Description
Richard Hart’s constant quest for political autonomy, decolonisation and regional unity has earned him a space in the annals of history as one of Jamaica’s leading nationalist figures and as a vital contributor to the Caribbean integration movement. As a key proponent of social, political and economic transformations in the region, Hart fought arduously for trade unionism, political sovereignty and mass-based democratic political parties among other important issues which advanced the lives of Caribbean nationals.
Hart’s upper middle class upbringing and his status as a lawyer was never a deterrent to his championing the cause of the ordinary man; for his subversive political beliefs and radical stance against colonial powers, he was imprisoned by the British colonial government in the 1940s, expelled by the Peoples’ National Party in 1952 and branded a radical by those who deemed his beliefs rogue and detrimental to their interests in the Caribbean.
Caribbean Reasonings – Caribbean Political Activism: Essays in Honour of Richard Hart offers some of the best assessment of the work of one of Jamaica’s best politicians, activists and historians. Along with a critical reflection of his work, Caribbean Political Activism: Essays in Honour of Richard Hart also shows the struggles the Jamaican and Grenadian societies faced in the post-independence years of the 1970s and 1980s.
About the Editor
Rupert Lewis is Professor of Political Thought in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and Associate Director of the Centre for Caribbean Thought.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Richard Hart’s Evaluation of Early Modern Jamaican Politics – Rupert Lewis
- Preserving the Record: The Role of the Political Activist/Historian – John A. Aarons
- The Logic of Richard Hart’s Slaves Who Abolished Slavery: Black Abolitionism and the
Agency of Emancipated Nationhood – Clinton Hutton
- Richard Hart and the ‘Resurrection’ of Marcus Garvey – Robert A. Hill
- Insights from the 1938 (All Jamaica) Economic and Industrial Conference – Mark Figueroa
- The Present in the Past: Caribbean Economic Development Since Independence: The
1960s to 2000s – Derick Boyd
- Alexander Bustamante and Constitutional Government in Jamaica, 1944−1947 – Robert Buddan
- Seaforth in the Eye of the Storm: the Role of Rastafari in Major 1938 Events – Louis E. A. Moyston
- The 1930s Labour Rebellions in Barbados and Jamaica: Considering Violence and
Leadership in Decolonisation – Maziki Thame
- The Early Political History of Wilfred A. Domingo, 1919−1939 – Margaret Stevens
- Black Marxist: Champion of the Negro Toilers – Rodney Worrell
- Self-Liberation: The Cases of Occupied Haiti and the Anglophone Caribbean’s
Labour Rebellions – Myrtha Désulmé
- Imagining Freedom: Afro-Jamaican Yearnings and the Politics of the Workers’
Party of Jamaica – Obika Gray
- Grenada, Once Again: Re-visiting the 1983 Crisis and Collapse of the Grenada Revolution – Brian Meeks
- Grenada, Education, and Revolution, 1979−1983 – Anne Hickling-Hudson
- Foreign Policy and Economic Development in Small States: A Case Study of Grenada
Patsy Lewis
Contributors
Index
