www.ari-iar.org >About the ARI >Historical Tradition and Context of The ARI

One of the basic tenets of The Alfie Roberts Institute is that a small, focused and well-organized group can play an important role in influencing the process of social change at local, national, and international levels. Two organizations - the International African Service Bureau and the Caribbean Conference Committee - serve as positive examples of how groups, small in number but well-organized, can have a wide, far-reaching impact if their vision is clear. They also reflect the organizational tradition in which The Alfie Roberts Institute situates itself.

The International African Service Bureau (IASB) was founded in London in the mid-1930s by George Padmore and C.L.R. James, two Caribbean nationals from Trinidad. The Bureau was an outgrowth of the International Friends of Abyssinia, a group founded in England by James in order to mobilize support for Ethiopia which was struggling against Italian colonial aggression in the mid-1930s. Other members of the IASB organization included Amy Ashwood Garvey (Jamaica), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Eric Williams (Trinidad and Tobago) and Namdi Azikiwe (Nigeria). Though small in number, this group was able to rally support behind the African struggles for independence, both locally and internationally, and, in the process, educated countless people on politics and independence struggle. It was out of the core of this group that the historic Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England, was organized. This Congress, convened by George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Amy Ashwood Garvey, Peter Abrahams (South Africa) and chaired by renowned Pan-Africanist W.E.B. DuBois (United States), helped lay the theoretical framework, particularly in the former British colonies, for the independence movements that exploded on the African continent following World War II. The International African Service Bureau exercised a great deal of influence and had a tremendous impact, well out of proportion to the number of people actually involved in the organization. No one who was interested in political developments in Africa was unaware of its existence.

The Caribbean Conference Committee (CCC) is another example of how a small group can have significant impact locally and internationally. Based in Montreal in the mid 1960s, the CCC’s members included Alvin Johnson (Jamaica), Hugh O’Neale (Grenada), Robert Hill (Jamaica), Alfie Roberts (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Franklyn Harvey (Grenada), Gene Depradine (Barbados), Bridget Joseph (Grenada), Tim Hector (Antigua and Barbuda), Ann Cools (Barbados), Rosie Douglas (Dominica), and Gloria Simmons (Bermuda). Beginning in 1965, the group organized a series of conferences featuring writer George Lamming (Barbados), C.L.R. James, among others, along with other community activities, which helped create the climate for important social developments in Montreal, Canada, and throughout the Caribbean. C.L.R. James was an integral part of the CCC’s activities and had a considerable influence on its members, conducting study sessions with them while delivering public lectures. Through its activities, the CCC helped create an atmosphere in Montreal which directly contributed to the tremendous social gains that people of African and Caribbean descent achieved in this country in the sixties and seventies while significantly impacting developments throughout the Caribbean.

The Alfie Roberts Institute also draws on the experience of a number of other organizations that sprung up in the wake of the work of Caribbean Conference Committee. These organizations include the Montreal-based Caribbean International Service Bureau (late 1960s and into the 1970s), the Emancipation 150 Committee (1980s), and the Black International Service Committee (1990s), all of which worked in the tradition and spirit of IASB and CCC.