al­so want­ed to ho­n­our those whose voic­es were lost: “I wrote this for those who nev­er got the chance to speak. For the ones tak­en too soon who left with­out say­ing what need­ed to be said. I want­ed to make the truth clear, to show the parts of his­to­ry that so many have for­got­ten that time has tried to erase.”

Her hope for An­drea’s Jour­ney is sim­ple: “I hope this book sparks some­thing in oth­ers—a need for truth, jus­tice, and a deep­er con­nec­tion. That it moves peo­ple, as we were moved back then.” In this grip­ping ex­cerpt, Ja­cobs re­counts the mo­ment of her cap­ture—an end to her time on the run but al­so the start of a new phase of her jour­ney.

Ex­cerpt from An­drea’s Jour­ney

“Stop!” “Get down!” “Don’t move, or we’ll shoot!” “Hands in the air!” “Shoot up the house!” These were the or­ders be­ing barked by heav­i­ly armed po­lice­men. Af­ter jump­ing five or six feet to the ground from a kitchen with­out steps, I had just land­ed.A few min­utes ear­li­er, at about five o’clock in the morn­ing, I had been aroused from sleep atop a bunk bed in the front bed­room of the flats I had been oc­cu­py­ing for the past few weeks by the sound of the en­gine of a heavy ve­hi­cle. Up­on ful­ly awak­en­ing, I re­alised that the ve­hi­cle had stopped in front of the house, the win­dows of which were al­most lev­el with the road. Since this was a strange oc­cur­rence at that time of the day, I sat up on the bed, pulled the cur­tain back slight­ly, and peeped out­side.

I was hor­ri­fied by the sight that I be­held. Less than thir­ty feet from where I was sit­ting was a bread van with a pop­u­lar lo­go from which was emerg­ing po­lice­men armed to the teeth with self-load­ing ri­fles and sub­ma­chine guns. I fran­ti­cal­ly got out of bed, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly wak­ing the oth­er oc­cu­pant of the room, who was asleep on the bot­tom bed of the dou­ble-deck­er, by call­ing his name and ex­claim­ing, “Po­lice!”

He got up and im­me­di­ate­ly took off like a bul­let. I, on the oth­er hand, des­per­ate­ly ran to a side win­dow of the room, hop­ing to make my ex­it from there, on­ly to dis­cov­er that there was a line of sim­i­lar­ly armed po­lice­men along that side of the house.

My on­ly re­course to avoid cap­ture was to run for it through the kitchen door. Af­ter my un­ortho­dox ex­it, I recog­nised that the house had been sur­round­ed. I had jumped straight in­to the arms of the po­lice. The van’s oc­cu­pants were the last set of po­lice­men get­ting in­to po­si­tion.

Look­ing around, I felt, This is it! I had been fi­nal­ly cap­tured af­ter four months on the run, with a ten-thou­sand-dol­lar boun­ty on my head. As al­ways, where­as the av­er­age per­son would be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing great fear, I was not. A great calm seemed to come over me.

I was scop­ing out my sur­round­ings, still seek­ing a way of es­cape. I no­ticed the oth­er oc­cu­pant of the room was now in the cus­tody of the po­lice. Ac­cept­ing that there was no es­cape this time, I com­plied, re­luc­tant­ly rais­ing my hands above my head while at the same time be­ing or­dered to get up slow­ly. I obeyed. All guns were then trained on me.

Ad­vanc­ing to­ward me was Mr Ran­dolph Bur­roughs, the head of the then Fly­ing Squad, a spe­cial­ly trained group of po­lice of­fi­cers whose ap­par­ent role and func­tion was to bring us in dead or alive. He placed his arm around my shoul­der and said, “Jay, you are bet­ter than Mal­ick. He was al­ways ten steps ahead of the po­lice, while you were al­ways one.”

Ab­dul Mal­ick, aka Michael de Fre­itas, or Michael X as he was called, was a Trinidad and To­ba­go–born self-styled black rev­o­lu­tion­ary and civ­il rights ac­tivist of the 1960s who had re­cent­ly been cap­tured by the po­lice af­ter be­ing sought for mur­der.

Hold­ing me by the hand, he led me in the di­rec­tion of the road while giv­ing or­ders to “shoot up the place.” I be­gan to plead with the po­lice, ex­plain­ing that there was a woman with a young ba­by in the house and that the oth­er oc­cu­pants were all in­no­cent. They did not know my iden­ti­ty.

The po­lice kept ask­ing for Guy Hare­wood and Bri­an Jef­fers, among oth­ers. Jasper and Jeff, as they were fond­ly called, were re­gard­ed as lead­ers of the or­gan­i­sa­tion known as the Na­tion­al Unit­ed Free­dom Fight­ers (NUFF).

The po­lice had had the house un­der sur­veil­lance and knew that there were vis­i­tors the day be­fore but were un­aware of their de­par­ture. Af­ter much plead­ing, I man­aged to per­suade them.

My com­pan­ion and I were then led to the street and made to face a wall with our hands held high up against it. Sub­se­quent­ly, we were placed in a ve­hi­cle. I re­mind­ed the po­lice that they had dis­turbed my sleep and that I hadn’t had my break­fast yet.

They laughed, then got us bis­cuits and cheese and pro­ceed­ed to the near­est po­lice sta­tion, lat­er tak­ing us to the Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment, Port of Spain. On ar­rival there, Chipo, the oth­er oc­cu­pant of the house, and I were sep­a­rat­ed. I was es­cort­ed to a room where I was of­fered a chair, on which I was told to sit.

Mr Bur­roughs then left the room af­ter promis­ing to re­turn. In the soli­tude of that room, re­al­i­ty be­gan to set in. How did I get to this place in my life? I asked my­self. Is all this hap­pen­ing, or am I dream­ing? It was the first time that I had gone be­yond the front desk of a po­lice sta­tion.

While seat­ed alone in that room, I be­gan to re­trace the events of my life that had re­sult­ed in my then-present sit­u­a­tion.

–End of ex­cerpt

An­drea’s Jour­ney is a sto­ry of rev­o­lu­tion that res­onates as acute­ly to­day as it did over 50 years ago as a cru­cial slice of the his­to­ry of T&T.

Next week, Book­shelf will fea­ture Dr Rho­da Red­dock’s in­sight­ful analy­sis of An­drea’s Jour­ney, which she de­liv­ered at the book’s launch with a com­pelling ex­am­i­na­tion of this pow­er­ful mem­oir and its sig­nif­i­cance in un­der­stand­ing the rev­o­lu­tion­ary spir­it and strug­gles of the 1970s in Trinidad.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days. Web­site: www.iras­room.org