Beyond Antagonism

This essay proposes a reappraisal of Otto and Hermina Huiswoud’s engagement with the Caribbean. The Huiswouds do not fit neatly in the stories of British Caribbean revolt of the 1930s, nor do they appear to be major figures shaping what was happening. They typically appear in tales of antagonism between two other major features of the decade: Garveyism and the Black Communist fellow travelers who departed the Comintern while they remained. Both instances of antagonism might instead be understood through what the author emphasizes are the intellectual points of convergence among overlapping—yet very distinctive—radicalisms. Via the Negro Worker, the organ of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, the Huiswouds participated in this intellectual ferment emanating from the Caribbean and crucially hooked into African continental and diasporic readings of colonial rule and economic exploitation.