Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African Movement, 1869–1911

Marika Sherwood, Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2010. xvi + 354 pp. (Cloth US$125.00)

“…James (Williams's countryman), "that intellectual prodigy and indefatigable delver into the Caribbean past, … seemed somewhat uncertain exactly what Williams had done before and after July 1900" (Hooker 1975:2). Williams was resurrected almost forty years ago by two pioneering biographies-the first (1975) by J.R. Hooker, the American historian and biographer of George Padmore (another Trinidadian giant of the Pan-African movement), and the other by the Trinidadian journalist, Owen Mathurin (1976). Though valuable in their contribution and noble in their goals, both books suffer from the common affliction of pioneering work-incompleteness, unfinished business.…”