ANTHONY   MARTIN

DATE OF BIRTH: February 21, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH: Woodbrook, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
EDUCATION:
  • St. Mary's College
  • University of Hull, England (B. Sc. in Economics)
  • Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, London, England (Barrister-at-Law, 1965)
  • Michigan State University, Michigan, USA (M.A. and Ph.D. in History)
  • CAREER:                                 In the mid-1950s, Martin topped the list of Trinidad & Tobago's elementary school students who took the Common Entrance examination (called Exhibition) for admission to high school. Growing up on Roberts Street in Woodbrook, directly opposite the Little Carib Theatre, Martin had a keen interest in music while in high school and was a member of a small music band. He attended university in England and returned to Trinidad to teach at his alma mater, St. Mary's College, and at the Cipriani Labour College. He then left Trinidad to pursue graduate work at Michigan State University. Upon completion of his studies, he taught at the University of Michigan, before moving on to Wellesley College in Massachusetts where he became a tenured professor in Africana Studies in 1975 and from which he retired in 2007. He was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University, Brown University, and The Colorado College and also spent a year as an honorary research fellow at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Martin's lifetime works include the following books:
    • Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1976)
    • Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance (1983)
    • The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey
    • Marcus Garvey, Hero: A First Biography
    • The Pan-African Connection
    • Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy
    • African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey's Harlem Renaissance
    • Amy Ashwood Garvey: Pan-Africanist, Feminist and Mrs. Marcus Garvey No. 1, Or, A Tale of Two Amies (2007)
    • Caribbean History: From Pre-Colonial Origins to the Present (2012)
    DIED: January 17, 2013, at West Shore Medical Hospital, Trinidad
    Compiled by Ronald C. Emrit