Last Thurs­day and Fri­day, the de­ferred 50th An­niver­sary of the Black Pow­er Move­ment con­fer­ence was held at The UWI.

On April 21, 1970, Dr Er­ic Williams de­clared a state of emer­gency to deal with the Black Pow­er pro­test­ers.

In Lon­don, de­clas­si­fied files re­veal that the protests in Trinidad were dis­cussed by the British Cab­i­net on April 23, 1970. Ex­cerpts from the Cab­i­net Con­clu­sions re­veal the fol­low­ing:

“3. The Chan­cel­lor of the Duchy of Lan­cast­er said that there had been a se­ries of dis­tur­bances in Trinidad in­sti­gat­ed by the Black Pow­er move­ment. The im­me­di­ate oc­ca­sion of these had been the tri­al of Trinida­di­an stu­dents in Cana­da on charges of ar­son, but there had been a long-stand­ing back­ground of eco­nom­ic dis­con­tent. On 21 April, the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr Er­ic Williams, had de­clared a state of emer­gency and had or­dered the de­ten­tion of 25 Black Pow­er lead­ers; but ten of these had so far evad­ed ar­rest. The sit­u­a­tion was com­pli­cat­ed by the fact that at much the same time some 50 mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment, who sym­pa­thised with the Black Pow­er move­ment, had mu­tinied and had es­tab­lished them­selves in the for­mer Unit­ed States base at Ch­aguara­mas, where they were hold­ing 200 mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment as hostages.”

The De­fence Sec­re­tary, De­nis Healy, told the Cab­i­net “that one frigate, HMS Jupiter, had been despatched to Trinidad, with or­ders to re­main 30 miles off-shore, and would be in a po­si­tion that night. A sec­ond frigate, HMS Sir­ius, would reach the is­land with­in the next two days and would al­so re­main off-shore and out of sight.”

Prime Min­is­ter Harold Wil­son, in sum­ming up the dis­cus­sion, said, “… that the Cab­i­net agreed on the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing re­la­tions of con­fi­dence and sym­pa­thy with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. A suc­cess­ful Black Pow­er re­volt would have se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions else­where in the Caribbean; and, if these ex­tend­ed to the As­so­ci­at­ed States, it might prove im­pos­si­ble for us to avoid in­ter­ven­tion ...”

The As­so­ci­at­ed States of Grena­da, St Vin­cent, St Lu­cia, Do­mini­ca, An­tigua and St Kitts-Nevis were es­tab­lished in 1967.

By the time of the next Cab­i­net meet­ing on April 30, 1970, the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary, Michael Stew­art, re­port­ed as fol­lows:

“… the sit­u­a­tion had eased over the past few days. In Trinidad the mutiny in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment had been vir­tu­al­ly brought to an end as a re­sult of the ne­go­ti­a­tions with the mu­ti­neers con­duct­ed by the for­mer com­man­der of the reg­i­ment, Colonel Ser­rette: but some mu­ti­neers had dis­ap­peared, tak­ing their arms with them, and were still un­ac­count­ed for. Mean­while, HMS Jupiter re­mained off Port-of-Spain …”

One year ear­li­er, on April 30, 1969, a con­fi­den­tial telegram was sent from the British High Com­mis­sion in POS by Sir P Hamp­shire to the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Of­fice (FCO) on the sub­ject of a ban on the T&T-born US Black Pow­er ac­tivist, Stoke­ly Carmichael. 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.”

Williams had moved one year be­fore the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing to ban Stoke­ly Carmichael (who lat­er changed his name to Kwame Ture in 1978) from re­turn­ing to the land of his birth. On April 13, 1970, an­oth­er telegram from one Mr Thomp­son at the British High Com­mis­sion in POS to the FCO 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 an 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 …”

Williams’ hard line against Carmichael that pre-dat­ed the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing of April 1970 by a year may have al­lowed him and the PNM to sur­vive the events of 1970 as Carmichael’s charis­ma and force­ful ad­vo­ca­cy of Black Pow­er could have caused the over­throw of the Gov­ern­ment.

Prof Hamid Ghany is pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at UWI.