Excerpts from the Eulogy done by Mrs. Ancelma Morgan, Renwick’s Widow
FOUR YEARS after the Second World War had ended and colonies like St Vincent and the Grenadines had suffered significant economic hardship as a result of the limited movement of goods and services, poverty among the working class poor was widespread, and more, so in the urban areas as they owned little or no resources, except for their labour. In a community called Long Wall, which sits between the more affluent residential area called Cane Garden and the commercial district of capital Kingstown, a son, a warrior, a revolutionary, a change maker was born to parents Germaine and Reynold Rose on January 20, 1948. His given names were Renwick Elsworth Adrian.
His mother being an early childhood educator and father a tailor, had eked out a living to support their growing family with very limited financial resources, but had the moral support of relatives and friends in the area. Renwick reminisced about the intimate relationship with his father where he taught him how to fish and swim, so very early, he became a very good swimmer and would make solo trips to the sea which was a ‘foot’s throw’ away from his home. His family had at the time, shared rented accommodation with the late Ebenezer Theodore Joshua, who had an office space on the ground floor of the building. His mother became Joshua’s boarder, so he had been given the daily task to take his meals for him daily. Joshua at the time, as a trade unionist/ politician had organized agricultural workers employed on the various estates around St Vincent in a trade union as he campaigned for economic justice and better working conditions for workers.
Renwick though young, had also observed the indigence that existed among many of the families that had lived in the same neighbourhood, most of whom were crammed in one room apartments with little or no basic facilities provided by their landlords. Many of these families had migrated from rural to the urban areas in search of better opportunities and therefore had brought their families with them.
The level of illiteracy was high in that community as many hadn’t attended school, or had to leave before completing their primary education in order to earn a living, so secondary education was for the fortunate few, especially if you gained an entrance in the top secondary school which was seen as a privilege and not a right. These socio-economic and cultural conditions had begun to shape his thinking.
Those, like himself from a poor background and had gained a place in the Boy’s Grammar School were victims of discriminatory practices by the school both in academic and sporting activities. This led him to rebel against the institutional biases, and received punishment for his reactions from the head teacher many of which he hid from his parents, especially his mother who was the disciplinarian within the family.
He recalled sitting in the back of the class with Frankie McIntosh and strumming music on their desks during class because as a quick learner he was able to grasp new concepts and therefore got bored easily, a trait that continued throughout his life. However, at the end of his secondary academic journey, he became resolute in his conviction to challenge the status quo. Fortunately
for him, he had a very strong mother, an advocate for justice and equality. She had instilled positive values in him and therefore such negative experiences never affected his self-esteem, but strengthened his resilience to bring about the necessary changes in people’s attitudes and aptitudes towards the poor and marginalized and empowered disadvantaged people. Despite the family had already moved from Long Wall to their own accommodation in Stoney Grounds, he never lost his grounding with his relatives and friends from Long Wall and still participated in sporting and other social activities with them. His childhood friend ‘Dove’ Liverpool remained a constant in his life through to the end, the last person whom he had inquired about before his passing. Later on, he developed new friendships with many others at different stages of his life. Their home at Stoney Grounds had remained the centre of social activitiesfrom a private school to a home for the immediate and extended family and friends. Renwick, being the eldest of six children within their household, had to assist his parents in caring for his younger siblings and other relatives who had stayed with them from time to time. He also had two other siblings Donnette and Quebena(deceased).
After leaving school, he worked as a teacher at the Kingstown Preparatory School, then to the Teacher’s Training Centre and later Bishop’s College Kingstown. Although he had no formal tertiary education, yet he craved knowledge from his early childhood and became an avid reader and writer like his Mom, who helped to inform his political and social activism.
He worked at Bishop’s College, Kingstown for a number of years, as a Mathematics and Geography teacher. It was in those early years that we met and our love story began. Inexperience and pressures from society had forced us apart but the ‘flame was still burning beneath the surface’. After a seven year hiatus, we found ourselves back in each other’s arms again and this time for good. Although over the years, our relationship was fraught with many challenges, yet it withstood the test of time and we are now parents to five children and nine grandchildren.
While he taught at Bishop’s, an incident had occurred when he attempted to expose a White British Headteacher’s actions which had demonstrated racial prejudice against the students of the school. When he attempted to rebuke him, the Board of the school agreed with the
headteacher. He was never given a change to defend his actions. He later lost his job with the school.
Despite the fact that he had lost his job, Teacher Rose continued to provide free tutelage for many of his students. Later, he expanded his literacy programme to different rural communities and voluntarily taught persons’ basic literacy skills and political education.
During that early period of the 70s known as the Black Power era, there was an upsurge in black consciousness among black Caribbean men/women which gave rise to the Black Power Movement. At that time he found himself in the forefront of the struggles that called for an end to colonialism and for justice and people’s ownership and control of our governance structure.
Many attempts were made to associate him with criminal activities but he remained steadfastly committed to challenge the status quo as a colony of Britain.
As a visionary who as way ahead of his time, he formed a political pressure group called the Black Liberation Action Committee (BLAC) which had its base in the Ghetto, where high unemployment existed that had given rise to poverty and crime. There he empowered the youths and taught them the discipline of organizational skills.
He was also a founding member ofYULIMO, comprised other political pressure groups which came together to form the organization.
He, along with other comrades such as Dr. Ralph Gonsalves wrote extensively condemning capitalism and imperialism as a system of exploitation and the impact on poor working class people. Besides FREEDOM,YULIMO’s weekly mouthpiece, other journals such the BEACON and INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS were periodically produced.
Renwick, as a strategist at the time, mobilized and organized marches and rallies, meetings and demonstrations around many issues of national and international significance with a rallying cry for peace, justice and equality for the poor working class in our society. In all of his works, he ensured that women played a vital role in the organisations, not just as appendages but demanded their rights as equal partners in the political and social processes.
Kamara has been a consistent advocate for women’s rights and justice.
He has outlined his position about the Women’s Struggles for Justice and Equity in his Book ‘Reflections’’which encapsulates some of his writings on the subject matter in his three-book series. Many thanks to Clare Keizer, Ambassadors Rhonda King, and Andrea Bowman and Fadhilika Atiba-Weza for their contributions, as well as support and encouragement for the publication of his works.
In 1976, Renwick was part of aYULIMO delegation that journeyed to Cuba and established relationship with that country. They had also negotiated with the Cuban government, and so Vincentian students had been awarded scholarships to study in that country.
He had also journeyed to Guyana, along other Caribbean delegates, and established a relationship with the PPP party led by late Cheddi Jagan. Cde Cheddi later journeyed to St Vincent and attendedYULIMO’s Congress, further strengthening the bonds between the political left forces in St Vincent and Guyana.
In 1979, three progressive organisations came together to form the United Peoples’ Movement in order to contest the general elections under a triumvirate leadership which comprised Comrades Renwick Rose, Parnell Campbell and Ralph Gonsalves. Both Comrades Parnel and he withdrew from the leadership so comrade Ralph Gonsalves
then led the party into the general elections which the party failed to win a single seat.
Renwick and a few comrades who had remained, through sheer determination, tried to keep the party functioning and had continued its weekly mouth piece ‘JUSTICE’ and later ‘JUSTSPORTS’ but had lacked the necessary financial and human resources to sustain the newspapers. The publishing company ‘Alternative Ltd’ folded up as well.
After spending more than a decade of voluntary service as a political activist and analyst he was forced to seek employment within the NGO movement in order to support his family. He gained employment with the Windward Islands Farmers Association which was a network of farmers organisations within the Windward Islands and the French territories where he was assigned as Programme Officer and so was responsible for the development and the execution of programmes and translation of documents from English to French.
He had to lead a team of farmers’ representatives from the Windward Islands on a fact finding mission to Britain, where they met with consumers and marketers of Windwards bananas. That trip laid the basis with what followed in terms of lending more visibility on a global scale to the Farmers Movementmore visibility to WINFA. Such opportunities provided him with the opportunity to bring to the attention of policy makers the plight of the bananas farmers and the socio-economic problems that they faced.
He was relentless in his pursuit for a guaranteed market access for our farmers. He became the voice of the small farmers in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the Windward Islands, in Brussels. But his journeys in getting to Europe were sometimes, tiring and dangerous.
Dr Natallie Corrie-Kordas, a former Technical Expert in the Political Affairs and Human Development Department of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretariat in her tribute reiterated the fact that in Renwick’s work, the following was achieved: “As a result of this work, the CARICOM political hierarchy was indeed educated and guided during the period of the 20th Century. Indeed his wisdom once more resonated during this 21st century at so many levels. His policy and philosophy of economic and social survival are alive and evident in our institutions in Europe today, as CARICOM officials and dignitaries continue to work tirelessly for the advancement of trade benefits at the level of the WTO. Mr. Rose’s impact is clearly evident in our respective orientation and defence of Climate Change, Disaster Risk Management, and our Human Development mandates. This is evident in the many International Declarations, Resolution of the ACP Group of States. It is fair to say that his presence and Missions to Europe over the years, served to empower our technical voices from the ACP States, as well as the wider South. And it helped us to positively persuade the EU institutional structures to create solutions in our favour at the level of the EU Council of Ministers, European Economic and Social Partners, the European Parliament and by do doing positively impacting the processes of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
He did not do all this work alone, the small producers in the Windward Islands walked those corridors with him.
He created the enabling environment and provided training to equip them with the knowledge of global trade and negotiating skills through assistance provided by OXFAM GB and USA.
Each year many of the farmers participated in “Fair trade Fortnight Campaign” to promote Windwards bananas.
Whilst his international pursuits took up a lot of his time away from the Caribbean, he still found time to play an active role in civil society organisations in dealing with broader trade matters, which involved CARICOM. He served a as Chairperson of the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) Development; the Caribbean Trade Network, and other relevant network,WINFA Board, Chair of NESDEC, member of the Banana Salvation action Committee, among others.
He received many accolades as recognition for his work.
But where were his family when he achieved these milestones? Most of the time they were aware that he went to important meetings both locally, regionally and internationally but not aware that his life’s work had such an impact to shape policy at a global level that impacted lives for generations to come. He was a very PRIVATE person- never spoke much about his work to his family.
Our granddaughter who had been living with us used to call him and say: “Buelo you have to bring me skinny Jeans”, and he had to go in search of it, or when she got older he had to go to “Claires” to bring her trinkets. He bought all of them books and clothes while running to and from meetings or on his way to the airport.
Although he did not say much to them about work, yet he was a devoted father, grandfather, brother, uncle, husband and friend.
He provided guidance and support where necessary in a calm and gentle manner, especially his grandchildren whom he called his “little Gems”.To his grandchildren in particular, he was their hero. His love for his family, siblings- and especially his late mother was immeasurable. When we were able to have him for ourselves after many years of travel we were able to enjoy some special moments as he had been absent for many years when important occasions arose in the family. He had encouraged all of us to read so that we can better inform our way of life as he would sometimes say, ‘knowledge’ is power’.
He never bought a toy for his grandchildren, only books.
When Kamara was not working at home, he cooked for the family or he enjoyed a social drink with his friends and acquaintances.
He was a peacemaker and hated confrontation and therefore avoided loud and aggressive people. He was very witty and you had to be careful what you are saying around him, otherwise he can make you into a laughing stock. His childhood friend “Dove” can attest to that.
We used to watch sports all day after watching the news, moving the remote from one station to another. He loved music across the genres- especially pan music- with a passion. He would listen to every category of pan competition including panorama in Trinidad and Tobago.
Growing up in a family who had been involved in Carnival, he too, participated in it for many years because he had loved the cultural art form but had abhorred the level of vulgarity publicly displayed by some masqueraders and artistes in recent times.
He was very humble. He never valued the opinions of his critics. Like Fidel Castro, he would say that ‘history will absolve him’. One day when I am gone they would know the truth of what I have done. I remember a few month ago, when his health was in steady decline, I said to him that you need to tell your immediate family about your life and he said to me, ‘Cel, that is the hardest thing for me to do to speak about myself. When I am gone, I want you to tell them and the rest of the world what I have done with my life because you are the only constant in my life and know me better than anyone else’.”
And that is why I am fulfilling his dying wish to eulogize him.
Rest in power my dear Kamara, you have done your life’s work here on earth and have left an indelible legacy for others to emulate and now you have migrated to another realm. Sleep on my love, Kamara, Buelo, Da, Daddy, Uncle, Renwick.
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