|
Norman Washington Manley was born at Roxborough, Manchester,
on July 4, 1893.
He was a brilliant scholar and athlete, soldier (First World
War) and lawyer.
He identified himself with the cause of the workers at the
time of the labour troubles of 1938 and donated time and advocacy to the cause.
In September 1938, Manley founded the People’s National Party
(PNP) and was elected its President annually until his retirement 31 years later.
Manley and the PNP supported the trade union movement, then
led by Alexander Bustamante, while leading the demand for Universal Adult Suffrage. When
Suffrage came, Manley had to wait ten years and two terms before his party was elected to
office.
He was a strong advocate of the Federation of the West
Indies, established in 1958, but when Sir Alexander Bustamante declared that the
opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) would take Jamaica out of the Federation, Norman
Manley, already renowned for his integrity and commitment to democracy, called a
referendum, unprecedented in Jamaica, to let the people decide.
The vote was decisively against Jamaica’s continued
membership of the Federation. Norman Manley, after arranging Jamaica’s orderly withdrawal
from the union, set up a joint committee to decide on a constitution for separate
independence for Jamaica.
He himself chaired the committee with great distinction and
then led the team that negotiated our independence from Britain.
The issue settled, Manley again went to the people. He lost
the ensuing election of the JLP and gave his last years of service as Leader of the
Opposition, establishing definitively the role of the parliamentary opposition in
developing nation.
In his last public address to an annual conference of the
PNP, he said: "I say that the mission of my generation was to win self government for
Jamaica. To win political power which is the final power for the black masses of my
country from which I spring. I am proud to stand here today and say to you who fought that
fight with me, say it with gladness and pride, Mission accomplished for my generation’.
"And what is the mission of this generation?… It is…
reconstructing the social and economic society and life of Jamaica".
Norman Manley died on September 2, 1969.
|
