Jerome Teelucksingh

TWO SONS of TT, CLR James and George Padmore, were familiar with the work of WEB Du Bois and Marcus Garvey (a Jamaican) who were based in the US. The philosophy of Garveyism reinforced anti-colonial and anti-imperial sentiments, but, more importantly, it stimulated racial pride and self-reliance among blacks.

Indeed, Garvey has been credited as laying the foundation for the struggles of the 1930s and subsequent socio-political developments. To a certain extent, James in A History of Negro Revolt supported Garvey's ideological stance. James credited Garvey's monumental work in making the American black more conscious of their African origin and developing the feeling of international solidarity among Africans and its diaspora.

James admired the courage and indomitable spirit of Garvey and the value of his leadership to the African diaspora. However, James also believed that Garvey's African theories 'had no sense' and his plan to return blacks to Africa was 'pitiable rubbish.'

Not surprisingly, during the late 1930s, James and Padmore regularly heckled Garvey at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, England. However, Paul Buhle surmised that both James and Padmore later realised they had made 'a political and personal blunder' by heckling Garvey.

Furthermore, in 1940, James, writing under the pseudonym JR Johnson, was critical of Garvey: 'He used fierce words but he was opposed to the labour movement and counselled subservience to bosses. One reason for his success was that his movement was strictly a class movement.'

James also believed that Garvey should not merely be seen as an agitator but as building up a movement. Later, James would identify Garvey as promoting black popular fascism which was comparable to Adolf Hitler of Germany.

Leonard "Tim" Hector, a leftist political leader of Antigua, argued that Garvey was hostile to most of the other black activists/writers of that era. Furthermore, Hector felt Garvey wanted Africans to create a new civilisation based on European-American practices and ideas.

There were groups in the UK that were advocates of Pan-Africanist ideology. They included the African Association founded in 1897 and the African Progress Union in 1921. During the 1920s and 1930s, other groups influencing black thought included the Ethiopian Progressive Association.

In TT, during the 1930s, an African consciousness existed. For instance, there was the establishment of the African National High School at Park Street in Port-of-Spain which taught African language courses. There was also the proactive Daughters of Ethiopia which raised funds for such groups as the Ethiopian Red Cross.

In the mid-1950s, James, while in London, met with Rev Martin Luther King, Jr, a charismatic Afro-American who would later become an influential leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Both men discussed ideas to improve the conditions and lifestyle of blacks.

Such dialogue would have influenced James when he later returned to the US and shared ideas with his gr