MIAMI — The 23rd Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture at The University of Texas, Austin, attracted a diverse audience of around 250 participants, both physically present and virtual, featuring the renowned Abby Phillip from CNN, who hails from Trinidad and Tobago.
“Journalism in Challenging Times” showed how well Phillip navigates her craft. It highlighted the need to hear all voices, especially those we disagree with. It also stressed the importance of focusing on facts, as much of social media today spreads misinformation.
Wading into what she deemed as the obligation to “tell our story” with courage and clarity, Phillip drew parallels to Eric Williams’ fearless condemnation of the status quo during his hugely popular “University” of Woodford Square speeches in the 1950s, where Williams endeavored to teach the Trinidad and Tobago populace, most of whom had only had a primary school education, “what one French writer of the 18th century saw as the greatest danger, that they have a mind!”
Abby shared her experience of growing up in Trinidad and Tobago. She mentioned how Williams’ policies on free secondary and tertiary education inspired her parents. This belief made them think that anything was possible. They felt there were few limits on what a person could achieve.
In these divided times, she often feels like a teacher during heated discussions on her show. She sets ground rules ahead of time. When people interrupt or talk over each other, she does not hesitate to say, “Stop talking.”
As a journalist, Phillip knows she must understand both sides of an argument. She believes it is important to show that even people who disagree can still talk to each other. She was surprised to see that after a lively show, guests often leave the studio. They chat about their children, grandchildren, or other light topics.
Memorial Lecture Q&A
The Lecture was followed by a lively and probing Q&A session that touched on, among other topics, media technology changes and the urgency for legacy media/cable news to keep up with it.
She bemoaned the lagging of the news media to adapt rapidly to the way in which the young consume information today. She added that she has been mastering TikTok and, at the same time, thinking about how reliable news can reach Gen Z.
The final question was asked by Eric Williams’ 15-year-old granddaughter who wanted to know how she could use social media to improve her community.
Abby stressed that it was vital for her peers to become politically engaged and aware, and encouraged her first to always seek truth, check for relevant information and dependable sources, and to think before posting.
New Home for the Eric Williams Memorial Lecture
After 19 years at Florida International University (FIU), the Eric Williams Memorial Lecture has a new home. It is currently at the John L. Warfield Center. This center is part of the African and African American Studies program. It is located at the University of Texas, Austin (UT). This lecture honors Eric Williams, a great Caribbean leader, respected scholar, famous historian, and author of many books.
The Williams Thesis
His 1944 trailblazing study Capitalism and Slavery, popularly referred to as The Williams Thesis, arguably re-framed the historiography of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade and established the contribution of Caribbean slavery to the development of both Britain and America.
“Capitalism and Slavery [is] a ‘landmark’…but it would be even more correct to think of it as the progenitor of almost all of the questions, problems, arguments and interpretations that have come to inform the study of slavery, abolition and emancipation in the British Empire.” (Christopher L. Brown, London Review of Books, December 2023).
The book has been translated into nine languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Korean. The tenth and eleventh, Dutch and German, are in process.
In 2022, the book became popular again. It was first published in the US almost 80 years earlier. The book reached #5 on the UK Sunday Times Bestseller List for non-fiction.
Eric Williams was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He served as Head of Government for 25 years until his death in 1981. Williams led the country to independence from Britain in 1962. In addition, he also helped Trinidad and Tobago become a republic in 1976.
Former Eric Williams Memorial Lecture Speakers
Among prior Eric Williams Memorial Lecture speakers have been: the late John Hope Franklin, one of America’s premier historians of the African-American experience; Kenneth Kaunda, President of the Republic of Zambia; Cynthia Pratt, Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas; Mia Mottley, Attorney General of Barbados; Beverly Anderson-Manley, former First Lady of Jamaica; Portia Simpson Miller, Prime Minister of Jamaica; Hon. Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia; Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; and Dr. Angela Davis, renowned for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad.
The Lecture, which seeks to provide an intellectual forum for the examination of pertinent issues in Caribbean and African Diaspora history and politics, is co-sponsored in part by UT’s: LILLAS Caribbean Studies Initiative; School of Journalism and Media; Center for Global Change and Media; Dr. & Mrs. Leroy Lashley; and Jerry Nagee. It is also supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum at the University of the West Indies (UWI, Trinidad and Tobago), which was inaugurated by former US Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998.
It was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.
You can watch the post-lecture videos and all previous lectures online. The 2021 digital launch videos are available. There is also an online exhibition of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection Museum at UWI.
Comments