Independence Ceremony, Parliament of Grenada in 1974.
About the book
Hailed as the hero in the crowd of those fighting for justice during the British colonial era in Grenada, Eric Gairy is now revered as the Father of Grenada’s Independence from Britain and the Father of the Nation, Grenada.
As a young charismatic and populist-type leader, he railed against the oppression by the colonial estate and plantation owners on their workers, and in February 1951, he succeeded in orchestrating an historic island-wide general strike of agricultural and other employees. His popularity among the laborers skyrocketed when he was arrested and detained by the British on a warship during two weeks of that island-wide general strike.
“The Gairy Movement” gained momentum and he became the people’s leader, such that by the time his government was ousted from power in 1979, by coup d état , Gairy’s Grenada United Labour Party had won majority seats in six of eight elections in Grenada, four of which were under direct British management. Before 1979, his only outright political defeat in elections in Grenada came in 1962, on the issue of a potential unitary state arrangement with Trinidad and Tobago, after the demise of the short-lived West Indies Federation in 1961.
This book presents a sketch of Gairy’s aggressive, charismatic and populist style, locally, which led the British colonial masters and the local plantocracy to brand him as a communist who had a powerful following and was a force to be reckoned with in Grenada.
Internationally, at the United Nations, and supported by many scientists and a former astronaut, he was an advocate for UN research about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs),
“Uncle Gairy” was the first Prime Minister of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique on independence from Britain in 1974. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977.