OTTO CARRINGTON
Senior Reporter
otto.carrington@cnc3.co.tt
In the story of modern Trinidad and Tobago, few moments carry as much political and psychological weight as the Black Power Revolution of 1970.
It was not only a street uprising or a student protest movement, but it was also, as many participants described it, a confrontation with the deepest structures of colonial society intact after independence.
For those unfamiliar, the Black Power Revolution took place between February and April 1970. It began with student-led protests influenced by the Black Power movement in the United States and Canada, particularly at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, and quickly grew into a wider national movement involving labour unions, trade disputes, and calls for social and economic reform. Demonstrations escalated in March, with mass marches in Port-of-Spain and increasing industrial action, including strikes in the oil and sugar sectors. Tensions peaked on April 21, 1970, when then prime minister Dr Eric Williams declared a state of emergency, ordering the arrest of several leaders of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and other activists, while a mutiny also broke out within the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment at Teteron Barracks. The military quickly moved to regain control, and the uprising was contained over the following days, marking the end of the unrest.
Among the most reflective voices is activist and revolutionary thinker Khafra Kambon, who helped shape and interpret the movement from within the University of the West Indies student space and later as part of the wider national consciousness shift.
At the time, Kambon was known as David Darbeau. Many may know Kambon as the former head of the Emancipation Support Committee.
“I grew up in a society where racism was very overt, you had an unequal society and wealth and everything else in the society was racially structured.”
He described a post-independence Trinidad still deeply shaped by the colonial system, social, economic, and psychological.
“You had independence in 1962, but all the structures of colonialism were still in place, the social structures from the days of enslavement were very much in place, a little more disguised now.”
For Kambon, colonialism did not end with the lowering of the Union Jack.
It simply evolved.
“We used to say the four percenters, about 4% of the people in the country were European and they controlled the vast majority of the nation’s wealth.”
He argued that this dominance was not accidental but embedded in the economic architecture of the country, particularly in key sectors, such as oil and sugar.
“Everything that was productive in an economic sense was in the hands of the small white minority.”
It was within this environment, he said, that students began to question not only politics, but identity itself.
The university as a birthplace of resistance
Student leaders, including figures like Makandal Dagga, played central roles in organising debates, protests, and ideological reassessments.
Kambon recalled a campus atmosphere charged with political urgency.
This intellectual shift quickly became personal and collective.
“Why should I be in a lesser position than somebody else based on skin colour?” he asked.
For Kambon, the Black Power movement was not only about economic redistribution, but it was also about dismantling internalised inferiority.
“The transformation was becoming proud of our Africanness, which was a major psychological change,” Kambon explained.
He described a society in which beauty standards, employment, and social respectability were all filtered through racial bias.
“Even the aesthetic standard, who was beautiful, had been affected by what was being deliberately cultivated in the society.”
In this sense, Black Power was an attempt to reverse what he called centuries of “brainwashing” embedded in education, media, and culture.
“We did not see ourselves in a positive light and the formal education system was not doing that.”
An unfinished struggle
Despite its intellectual and cultural impact, the movement faced severe State repression, said Kambon.
“What put an end to the demonstration was massive repression, beatings, killings and imprisonment,” he stated.
He recalled that many ordinary young people were swept into the crackdown, not only activists.
“People were imprisoned simply because they were black and on the street at the wrong time.”
For him, the movement was not defeated in ideas but constrained by force.
Reflecting on the present state of the country, Kambon reflected on the loss of key figures from that era, including comrades like Makandal Dagga and others who helped shape the movement’s direction.
Their passing, he said, is not just personal grief; it is a national challenge of memory.
Sounding emotional, Kambon said the struggle built bonds that outlived individuals.
“When you have gone through the same kinds of struggles that build particular bonds with people.”
More than 50 years later, Kambon said there has been both progress and regression.
“We have progressed in ways, and we have regressed in others,” he said.
The enduring challenge, he argued, is that colonial influence is no longer overtly enforced, but structurally embedded.
“It’s not that they stopped putting the poison; we have better filters now, but it is still there,” he added.
Ultimately, Kambon framed the Black Power Revolution as a turning point in identity formation for people of African descent in T&T.
It was, he suggested, as much about reclaiming the mind as reclaiming the economy.
“It was not only about business or job, but it was also about reconnecting ourselves with who we really are,” Kambon added.
