Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh

“…Al­bert Gomes fad­ed from na­tion­al con­scious­ness… His suc­cess­es are for­got­ten…” This analy­sis by Je­re­my Tay­lor, in 2004 in Caribbean Beat, ac­cu­rate­ly de­picts the man­ner in which a fight­er for the voice­less and dis­pos­sessed has been rel­e­gat­ed to the dust­bin of Caribbean his­to­ry.

We are un­aware of the mon­u­men­tal con­tri­bu­tions of Gomes, who was heavy­set and had po­lit­i­cal clout. He was born in Bel­mont in 1911 and died in Eng­land in 1978. He was of Por­tuguese de­scent and had a colour­ful life. Gomes mi­grat­ed to the USA to study jour­nal­ism at City Col­lege in New York from 1928-1930. Af­ter he re­turned to T&T, he be­came ac­tive in pub­lic life. Dur­ing the 1930s he was a phar­ma­cist and would be elect­ed to the Port-of-Spain City Coun­cil.

He edit­ed the Bea­con (1931-1933) and in his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy, de­scribed the mag­a­zine as “…the fo­cus of a move­ment of en­light­en­ment spear­head­ed by Trinidad’s an­gry young men of the Thir­ties.”

Gomes’ con­nec­tion with the grass­roots was un­de­ni­able as he was against the cen­sor­ship of the ca­lyp­so, sup­port­ed a stig­ma­tised steel­band move­ment and spear­head­ed the re­peal of the 1917 Shouter Bap­tist Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance.

By 1943, Al­bert Gomes and Quintin O’Con­nor were lead­ers of the Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers Trade Union (FW­TU). Gomes re­count­ed their cru­cial role in res­cu­ing the union from col­lapse, “When Quintin and I took over the Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers Trade Union, its to­tal mem­ber­ship was eleven. Our of­fice was the kitchen of an old build­ing in one of the slum head­quar­ters of Port-of-Spain. I par­tic­u­lar­ly re­mem­ber those ear­ly ef­forts to or­gan­ise shop clerks. Quintin and I held our meet­ings in Wood­ford Square, a park in the heart of the shop­ping dis­trict of Port-of-Spain…our aim was to cap­ture their at­ten­tion as they passed through the Square. We hoped this way to be­gin our in­doc­tri­na­tion…more of­ten we were ad­dress­ing the grass and trees, and a few va­grants.”

Af­ter his fail­ure to at­tract the cler­i­cal work­ers, Gomes used his in­flu­ence as a mem­ber of the City Coun­cil in 1938 to suc­cess­ful­ly in­cor­po­rate the mu­nic­i­pal work­ers in­to a re­newed FW­TU. Gomes re­flect­ed on his role, “We be­gan to or­gan­ise mu­nic­i­pal work­ers in­to the Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers Trade Union and were very suc­cess­ful, es­pe­cial­ly among the scav­enger gangs, the street-sweep­ers and those who bur­row, of­ten on their bel­lies, in­to the dark and mal­odor­ous labyrinth of un­der­ground drains be­neath the sur­face of Port-of-Spain’s streets to wage war un­end­ing­ly with their brooms against the cease­less slime and de­bris. These work­ers, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of them In­di­ans, took to tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and died with a tru­ly re­mark­able ease and celer­i­ty. Lit­tle per­sua­sion was re­quired to arouse them to unit­ed ac­tion against their em­ploy­ers.”

Gomes and O’Con­nor led a cam­paign against Cap­tain Arthur Cipri­ani (the May­or of Port-of-Spain) and the City Coun­cil. The FW­TU was suc­cess­ful in ne­go­ti­a­tions for in­creased wages and im­proved work­ing con­di­tions for scav­engers. This vic­to­ry was pri­mar­i­ly through the ef­forts of both union lead­ers, who in­spired a scav­enger strike in the city which last­ed for sev­er­al days.

In the af­ter­math, the FW­TU worked in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Tubal Uri­ah But­ler’s po­lit­i­cal par­ty—the British Em­pire Work­ers and Cit­i­zens Home Rule Par­ty (BEW+ CHRP). Gomes pro­mot­ed co-op­er­a­tive ef­forts be­tween both unions—“I have great

sym­pa­thy with and re­spect for the Home Rule Move­ment and for But­ler and Ram­sar­ran and for those mem­bers of the Ne­gro Wel­fare who had been con­sis­tent in the strug­gle.”

Fur­ther­more, Gomes de­vel­oped a close re­la­tion­ship with But­ler’s al­lies in the Ne­gro Wel­fare Cul­tur­al and So­cial As­so­ci­a­tion (NWC­SA). He al­so be­friend­ed But­lerites in La Brea and Point Fortin, where at least 140 work­ers of the La Brea branch of the FW­TU to­geth­er with of­fi­cers of the BEW+ CHRP worked to­geth­er in mo­bil­is­ing work­ers of the as­phalt in­dus­try. They pledged to strug­gle for “the eman­ci­pa­tion of the As­phalt in­dus­try.”

In 1946, Gomes be­came a mem­ber of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil and had to end his as­so­ci­a­tion with the FW­TU. Four years lat­er he was ap­point­ed our coun­try’s first Min­is­ter of Labour, Com­merce and In­dus­try.

Je­re­my Tay­lor not­ed, “Gomes was con­vinced that no “white” cre­ole could lead the na­tion­al­ist move­ment in­to self-gov­ern­ment and in­de­pen­dence, no mat­ter how great his con­tri­bu­tion had been.” This per­cep­tion is rel­e­vant in 2026.

In the Caribbean we tend to judge per­sons who are light-skinned, such as Al­bert Gomes, as priv­i­leged or be­long­ing to the wealthy one per cent of the pop­u­la­tion. Fur­ther­more, some of us use re­li­gion, race/eth­nic­i­ty or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion in de­ter­min­ing who is a hero or hero­ine. As a re­sult, pa­tri­ots such as Gomes have un­for­tu­nate­ly been white­washed from Caribbean his­to­ry.