3 weeks ago
4
Lead Editor-Newsgathering
Port-of-Spain Mayor Chinua Alleyne’s announcement that part of Oxford Street will be renamed after renowned Black Power civil rights leader Kwame Ture (born Stokely Carmichael) is a change in tune for the People’s National Movement (PNM).
In the aftermath of the announcement on African Emancipation Day, political scientist Prof Hamid Ghany recalled how the PNM Government under former prime minister Dr Eric Williams banned Ture from this country.
Ghany told the Sunday Guardian, “In August 1967, Carmichael was deemed to be an undesirable person under sec 4(4) of the Immigration Act by then governor-general Sir Solomon Hochoy, acting on the advice of the Cabinet of Dr Eric Williams. He was put on a watch list, and the local immigration authorities were told to look out for him.”
Ghany said the ban was reinforced through a government directive to the Airlines Association of T&T in 1969 and 1970.
He went further in adding, “Eric Williams was adamant that he did not want Carmichael to come to Trinidad and Tobago to talk about Black Power in 1970.”
The ban on Ture was lifted by former prime minister Basdeo Panday in 1996, and Ture was welcomed to the land of his birth by the Panday Government in June of that year. The Panday administration also approved the sum of US$12,000 towards his medical expenses during that time.
The renaming of Oxford Street has been six years in the making. A formal request was laid before the Port-of-Spain City Corporation in 2019 by then-deputy mayor Hillan Morean. Ture was born on Oxford Street.
In an interview with the Sunday Guardian yesterday, founding member of the PNM Ferdinand Ferreira said it was a mistake for Williams to ban Ture, and the PNM has gotten over it.
He said, “Like everything else, time heals a broken heart, and there are no two ways about it; it was an error. There was no justification. He had gone to Jamaica. He had gone to other Caribbean islands, and he was received, so there are no two ways about it; in fact, it was an incorrect decision to ban him.”
Ferreira went further in saying, “It turned out that after all these years, the PNM has come to terms; I have come to the conclusion that it was a wrong decision to ban him. He was no threat to the local establishment. He was no threat in those days.”
Ferreira said Williams’ decision at the time to ban Ture was a move to align his government with the Western power of the United States. At the time, Ture was one of the leading voices advocating for Black Power in the United States.
Port-of-South Member of Parliament Keith Scotland said he fully supports the move to rename part of Oxford Street.
He said, “We hear about Marcus Garvey, don’t we? How much do we hear about Kwame Ture, who is a pioneer and renowned figure? It’s very, very critical because and I say that if we don’t write our history, others will write it for us, so I support that 100 per cent and see that more ought to be done on all levels.”
Fergus backs removal of Columbus statue, renaming of Oxford Street
Meanwhile, historian Dr Claudius Fergus also praised the decision to remove the Christopher Columbus statue.
As part of the Crossroads Freedom Project, Fergus has spent years advocating for the removal of the statue in Port-of-Spain and for the renaming of Oxford Street in honour of Kwame Ture.
He said yesterday, “The thing is the Port-of-Spain City Corporation is the one that shifted position because the Crossroads Freedom Project had approached the mayor at the time, Mayor Joel Martinez, for the removal of the Columbus statue and the renaming of Kwame Ture. The mayor insisted he had no authority to remove the statue and to rename the street before national consultation, which he never really put into effect. It is the central government that commissioned the consultation by appointing a committee on monument signage and so on. So, it is a shift in the position of the city corporation. As far as I am aware, I don’t know that it is an official (PNM) party position. The city corporation has shifted its position under this mayor, who was actually part of the council.”
English (US) ·