AUSTIN, Texas – The 24th Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture will take place at 7:15 p.m. (EST) on Thursday, April 2, 2026 at the Boyd Vance Theatre, George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, Austin, Texas. The event, with a reception before at 6:15 p.m. is free and open to the public.
Live-streaming will be available, and post-Lecture viewing accessible on the University of Texas at Austin’s Warfield Center YouTube channel.
After a record 19 consecutive years at Florida International University (FIU), in 2021 the Lecture found a new home at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.
An online exhibition of portions of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection Museum at The University of the West Indies (UWI, Trinidad and Tobago) is also available for viewing.
Featured Speaker: Marlon James
As the celebrated author of five novels, Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. His first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction. It was also a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
His New York Times bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2019. In addition, his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
James is also the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award.
“Marlon James is a writer of exceptional talent and range,” says Warfield Center Director and literary scholar Dr. Jennifer Wilks.
“As Eric Williams was a scholar whose deep knowledge of history informed his vision for an independent Trinidad and Tobago, so James is an artist who deftly moves between immersive historical fiction and captivating epic fantasy, delving into the nuances of the past to imagine the possibilities of the future.”
Eric Williams Memorial Lecture
Established in 1999 at FIU, the Eric Williams Memorial Lecture honors the legendary Caribbean statesman, eminent historian, and author of several books.
His 1944 groundbreaking study Capitalism and Slavery arguably re-framed the historiography of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade. It also established the contribution of Caribbean slavery to the development of both Britain and America. Furthermore, it has been translated into 11 languages: Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Turkish, Korean among them (with German and Dutch the most recent).
The Williams Thesis
An 82-year-old still highly controversial and provocative text, it is popularly referred to as The Williams Thesis. The book argues among other propositions, that slave trade revenue fueled the rise of the British Industrial Revolution. It also states that its declining profitability, not solely humanitarianism, gave the impetus to British abolition. Never out of print in the US, when a mass market edition was produced in March 2022 Capitalism and Slavery was listed at #5 on the UK Sunday Times Bestseller list.
Eric Williams was also the 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. Furthermore, he led it to Republican status in 1976.
Eric Williams Memorial Lecture Speakers
Among prior Eric Williams Memorial Lecture speakers have been: the late John Hope Franklin, one of America’s premier historians of the African American experience; Kenneth Kaunda, former President of the Republic of Zambia; Cynthia Pratt, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas; Mia Mottley, now Prime Minister of Barbados; Beverly Anderson-Manley, former First Lady of Jamaica; former Prime Ministers of Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; prize-winning Haitian author Edwige Danticat; award-winning author, historian and educator, Dr. Carol Anderson of White Rage fame; CNN anchor Abby Phillip, and renowned activist Dr. Angela Davis in both 2003 and 2023.
The Lecture aims to provide an intellectual forum. It examines key issues in Caribbean and African Diaspora history and politics. The Lecture is co-sponsored in part by UT’s Michener Center for Writers and the New Writers Project.
It is also co-sponsored by the Caribbean Studies Initiative. It is part of the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS). Addiyional co-sponsors include the City of Austin, the Texas Book Festival, Mr. & Mrs. Leroy Lashley and Jerry Nagee.
The Lecture is also supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum at The University of the West Indies, which was inaugurated by former US Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998. It was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.
Books by and about Eric Williams will be available for purchase at the Lecture.
