By Nigel Westmaas
In his book Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia Winston James, in a note on Caribbean Pan-Africanism, wrote,
“It is no accident that the Caribbean, being the area that has historically produced the most peripatetic of all African peoples, has also thrown up an extravagantly disproportionate number of Pan-Africanist political activists and intellectuals. Edward Wilmot Blyden, H Sylvester Williams, J Alembert Thorne, J Robert Love, Theophilus Scoles, Antenor Fermin, Rene Maran, Hubert Harrison, Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Una Marson, J. A Rogers, Jean Price Mars, Ras Makonnen, CLR James, Aime Cesaire, Leon Gontran Damas, and, perhaps the most under rated of them all – the great George Padmore of Trinidad…” 1
While Makonnen is listed in the pantheon of pan-Africanist notables and while nowhere near the stature of George Padmore, scant
