Eric Williams - Shift To Public Life

Shift To Public Life

In 1944 he was appointed to the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission. In 1948 Williams returned to Trinidad as the Commission's Deputy Chairman of the Caribbean Research Council. In Trinidad, Williams delivered a series of educational lectures for which he became famous. In 1955 after disagreements between Williams and the Commission, the Commission elected not to renew his contract. In a famous speech at Woodford Square in Port of Spain, he declared that he had decided to "put down his bucket" in the land of his birth. He rechristened that enclosed park, which stood in front of the Trinidad courts and legislature, "The University of Woodford Square", and proceeded to give a series of public lectures on world history, Greek democracy and philosophy, the history of slavery, and the history of the Caribbean to large audiences drawn from every social class.

Read more about this topic:  Eric Williams

Famous quotes containing the words public life, shift to, shift, public and/or life:

    Hilary Clinton’s great sin was that she left the nicely wallpapered domestic sphere with a slam of the door, took up public life on her own, leaving big feminist footprints all over the place, and without so much as an apology.
    Patricia J. Williams (b. 1942)

    Someone had literally run to earth
    In an old cellar hole in a byroad
    The origin of all the family there.
    Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
    That now not all the houses left in town
    Made shift to shelter them without the help
    Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,” answered Holmes thoughtfully. “It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.”
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)

    There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    Whoever influences the child’s life ought to try to give him a positive view of himself and of his world. The child’s future happiness and his ability to cope with life and relate to others will depend on it.
    Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)