Minister of Social Cohesion with responsibility for Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr George Norton, announced on Thursday that the building on Waterloo Street which currently houses the Ministry of Citizenship will be renamed in honour of Stephen Joseph Campbell, who is the first Guyanese of Indigenous descent to have become of a Member of Parliament.
The Arawak (Lokono) and Portuguese descendant was born in Moruca, British Guiana on December 26, 1897. Norton said that consideration is also being given to the possibility of erecting a monument in Campbell’s honour, according to a release from the Ministry of the Presidency.
In 1962, amidst widespread concern that Indigenous lands would be expropriated after the departure of the British, Campbell presented a petition signed by 26 Indigenous Chiefs to the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Duncan Sandys at the British Guiana Constitutional Conference in London to lobby for Indigenous land rights.
