Garvey disdain may have included Trinidad and Tobago unionists
٥ أيام فى TT News day
THE EDITOR: In his column titled “Opposition to Garvey’s visit” (Newsday, 16/10/25), UWI historian Jerome Teelucksingh outlines opposition to Marcus Garvey’s planned visit to Trinidad in 1928. Teelucksingh focuses on the arguments made by the Trinidad Guardian and the blocking of the visit by the legislative council – ie, the elite class – and the objections to this made by trade unions spokesmen like Arthur Cipriani and Timothy Roodal.
Teelucksingh mentions in passing that Garvey was able to visit Trinidad in 1937, but does not provide any information on how he was received. One such response came from The People newspaper, an Afrocentric publication, which commented that “Garvey appears to have little sympathy for the poor.”
As I noted in my history of 20th-century Trinidad, From Colony to Curse, it appears that Garvey’s Trinidadian admirers were not familiar with his views beyond his black activism, otherwise they would have known that he was opposed to American trade unions, saying “the only convenient friend the Negro worker or labourer has at the present time is the white capitalist.”
This disdain was likely extended to the trade unionists he encountered in Trinidad.
KEVIN BALDEOSINGH
Freeport
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