Oxford Street to be named after Kwame Ture

Deputy mayor of Port of Spain Hillan Morean told the gathering for the Emancipation parade in the city yesterday that the Port of Spain City Corporation was renaming Oxford Street after Kwame Ture, Trinidad-born pan-African activist.

He said the corporation received a number of proposals from the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC), one of which was for renaming of the Street after Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture).

Morean said so far the corporation has given the ESC support for some of its requests like the replacement of a bust at the Yorubba Village Square.

He said, “We must consult with the business and residential community of that street in PoS as well as the respective ministries.

“So at this time the city council is listening to your request, ESC. We can’t give you blanket approval just like that, but we’re letting you know we are here in support of you because we recognise the role and the process that is emancipation. And we are going to work with you on that process as best as possible> But do give us the time to do so.”

Shabaka Kambon of the Cross Rhodes Freedom Project (CRFP) immediately lauded the plan to rename after “its most famous son, the man who was second to only Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement in the USA, a man who is famous all over the world, born here in Trinidad as Stokely Carmichael, known in his passing as Kwame Ture.”

Kambon, son of ESC chair Khafra Kambon said people like Edgar Maresse-Smith, JJ Thomas, Henry Sylvester Williams, CLR James, George Padmore, Dr. Eric Williams, Makandal Daaga, Lancelot Layne, Jah Jah Ogaja Onilu and Lidj Yasu Omowale had all made huge contributions to the celebration of emancipation in TT in one way or another, and should all be recognised.

“We want the capital city in particular, the whole country in general, to find ways to recognise these people in our public spaces.
“Right now our capital city is a monument of colonialism, all kinds of people who aided and abetted enslavement and committed crimes against humanity,.

“But those people who fought for and sacrificed for the freedom we enjoy today, we don’t know them, they are not represented anywhere.

“We want to start with the Kwame Ture Street. We are also fighting for his house on Oxford Street not to be bulldozed,” said Kambon.