George Odlum - Career

Career

During the early 1960s, St Lucia and the other West Indies Associated States were British colonies, with a limited degree of self-rule. In St Lucia, the Saint Lucia Labour Party was considered the traditional party for "political and constitutional advance" but, despite this, it lost the general election in 1964 to the United Workers Party, a right-wing party led by John Compton that continued to rule until 1979. In response Odlum, a socialist, founded the Saint Lucia Forum, a pressure group that discussed "the socialist and black cultural ideas which were beginning to challenge the Caribbean status quo". This was part of a group of Forums established in 1970 following secret talks with other left-wing Caribbean intellectuals, including Maurice Bishop. In 1972 Odlum left his job with the Council of Ministers to form the St Lucia Action Movement, which later merged with a weakened Labour Party in time for the 1974 general election.

Odlum's faction of the Labour Party did most of the work in the election, building their power base among the banana-producing small farmers, with Odlum leading frequent strikes in an attempt to improve working conditions. His work in the 1974 election, along with his "good looks and charisma", yielded a safe seat in Castries, which he allowed his brother to run for. Odlum instead chose to campaign for a rural seat held by the United Workers Party, which he lost by a small margin. Despite the Labour Party still being in opposition in Saint Lucia, socialism and left-wing politics were on the rise in the Caribbean as a whole and, during his time out of Parliament, Odlum was the public face of socialism in the region.

Saint Lucia gained full independence in 1979. Immediately beforehand, Odlum organised large protests in front of international news cameras, further cementing his role in the region's communist and socialist movement. Three weeks after independence, the nearby country of Grenada saw the overthrow of its government by communists revolutionaries led by Maurice Bishop. When the United Workers Party called a general election in Saint Lucia three weeks later, Compton's government fell — Odlum was returned to Parliament and the Labour Party, led by Allan Louisy, came to power.