Bernard Coard

Skyred Bernard Coard

This is an extraordinary work which covers both the author's life and the political history of the tiny island of Grenada in the Eastern Caribbean, from the 1951 uprising to the March 13, 1979 triumph of the Grenada Revolution. Starting at the age of six-and-a-half, the author witnesses a number of life-forming events, beginning with Grenada's violent revolutionary upheaval in 1951. This book brings to life the battles between Grenada's agricultural workers and very small farmers on one side, and the planter class and British colonial authorities on the other. The author describes, from personal observation as a young child, the many mass demonstrations and candle light processions of the workers while on general strike; each event unfolding in the tense atmosphere of the presence of hundreds of heavily armed British troops, and police from neighbouring islands brought in by the colonial authorities. The declared decision of the mass-uprising's leader to walk on sea water to attend a huge mass meeting on Grenada's Carenage at the height of the uprising is graphically described, as are the reactions of his supporters and detractors. This book also traces the evolution of the close personal and political friendship, begun at age 12, between Maurice Bishop (Grenada's Prime Minister 1979-'83) and the author, Bernard Coard (Grenada's Deputy Prime Minister during that same period). Their friendship deepens during their university years in the USA and Britain in the 1960s. Their experience of racism, exposure to the US civil rights struggles, the Vietnam War protests, the emergence of "Black Power," and the African decolonization struggle, help shape their ideological outlook, and the methods of political struggle that they and the other future leaders of Grenada would employ on returning to Grenada. Skyred describes the excitement, difficulties, and danger as the newly returned political leaders challenge the brutality and corruption set in motion by the very one who had led the 1951 workers' uprising. Maurice and Bernard's partnership of two decades would be a decisive element in the 1979 armed, mass-participatory overthrow of the Eric Gairy regime, and the establishment of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada. The day of the overthrow of the Eric Gairy government, March 13, 1979, is captured in vivid detail, as are the seeds of the political mistakes which would, less than five years later, lead to tragedy and disaster on an unprecedented scale.