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18th Annual FIU Eric Williams Memorial Lecture

The Caribbean and American Presidential Power: A Donald Trump Ascendancy

 MIAMIThe 18th Annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture will take place Friday, September 30, 2016 at Florida International University, 11200 Southwest Eighth Street, Miami, FL at the university’s Wertheim Performing Arts Center at 6:30 p.m.

The lecture is open to the public and admission is free; there will be a reception prior to and following the lecture.

Bharrat Jagdeo
Hon. Bharrat Jagdeo

The Honorable Bharrat Jagdeo, former President of Guyana, will address The Caribbean and American Presidential Power: A Donald Trump Ascendancy.

With the US elections in full swing, the world has its eyes on America. This year’s election has proven to be controversial on many levels with Donald Trump being the center of many debates and controversy. A former president himself, Jagdeo will address the election, presidential power and Donald Trump.

Bharrat Jagdeo was born in Guyana and has been active in its political life since the age of 13. Since graduating with a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in 1990, he has held several high-level governmental positions, ranging from Minister of Finance to President of Guyana from 1999-2011.

Jagdeo has also held a number of global leadership positions in the areas of sustainable development, green growth and climate change.

In 2008, he was named Time Magazine’s ‘Hero of the Environment’ and in 2010, the United Nations declared him to be one of its ‘Champions of the Earth Awardees.’ Mr. Jagdeo has also served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the IMF and World Bank Group in the past. He is currently his country’s Leader of the Opposition.

Eric E. Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
Eric Williams
Eric Williams

Established in 1999, the lecture series honors the distinguished Caribbean statesman Eric E. Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and Head of Government for a quarter of a century until his death in 1981.

He led the country to Independence from Britain in 1962 and onto Republicanism in 1976.

He was the author of several books including his seminal work, Capitalism & Slavery, which re-framed the historiography of the British trans-Atlantic slave trade and, it could be argued, its concomitant European incarnations.

Eric Williams Memorial Lecture Series

The lecture series, which seeks to provide an intellectual forum for the examination of pertinent issues affecting history and politics in the Caribbean and African Diaspora, has featured: the late John Hope Franklin, one of America’s premier historians of the African-American experience; the former President of the Republic of Zambia; the Prime Ministers of Jamaica, Saint Lucia; and Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; the former Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas; the former Attorney General and Leader of the Opposition in Barbados; the former First Lady of Jamaica; celebrated civil rights activist Angela Davis and prize-winning Haitian author Edwige Danticat, among others.

The Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture is co-sponsored by:  The Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs; Ruth K. and Shepard Broad Distinguished Lecture Series; Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center.

The Lecture is also supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum (EWMC) at the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago campus), which was inaugurated by former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998.  It was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.

The Lecture depends solely on the generosity of its patrons so contributions are welcome.

South Florida Caribbean News

The SFLCN.com Team provides news and information for the Caribbean-American community in South Florida and beyond.

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