Some have debated the origin of Black Power, whilst others have questioned if it was a revolution.
On June 17 1966, one of the prominent radicals in America, Stokely Carmichael, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), used the slogan ‘Black Power’ at a rally in Mississippi, USA.
Carmichael was born in Trinidad in 1941 and migrated to the United States in 1952.
Undoubtedly, the radical rhetoric and revolutionary spirit of the 1960s influenced groups and persons in the Caribbean.
One illustration is in 1968, when the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) was formed. It began to mobilise thousands across T&T. NJAC had a vision to create a new and just society and referred to their movement as the ‘Trinidad & Tobago Revolution of 1970’. They promoted the philosophy “be a brother, be a sister” and sought to uplift the marginalised and poor in society.
NJAC collaborated with others, and their main platform was demonstrations on the streets.
Walter Rodney, Guyanese activist and academic, in The Groundings with My Brothers, contended that in the Caribbean, Black Power “…refers primarily to people who are recognisably African or Indian.” He felt it did not include the Chinese because they “…have now become bastions of white West Indian social structure.”
In an attempt to make the ideology more inclusive, Rodney contended Black Power was not “racially intolerant” in the multi-cultural and multi-racial Caribbean societies. Indeed, he felt there could be a positive change when, “…power is equitably distributed among several ethnic groups, then the very relevance of making the distinction between groups will be lost.”
A letter to the editor of The Vanguard (the publication of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union), in 1970, reflected some of the public perception.
The letter writer, Denny Moore of Trinmar, appeared misguided in his reason for Indian involvement in Black Power: “What in my opinion is left for the East Indian group to do is to jump body and soul into the Black Power struggle to lift the Blacks out of the sinking quagmire into which they were put since the slave trade. Let them emphatically decide that their East Indian culture in its present form is unacceptable to them, and so begin an active search for roles they could play in changing the entire society.”
Emphasis on the exploitation of the Indo-Trinidadian working class sought to bridge the racial barrier.
For instance, Darcus Owusu, in an article entitled “The Long March to Caroni” (published in The Vanguard), argued, “The Indians continue to be slaves to the Sugar Barons; the division of the races remains a threat to any serious attempt to construct a nation and the hope of meaningful unity is lost amidst the guile and deceit of politicians.”
Interestingly, Walton Look Lai, of Chinese descent, in The Present Stage of the Trinidad Revolution, argued that the Indian-African conflict in the Caribbean “is a futile and wasteful struggle between two dispossessed groups unable to identify the real enemy: the Western imperialist.”
Brinsley Samaroo, writing in March 1970 in The Vanguard, expressed a similar view, “…whilst the Trinidad Indian and the Negro were quarrelling about the scraps of the economy, the white community and their black hangers-on were enriching themselves on the profits therefrom.”
In 1972, Samaroo, at a seminar held at UWI, St. Augustine, identified the Black Power movement impacting some Indo-Trinidadians as they changed their names, revived rituals and returned to Indian forms of dress, “The impact has been significant because it posed squarely to the East Indian the problem of identity and the racial factor in Trinidad politics. And this is an additional reason why the East Indian community is going through its own ‘Black Power’ phase.”
Indeed, genuine efforts were made to calm the troubled racial/ethnic waters. Some have perished in the undercurrents, but others have survived. This needs to be considered in judging those who played significant roles in 1970.
Some might argue that the racial unity of the Black Power era was limited and temporary. Probably the participants and researchers of the 1960s and 1970s have exaggerated the extent of unity between this country’s two major ethnic groups.
It is obvious that the limited racial unity in the marches did not materialise in the post-1970 era.
Undoubtedly, the economic impact of the Black Power Movement can be seen in the increased nationalisation of companies in Trinidad and Tobago.
Unfortunately, in 2026, there is the continued inefficiency of public companies, the persistence of neo-colonialism, relatively high levels of serious crime, the existence of gangs and tense ethnic relations in T&T.
These serve as painful reminders of the need for a possible sequel to the Black Power revolution.
