2003 September 22
“THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE PADMORE:
BLACK RADICALISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY”
UWI, ST. AUGUSTINE
The Local Planning Committee is pleased to announce the hosting of the International Seminar “The Life and Times of George Padmore: Black Radicalism in the 20th Century”. This Seminar will be held at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine from the 2nd- 4th October, 2003.
George Padmore was one of the central figures in the struggle for decolonisation in the 20th Century. He was born in Arouca with the name Malcolm Nurse. However he used the assumed name George Padmore when he became active in the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) while a student in the United States in the mid-1920’s. Padmore was educated at Tranquillity, St. Mary’s College and Pamphylian High School in Trinidad. He then went to the United States in 1924 to study medicine at Fisk University in Tennessee, later switching to Law. He also switched universities, enrolling first at New York University and eventually at Howard Law School.
In this period George Padmore was an important black student leader as well an increasingly important member of the CPUSA, organizing black workers and writing in the party papers – the Daily Worker and the Negro Champion. His talents led him to being involved in the international communist movement – the Comintern, and he left the US in late 1929 for the USSR where he headed the Negro Bureau of the Communist International of Labour Unions and was Secretary of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. He also founded and edited the international journal – the Negro Worker. Padmore was the most important black person in the international communist movement and had a certain amount of power and privilege as a result.
This did not blind him to the errors of the Communist movement and he resigned his position in 1933, and later moved to London where he lived until going to Ghana after its independence in 1957. In London Padmore collaborated with his boyhood friend CLR James, and others from the Caribbean and Africa. One of the regular visitors to his flat was Eric Williams, then a student at Oxford. Padmore and James organised around the invasion of Ethiopia and this led to International African Services Bureau being set up by Padmore in 1937.
The IASB under Padmore’s leadership was the principal organizer of what many regard as the most important Pan African Congress, the 1945 Manchester Conference. This Conference was attended by Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta - future leaders of independent Africa; trade union leaders from the Caribbean such as John Rojas, President General of the OWTU, Rupert Gittens of the SWWTU; and noted Pan -Africanists Dr. WEB DuBois and Amy Garvey. This Conference set out the agenda for the decolonisation process and it was no surprise therefore that both Nkrumah and Kenyatta led their countries into independence. Padmore was very respected by Nkrumah and became his close adviser and confidante when the latter became Prime Minister in 1957. Padmore wrote extensively and in addition to his newspaper articles and political pamphlets wrote several major books, the best known of which are: How Britain Rules Africa, Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers and Pan-Africanism or Communism?.
Padmore died in London in September, 1959 having flown there from Ghana to receive medical treatment. Following his funeral, his ashes were interred in Accra, Ghana. George Padmore was married to Julia Baden-Semper and they had one daughter Blyden. Following his departure to the USSR in 1929, he could not return to the US and he later had a long relationship with Dorothy Pizer, whom he met in London in the late 1930’s.
Very little is known in Trinidad and Tobago about George Padmore, though he must be regarded as one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. Indeed, Kwame Nkrumah wrote of him “one day the whole of Africa will surel7y be free and united and when the final tale is told the significance of George Padmore’s work will be revealed”.
That moment has surely arrived, and to commemorate the centennial of his birth, the University of the West Indies (Office of the Principal, St. Augustine and the Centre for Caribbean Thought, Mona); the Africana Studies Department, Brown University, Rhode Island, US; the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union and the George Padmore Institute, London have collaborated to organize this International Seminar.
The Seminar will be formally opened by the Principal of the UWI, St. Augustine campus at 6.30pm on Thursday October 2nd at the Learning Resource Centre. A special presentation will be made at this time to the daughter of George Padmore who will be coming from the US with her daughter to attend the Conference. Other members of the family are also being specially invited.
The working sessions will be held at the Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th, beginning at 9.00am each day.
The Seminar is open to members of the public and Registration is as follows:
Students in school uniform – free;
Full registration (includes conference bags and papers) - $150 TT.
A number of distinguished academics and researchers will be presenting papers and discussing the following themes:
· Pan Africanism and Black Radicalism
· Black Radicalism, Pan Africanism, Empire and Anti-Colonialism
· Colonialism, Exile and the Present
· Black Radicalism, Fascism and Colonialism
· Padmore and Political Relationships
· Writing, Politics and the Genealogy of Pan Africanism
The media is invited to publicise this important event as well as to attend and cover the proceedings.
David Abdulah
Member of the Local Planning Committee