Eric Williams
Williams was a native Trinidadian who had spent almost twenty years abroad in Britain and the United States. Eric Eustace Williams was born in Port of Spain in 1911. Although his family was poor, Williams had received a very good education. He began his education at Tranquility Boys Intermediate and won a college exhibition in June 1922 at the age of 11. He then attended Queen's Royal College (QRC) where he won an Island Scholarship which took him to Oxford University in England, where he studied history.
Eric Williams graduated three years later, first in his class with first-class Honours degree. He then decided to persue his doctorate at Oxford, which he attained in 1938. Williams was awarded several honarary doctorates and other prestigious awards from Universities including Oxford, New Brunswick and the University of the West Indies (UWI). He was a professor of social and political science at Howard University in Washington DC in 1939.
Williams's academic prowess set the standard for all Trinidadian and Tobagonian political leaders through the late 1980s. Williams made the study of Caribbean history his life's work. His publications included "The Negro in the Caribbean" in 1942 and his seminal work "Capitalism and Slavery in 1944". While at Oxford, Williams was subjected to a number of racial slights, and he also suffered racial discrimination when he worked for the AngloAmerican Caribbean Commission in Washington from 1948 to 1955, an organization created in 1942 to coordinate non-military aspects of Caribbean policy. This discrimination profoundly and permanently affected Williams's outlook on life and his politics.
He was a man who knew himself to be the intellectual equal of educated people in Oxford, London, and Washington, and he felt that he had not been accepted as such. Dr. Williams then left Howard University when his contract was not renewed to join the Caribbean Commission in 1948. As deputy chairman of the Caribbean Research Council of the Caribbean Commission, Williams involved himself in cultural, educational, and semipolitical activities and became well known.
In 1956 he decided to enter politics and to forge a political party, the People's National Movement and served as its leader for 25 years consecutive years. The formation of this political party was the beginning of the age of organised party politics in Trinidad and Tobago. The PNM was created by middle-class professionals who were mainly but not exclusively black. Its main support came from the black community, although Williams was also able to attract some whites and East Indians. Williams gained a public constituency and a loyal party following by giving lectures in Woodford Square, the main square in Port-of-Spain. His lectures on Caribbean history were attended by thousands, and Williams dubbed his interaction with the crowd the "University of Woodford Square."
By September of 1956, the PNM won the elections and Dr. Williams became the Chief Minister of the country from 1956 to 1959, Premier from 1959 to 1962, and on the attainment of Independence in 1962, Prime Minister until his death in 1981. Prime Minister, Dr. Williams also served briefly as Minister of National Security from July 1970 to June 1971, in the wake of the Black Power upheaval.
Williams forged a bond with the people that remained even after his death twenty-five years later. Trinidadians and Tobagonians were proud to have an international scholar in their midst. Williams gave them a sense of national pride and confidence that no other leader was able to match. His charisma and leadership made it possible for the new party to be independent from existing political organizations and from trade unions. PNM leaders envisioned a broad national party that would include both capitalists and laborers; as such, the PNM rejected socialism and welcomed foreign capital investment.
Dr. Williams died on March 29th, 1981 while still in office and just six months short of his seventieth birthday.
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