Date of Award

6-2011

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Robert Hislope

Language

English

Keywords

Black Power, socialism, Caribbean, modernity

Abstract

The Caribbean’s experimentation with Black Power and socialism was the highest expression of its self-emancipation and self-definition. This thesis explores the reasons why this experiment, the dawning of a new day as it freed the masses from the grips of colonial constraints, was suppressed. It deconstructs which factor had a greater impact on the failure of the Caribbean’s nation-building process, internal strife and contradictions, or U.S. imperialistic hegemonic greed. Beginning with the exploration of intellectual and inspirational rhetoric of freedom, equality and black liberation, these ideological thinkers inspired the Caribbean to fight for independence. A case study evaluating four Caribbean nations, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Grenada, that in the 1970s through early 1980s experimented with black power and socialism as their method of self-determination is included. U.S. involvement in the region during this time was the main factor that caused the experiment’s demise as it shaped the Caribbean’s modernity. It explores the criticisms to U.S hegemony and infantilization of the Caribbean and suggests ways the U.S and the Caribbean can learn from the past to be catalysts for internal change, as well as to invoke a new relationship with each other in the future.

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