Port of Spain, TRINIDAD and TOBAGO - The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum (EWMC) at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St.Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, announces that The Blackest Thing in Slavery Was Not the Black Man: The Last Testament of Eric Williams is the co-winner of the 2023 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Prize.
Edited by the late Dr. Brinsley Samaroo, former Prof. of History at UWI, this was the book Eric Williams was working on when he died 42 years ago. Despite previous attempts to have it published, it was only when Samaroo condensed its 1,000 pages to 250-plus; tacked on the ‘Testament’ title, and solicited the University of the West Indies Press, that the book finally came to fruition in 2022.
As the summary states, Williams reflects on the institution of slavery from Europe to New World Africa, making a significant contribution by incorporating other forms of servitude following slavery, including that of Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Pacific peoples worldwide.
The book details ways in which this bondage led to European and American prosperity and how, following Abolition, other means of exploiting non-African people in Third World countries were devised. Most other works tend to separate these issues or deal with them on a regional basis. Eric Williams offers a comprehensive view, integrating many themes in a vast compendium.
As the Head of the Award Committee, Professor ‘Tavis D. Jules’ of Loyola University gushes: “Th[is]…book…stand[s] out as a beacon of literary excellence…[The] mastery of storytelling, thought-provoking narrative, and profound insights truly make [it a] remarkable piece…of literature…[It] entertained, enlightened, and challenged perspectives, sparking meaningful conversations among committee members.”
And its Preface by Arnold Rampersad, Sara Hart Kimball Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, Stanford University, affirms that the book “…is perhaps the most concise and penetrating record of the malignity and historic pervasiveness of white racism that we have, Williams’ prose crackl[ing]with the open fire of indignation…[A]s we continue to be indebted to the vision, skills, and courage of Eric Eustace Williams…he has left us a gift that attests to his uniquely vigorous prophetic power, anchored both in scholarship and in polemics.”
The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum was inaugurated by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell in 1998, and named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.
