A stubborn fighter for workers' rights
Interview with Jim Wardally with Chester Humphrey over the years.
And during revolutionary period, the chair of your union and he was the vice chair. Can you tell us a bit about Chester's background and how he became involved in politics.
known Chester since we were small boys. He comes mother died when he was only a few years old. He was brought up by his education at the Grenada Boys Secondary School. In 1977, he emigrated to the US to study marine biology at St Mary's University.
Politically, Chester came out of the Black power movement that swept the Caribbean at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. This was a movement that aimed originally at rediscovering and reinforcing the African culture. But it later broadened its perspectives to embrace general political struggle.
On Grenada, this movement developed into the most dynamic political party in the country, the New Jewel Movement. It the struggle under the Kendrick Radix.
Maurice Bishop himself who recruited Chester Humphrey to
Jewel Movement. seen as a gifted young man many talents. He studied everything -history, sociology, literature, natural science as rapidly as he could get the
Above all, he promising radical political activist with a determination to work among the
On Grenada, he was a dock worker from 1972 to 1975, and his political ability brought him into the NJM's Political Bureau in the mid-1970s. He was, of course, obliged to withfrom that body when he left Grenada in 1977. about his character? What kind of a
Chester is probably the stubbornest man I have ever met. Stubborn above all else, but with a feel for
International Viewpoint 28 October 1985 what is important and what is not. to do something that he thought had to be done, he attacked the problem
La great earnestness and forthrightness, and he never gave up.
regular intervals, you could be drawn into sharp disputes with him around various questions. If you managed to win a round, he waited eagerly for a return match. My experience of Chester is that if you disagreed with him, it never became a personal
Another typical "Chesterian" feafree time and his nights to my window at 5.00 in the morning one or another political resolution. He never took any great notice of the profanity he provoked
I remember once when visited us in New York, and a debate over my kitchen table. The
Maurice managed me aside and whisper a few words in my ear. "Listen, Jim, I think it's high time you found for ending this discussion. I have a feeling that Chester is just warming up, and I can't hold out for ten hours without sleeping an hour before."
Chester is a type who won't accept a quick decision but wants to discuss the whole thing through from every untiring, and fearless in carrying out
Q. He left the Political Bureau of the NJM when he went to New York, but he did not abandon politino means. We met again for the first time in many years when he came to the Us, and on a series of projects. We were both active in the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. I worked for the International Bureau whose task was to work out a coordinated program for the and Chester was soon drawn into this work.
In 1977, I was one of the initiators of the Grenada Nationals Association, who coordinated the struggle against Gairy among. Grenadans in
GRENADA the US. Chester was a leading activist in the GNA and in fact one of the most important, if not the most important, contributors to the organi-
Q. Early in 1979, when revolution in Grenada was reaching the decisive point, you and Chester were arrested by the FBI. What
What happened in the Spring Grenada. If I were in Grenada I be sharing a cell with him myself. That is why I am in exile.
At the time the revolution on Grenada was reaching a critical phase. The Gairy dietatorship was crumbling at an accelerating rate, and it was no secret that he planned a military solution to his problem. In practice, this meant liquidating the NJM leadership. The party knew what was in and it realized that an armed confrontation was unavoidable. Gairy had a lot stored party decided to import so that it would not be helpless when Gairy loosed his blood-hounds.
It is no secret that the party imported weapons. Gairy himself knew about what was going on and revealed the plans in the press. The very fact that he did that gave rise to strong reactions by people in the country. A long queue formed outside of the party arm even a small part of those who reduce Gairy's panic any.
What happened screamed as loud as he could and pointed to the US as the source of the smuggled weapons. This aroused the State Department from its slumbers and the atlases were hauled out to find out where Grenada was. Then they set the FBI on me and Chester.
Our first reaction was to stay in the US and fight it in the courts. We thought that there was no way could win the case. But then the situation changed, and we were obliged to flee the US after having been released on bail.
Why did you flee. What had
Later, transfered to the he
Three things happened. The was the speaking, same as was that the revolution broke before,
It out in Grenada six weeks after our arrest, and we that he became was In supporters of it. The State more and more and was elected trade-union do much about the fact that the revolution had occurred (at least not then), but it had every possibility for doing something to its supporters
US. They needed scapegoats, and Chester and I were clipped and that the revolution would turn politics
A in mil
Jim Wardally (DR)
was something that they would not capable of waging a and the workers' counter at any cost. Almost immedidangerous. They are harassed, forced launched a poisonous campaign of propaganda, half truths,
Q down on me and Chester.
A.
congress started
Grenada and issued wild statements mistake before fingering me and Chester as agents of the DGI, the Cuban security service, in the US. The fact that none of us today.
lecturers in contact with the Cubans was immater-
"handled" by sador to the UN, who was supposed to be the chief of the DGI in the US.
It was claimed that I got instrucmaking the tions in secret meetings with Rizo, which can be shown to be a barefaced lie. I have never seen the fellow thing that happened - and that was what really set us moving of Maurice Bishop as fast as possible toward the nearest was that the judge was changed in the middle of the case.
The new judge was no less than Judge giving full
He is better known as oppose hanging judge,"
that the
Q.
In short, we saw quickly that we he is sitting in jail today?
had no chance of getting a fair trial
A.
The occupation authorities in the US, and so we fled.
have no doubt whatsoever about
Chester's importance. They know that
What did Chester work at when he is not some "commonplace activyou came back to Grenada?
ist." And they know the prestige he society that
A.
We came home in October enjoys among the TAWU's members
1979 and immediately became involis based not only on his political tie ved in political work. Chester became with Maurice Bishop's party - the what you might call a trouble shooter
NJM before the October coup in the Ministry of Agriculture. His but above all on the day-to-day job was to coordinate various progconcrete fight he was able to wage rams among the agricultural workers for the members' rights.
and to assure that the new rights and
They not over know that it he were tree any benefits that were included in he would be in the forefront of the murder of
"Inciting government's legislation really reached defending the rights and gains that into the countryside - to give one the working achieved during when he was class example, to make sure that the the revolution.
workers really took advantage of the
That makes him a dangerous new health program. Thus, he was person. Anyone who came out of the sort of an intermediary between the
October 19 affair unbesmirched and is
10 struggle is
Does that have
October
19, but whatsoever in some members they called it, after the main the Ge arr eth the has for the Ch the JA of 192 wel One fro ext me alsc CN pol -gro and the Mo que pol of t of