THE Blackness of Our Rebellion 1970, an exhibition by Mario Lewis, seeks to tell the backstory of the February Revolution.
“The exhibition was conceived by Chi Kamose as a text exhibition to be interspersed with archival newspaper reports and headlines of the events leading to the revolution," Lewis said via e-mail after phone interview.
Kamose, 69, is a member of the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC); he joined the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) as a teenager when the movement was new.
“My life interest has been focused on contributions to addressing the misunderstanding and inequalities between the black/white interplay of the world,” the retired civil servant said.
“The idea was to celebrate the 54th anniversary of 1970 and put it in another perspective,” Kamose said.
[caption id="attachment_1085843" align="alignnone" width="768"] Activist Chi Kamose conceptualised The Blackness of Our Rebellion 1970. - Photo courtesy Mario Lewis[/caption]
“We didn’t want to only focus on the demonstrations. I wanted to explore what were the philosophical reasons behind 1970. There was thought about the political system and the economic system. To show how something that happened on Independence Night, August 31, 1962, led to this.”
The late Makandal Daaga, who would later go on to found NJAC and be a leader of the revolution, is at the heart of the story Kamose tells about Independence Night, 1962.
[caption id="attachment_1085844" align="alignnone" width="768"] One of the heroes of the February Revolution, NJAC founder Makandal Daaga, is memorialised in this piece from The Blackness of Our Rebellion 1970. - Photo courtesy Mario Lewis[/caption]
“Daaga had gone to a party and the DJ put on a calypso and those in attendance revolted against the calypso being played. ‘Take off that calypso, it’s not Carnival!’ We couldn’t rely on our music to take us through. We didn’t have a sense of self. And that was Independence Night.”
The experience led Daaga to found an organisation called Pegasus, Kamose said, “to help people find true and meaningful independence.”
The subsequent revolutionary actions of 1970 – including anti-imperialist demonstrations in the capital, cross-country solidarity marches and vandalism of the RC Cathedral in protest of racist practices in the Church – hinged on this search for the authentic black Trinidadian and Tobagonian self.
“Some changes were made in big leaps, and there have been reversals. But when you come to the exhibition you will see what those changes are,” Kamose said.
“I’ve known Chi for many years through ESC,” Lewis, 55, recalled. As a youth, Lewis joined other makers, including Chi’s son Tau DuFour, in creating some of the iconic public art pieces that marked the ESC’s Emancipation Day celebrations.
[caption id="attachment_1085845" align="alignnone" width="1024"] “Power to the People,” a slogan of the February Revolution, is the subject of this piece from The Blackness of Our Rebellion 1970. - Photo courtesy Mario Lewis[/caption]
“A lot we were exposed
