Caribbean independence emerged from parties, unions, and wartime nationalism

Evidence

Going to school as a bright, promising scholar and becoming politically involved, I was therefore interested in what was going on politically, namely, the formation of Jamaican political parties, the emergence of the trade unions and the labor movement after 1938, the beginnings of a nationalist independence movement at the end of the war; all of these were part of the postcolonial or decolonizing revolution. Jamaica began to move toward independence once the war was over. So bright kids like me and my friends, of varying colors and social positions, were nevertheless caught up in that movement, and that’s what we identified with. We were looking forward to the end of imperialism, Jamaica governing itself, self-autonomy for Jamaica. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 750

Categorization

• XREF: Dates the Jamaican labor movement to after 1938 and ties independence to wartime decolonization — a useful timeline anchor for understanding anticolonial movements the Islamophobia readings will parallel.