"The shrouding in black of the statues of the Roman Catholic Church was one of the earliest and most significant acts of 1970"… This from one of the opening paragraphs from Eintou Springer's presentation at the recently concluded University of the West Indies conference on Black Power and its relevance to the challenges of today.
In a wide-ranging address which drew from Springers' own poetry archives, American hip hop, regional literary greats and of course her own experiences as an active participant of the 1970 revolution, she linked the concepts of Black Power, Ethnicity and Spirituality. She opined that "it is my belief that the Black Power Revoloution in Trinidad and Tobago of 1970 and continuing, as well as the diaspora-wide tremors of that movement by Africans, was the continuation the unrelenting, unceasing struggle against enslavement. Revolt and Revolution also pervaded the very acts of cultural retention".
The conference held at the Mona, Jamaica campus of the University of the West Indies attracted the regions' noted activists and freedom fighters, from Khafra Kambon, David Abdulah and Raffique Shah of Trinidad and Tobago, to Andaiye of Guyana and Brian Meeks of Jamaica.
Contact us at Idakeda for your copy of her entire paper!
