by Dr Hamid Ghany
At the Emancipation Day celebrations last week, Minister Fitzgerald Hinds announced that an inter-ministerial committee had been formed some months ago to review the naming of national spaces, roads, statues and other monuments.
One issue relates to the announcement by Deputy Mayor of the Port-of-Spain City Corporation, Hillan Morean, on Emancipation Day 2019 that there was a proposal to rename Oxford Street in Port-of-Spain after the T&T-born Black Power activist Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael).
On the issue of Kwame Ture, the current-day lobbying by the Emancipation Support Committee for Oxford Street to be renamed after him will require the current PNM administration to detangle a difficult past regarding the absolute opposition of Eric Williams to have anything to do with him.
In 1969, when he had burst onto the scene in the United States as a Black Power leader, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago imposed a ban on him preventing him from returning to the land of his birth.
A secret declassified Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) file reveals that a confidential telegram was sent from the British High Commission in Port-of-Spain by Sir P Hampshire to the FCO dated April 3, 1969, on the subject of this ban.
The telegram read as follows: “At request of BOAC Manager here please pass urgently to Chief of Security BOAC London Airport. Trinidad Government has declared as an undesirable visitor either for in transit or landing at airports in Trinidad and Tobago Mr Stokely Carmichael Afro/American holder of US Passport Number...issued on 26/1/67. Request you advise all BOAC stations especially USA, Canada, Caribbean and Latin American areas.” (Telegram Number 138).
Approximately one year later, another telegram from one Mr Thompson at the British High Commission in Port-of-Spain to the FCO dated April 13, 1970, was sent on the subject of Stokely Carmichael as follows: “Message from BOAC Manager here to Chief of Security BOAC London which our TELNO 138 of 30 April 1969 asked you to pass reported Trinidad GOVT declaration of Carmichael as undesirable visitor either for in transit or landing at Trinidad and Tobago airports.
2. On April 11 Ministry of Home Affairs repeated this declaration to Airlines Association who passed it on to individual airlines. After contacting London BOAC Manager finds that Carmichael is booked on BOAC flight 537 on May 1 from New York to Georgetown transiting Piarco for 45 minutes around midday.
3. BOAC Manager has emphasised political repercussions to company here if BOAC fail to abide by GOVT declaration. He believes there may be some regulation which BOAC can quote to justify refusal to carry Carmichael through Trinidad. In present circumstances I strongly endorse Manager’s assessment and recommend that Department should contact BOAC in London and offer any help including legal which they may need.” (Priority Port of Spain Telegram Number 81).
The hard-line being adopted by the Eric Williams administration against Stokely Carmichael had pre-dated the Black Power uprising of April 1970 by a year. Williams had taken an early position on his opposition to Carmichael returning to T&T.
His government reinforced that opposition mere days before the declaration of a state of emergency at the height of the uprising by reminding all airlines of their clear and direct opposition to Carmichael’s presence in the country by sending a directive to the Airlines Association to ensure that no airline would permit him to land in, or pass through, Trinidad and Tobago.
As it turned out, Carmichael was admitted into Guyana following the decision of the T&T Government to refuse him entry here. The UK Times correspondent in Georgetown reported on May 5, 1970, and published under the caption “Black Power call for violence to win freedom” in The Times on May 6, 1970, as follows: “Mr Stokely Carmichael, the American Black Power leader, told a press conference in Georgetown yesterday that he was banned from Trinidad and Tobago because of American and British pressure on Mr Eric Williams, the Prime Minister which meant in effect that America was running the island and Mr Williams was selling out to the imperialists . . . ”
There is a lot for the inter-ministerial committee to unpack on the issue of celebrating Kwame Ture in this country. The first challenge is how to address the past positions of Eric Williams on his outright refusal to embrace Kwame Ture when he was Stokely Carmichael in 1969-70.