Alfie Roberts was one of the keenest thinkers to emerge from the Caribbean in the post-World War II era. He was a historian, political advisor, community worker, and a first class cricket player who played a seminal role in the development of Montreal’s Black community.
Born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on September 18, 1937, Alfie Roberts attended St. George’s Anglican School and then St. Vincent Boy’s Grammar School. While at the Grammar School, Roberts excelled in both soccer and cricket and, upon the recommendation of cricket great Sir Everton Weekes, he was awarded a scholarship to Queen’s Royal College in Trinidad. It was during this period that he was selected to the West Indies cricket team. Along with Sir Everton Weekes and the legendary Gary Sobers, he toured New Zealand with the West Indies team in 1955-56. He was only 18 years of age, one of the youngest to play international cricket.
Alfie Roberts’ interest in education and politics took precedence over sport and by 1961 he was no longer playing competitive cricket. Between 1958 and 1962, he worked as a civil servant for the government of St. Vincent before emigrating to Canada to attend Sir George Williams (now Concordia) University in Montreal.
In 1965, Roberts teamed up with Robert Hill, Hugh O’Neale, Alvin Johnson, Franklyn Harvey, Ann Cools, and Rosie Douglas, among others, to organize the first of a series of conferences and events that would bring a host of distinguished Caribbean thinkers and writers to Montreal, including novelist George Lamming and C.L.R. James, one of the great thinkers of the last century. These events nourished a number of important political movements across the Caribbean. Out of this Montreal-based group, the Conference Committee on West Indian Affairs, evolved several other groups based in Montreal, including the International Caribbean Service Bureau and the Emancipation 150 Committee. These groups played a major role in highlighting social and political issues facing communities of African and Caribbean descent locally and internationally.
As an advocate for the downtrodden and dispossessed, Alfie Roberts’ work brought him to various countries in Africa – Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, Libya; to Cuba, Martinique, and many other countries across the Caribbean; and Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also helped to develop cricket, netball, carnival, and several foundational Black community institutions in Montreal, many of which continue to enrich the Montreal community.
Among the many groups and organizations that Alfie Roberts helped to establish during his thirty-four years in Canada is the St. Vincent and Grenadines Association of Montreal. In fact, despite his many international commitments, he remained committed to his native St. Vincent and the Grenadines and it was he who, on the eve of the country’s independence, submitted a detailed policy statement to the government of St. Vincent outlining why the Grenadines should be included as an integral part of the country’s name. The crux of his argument was that the Grenadines should not be seen as mere appendages of the island of St. Vincent, and that the integrity of all of the smaller islands should be respected. His submission was adopted by the government, hence the name St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
A voluminous reader who possessed a remarkably analytical mind, a vivid memory, and an insatiable appetite for learning, Alfie Roberts was also a teacher who served as an advisor and resource to many – including several prime ministers in the Caribbean - before his untimely death on July 24, 1996.
Copyright © 2006 The Alfie Roberts Institute, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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