The Mantle of Struggle : A Biography of Black Revolutionary Rosie Douglas
(2023)

Nonfiction

eBook

Provider: hoopla

Details

PUBLISHED
[United States] : Between the Lines, 2023
Made available through hoopla
DESCRIPTION

1 online resource

ISBN/ISSN
9781771136211 MWT16368906, 1771136219 16368906
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Rosie Douglas, former prime minister of Dominica, had a life unlike any other modern politician. After leaving home to study agriculture in Canada, he became a member of the young Conservatives, under the Canadian prime minister's guidance. However, after he moved to Montreal to study political science his politics started to shift. By the late sixties he was an active civil rights supporter and when Black students in Montreal began to protest racism in 1969, he helped lead the sit-in. He was identified as a protest ringleader after the peaceful protest turned into a police riot, and served 18 months in prison. After his deportation from Canada in 1976, having been named a danger to national security, Douglas participated in political movements around the world building global solidarity. He became a leader of the Libyan-based revolutionary group World Mathaba and supported Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Once back home in Dominica, he led the movement for Dominica's full political independence from Great Britain, then served as a senator in the post-independence government, an MP, party leader, and finally prime minister. Relying on family sources, interviews, newspaper articles, government documents, and Douglas' own articles, letters, and speeches, Irving Andre has drawn a rich and riveting record of this important Black revolutionary. A little-known figure in Canadian radical Black politics in the 1960s and 1970s: Rosie Douglas. "An intimate portrait of one the most important but underappreciated Pan-Africanists of the post-war period whose intrepid activism linked African peoples throughout the Atlantic world. Andre's penetrating biography of Rosie Douglas is a must-read account of the soul of African folk to vanquish imperialism, colonialism, and other forms of anti-Black exploitation and domination." "A long overdue assessment of the life and activism of the extraordinary Rosie Douglas, Andre's book captures the complexities of the man and the breadth of his achievements, giving him his rightful place among the firmament of the greats who have struggled for Caribbean and Pan-African liberation." "The Mantle of Struggle chronicles the astonishing life of Dominica's former prime minister Rosie Douglas, one of the most extraordinary international political actors of the 20th century, who, despite hailing from a tiny outport in the Caribbean, became a hugely influential operator on the world stage. It's an illuminating portrayal of a son of privilege who was also a man of the people, selfless in his commitment to uplift the wretched of the earth. He was a political revolutionary and anti-imperialist champion of global resistance movements. Imprisoned for his role in the biggest campus rebellion in Canadian history, Douglas was an unrepentant political pragmatist who counted John Diefenbaker, Pierre Trudeau, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Angela Davis, and Kwame Ture as mentors, associates, and comrades. This is a book of revelations and endless intrigue." "To fully understand Canada's antagonism with blackness and Black people, this biography of Rosie Douglas proves to be a necessary and important foundation. From student activist to prime minister of Dominica, Douglas's life is an example of transnational Black activism and deep insight into the central place of the Caribbean and its intellectuals in shaping the modern world. Irving Andre's account of Douglas's life is both instructive and heartbreaking." "From the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica to Canada and back, Irving Andre's work has immediately become the benchmark by which both future biographies and political histories of the Caribbean, Black Canada, and Pan-Africanism will be measured. The complexity, movement, growth, and unwavering purpose of Rosie Douglas's life is brilliantly captured here in depth for the first time thanks to the richness of archival work and wide-r

Mode of access: World Wide Web

Additional Credits