No official events planned to mark centenary of former Prime Minister’s birth
THERE are no official events planned to mark the 100th birthday of this country’s first Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams.
Dr. Williams, who died in March 1981, was Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1956 until his death and was this country’s longest serving prime minister. Although several events have been planned overseas, no official events have been announced by the Government.
Contacted on Thursday afternoon on whether there were any plans to mark the occasion, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Communications, Nicole Dyer-Griffith, promised to check and get back to the Mirror, but no word was received up to press time.
The Opposition PNM has announced a ‘commemoration’ function on Sunday at Balisier House in Port of Spain that will include a “multi-media biographical display” and runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The biographical display is expected to remain open every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until September 30.
Two major international conferences are planned, one in London and the other at Williams’s alma mater, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University. Both conferences will feature prominent local and international academics.
The London conference is being put on by the Institute for the Study of the Americas and is being held on Tuesday, September, 27. Among the speakers are Professors Brinsley Samaroo and Selwyn Ryan, as well as journalists Raoul Pantin and 1970 mutineer and former Opposition Leader Raffique Shah.
The theme of that conference is “Independence and After: Dr Eric Williams and the making of Trinidad and Tobago”. A number of international scholars from the London School of Economics, Oxford University and other leading institutions are also expected to speak at the meeting.
This weekend, September 23 and 24, St. Catherine’s College, in collaboration with the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of Harvard University, is also holding an academic conference to mark the centenary of this nation’s founding father. The conference will feature several professors from the University of the West Indies, TnT Mirror columnist and Wellesley College professor, Selwyn Cudjoe, and several prominent American and British scholars discussing Williams’s work.
Both conferences were initiated by the Eric Williams Memorial Collection of the University of the West Indies.
