On the 50th an­niver­sary of the 1970 Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion, sev­er­al afro Trinida­di­an groups re­mem­bered the day by re­vis­it­ing build­ings in the cap­i­tal where pro­test­ers back then gath­ered.

“Just imag­ine be­fore 1970 I couldn’t walk in that bank, “one ac­tress said dur­ing a skit as she point­ed at Roy­al Bank of Cana­da on In­de­pen­dence Square Port-of-Spain.

One such build­ing was the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain.

“Some­one said, ‘In­to the church’,” for­mer 1970 pro­test­er Khafra Kam­bon said.

Kam­bon said af­ter po­lice threw pro­test­ers out of the bank peo­ple were up­set and that was when the protest took a dif­fer­ent form and they en­tered places such as Mon­tano’s and the Cathe­dral.

“One thing about 1970 the demon­stra­tion was very dis­ci­plined, “I want to say this for the record, the stat­ues were not paint­ed,” he said.

“The way they got them to rep­re­sent us was by drap­ing black flags,” Kam­bon con­tin­ued.

Fast for­ward to five decades lat­er and groups that sup­port the black pow­er move­ment and some mem­bers who were present in 1970 en­tered the church again on Wednes­day which was al­so the be­gin­ning of Lent.

Dur­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tive ser­vice to cel­e­brate both events the Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain dur­ing his homi­ly praised those who en­tered the church to de­mand equal­i­ty back in 1970. But he said was time to do more than just cel­e­brate the an­niver­sary.

Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don said while T&T has come a long way with deal­ing with racial equal­i­ty there are still pre­dom­i­nant­ly black com­mu­ni­ties in this coun­try that are giv­en no at­ten­tion.

“We as a na­tion have ig­nored the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of our black peo­ple in this coun­try,” he said.

“The de­vel­op­ment of the pock­ets of pover­ty in T&T hap­pen to be African un­der­de­vel­op­ment,” he con­tin­ued.

The Arch­bish­op said the recipe to fix the in­equal­i­ties black peo­ple face in this coun­try the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem must be fixed. He said those in de­pressed ar­eas must be giv­en all the tools nec­es­sary to suc­ceed.

“We have to start with the par­ents,” he said.

“We have take the whole com­mu­ni­ty and ask the whole com­mu­ni­ty to dream that the lit­tle chil­dren will grow up to be pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens, “he con­tin­ued.

Vet­er­an broad­cast­er Josanne Leonard at Wood­ford Square where the groups even­tu­al­ly set­tled said T&T has be­come a na­tion where young black peo­ple are in­stant­ly classed as crim­i­nals. She re­count­ed her ex­pe­ri­ence on Ari­api­ta Av­enue on Car­ni­val Tues­day where, as young black men walked the street, some peo­ple said, “hide your phone, hide your bag.”

Ser­vant leader of NJAC Kwasi Mutema agreed with the Arch­bish­op and said as a na­tion T&T need to re-ex­am­ine 1970 with new lens.

“There are many prob­lems that were there 50-years ago that are still alive to­day,” he said.

Mutema said it’s time for open dis­cus­sion to avoid miss­ing the mark and unite one voice, vi­sion and aim mov­ing for­ward.

Source

Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion