Forward Ever With Jacqueline Creft: the Paradox of Women's Liberation in the Caribbean Revolutionary Left

Abstract

This paper presents an intersectional analysis that interrogates race and gender in the study of Jacqueline Creft's role in the Grenada Revolution. She was a founding member of the New Jewel Movement (NJM), a leading female figure in the formation and consolidation of the short-lived Grenada Revolution, and the Minister of Education in the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). From 1979 to her death in 1983, she was responsible for leading one of the most significant successes of the revolution – the campaign to end illiteracy in Grenada. Through exploration of some gendered dimensions of the Grenada Revolution, we attempt to advance the record of Creft's contribution to education and development and rescue her political contribution from historiographical obscurity.