Maurice Rupert Bishop (29 May 1944 - 19 October 1983) was a Grenadian revolutionary, politician, and leader of the New JEWEL Movement (NJM). The NJM prioritized socio-economic development, education, and black liberation. Bishop headed the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada (PRG) from 1979 to 1983. In October 1983, he was deposed as Prime Minister and executed during a coup engineered by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard.
Early Life and Education
Maurice Rupert Bishop was born on 29 May 1944 on the island of Aruba, then a colony of the Netherlands as part of the Territory of Curaçao. His parents, Rupert and Alimenta Bishop, came from the northeast of Grenada, where Rupert earned only five British pence per day. Until the age of six, Maurice was raised in Aruba with two older sisters, Ann and Maureen. In 1950, his father took the family back to Grenada and opened a small retail shop in the capital, St. George's.
Maurice was sent to study at the Wesleyan elementary school, but after a year Maurice was transferred to the Roman Catholic St George primary and high school. Maurice was already quite tall at age nine and was teased because his height made him look much older. As an only son, Maurice was pushed hard by his father to excel. Rupert would demand perfect grades from Maurice.
For his secondary education, Bishop received one of the four government scholarships for study at the Roman Catholic Presentation Brothers' College. He was elected president of the Student Council, of the Discussion Club, and of the History Study Group, along with editing the newspaper Student Voice and participating in sports. As he recalled, "Here I had much interest in politics, history and sociology." He established contacts with students from the Anglican Grenada Boys' Secondary School, his own school's competitors. He was an ardent supporter of the West Indies Federation, established in 1958, and the ideas of Caribbean nationalism. He also recalled the great interest that the 1959 Cuban Revolution aroused in him: "it did not matter what we heard on the radio or read in the colonial press. For us, it comes down to the courage and legendary heroism of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara. In those same years, Bishop and his colleagues became interested in reading the works of Julius Nyerere and Frantz Fanon.
Shortly before graduation, in early 1962, Bishop and Bernard Coard, a youth leader from Grenada Boys' Secondary School, created the Grenada Assembly of Youth Fighting for Truth. It was intended to raise political awareness among the island's youth through lively discussions over pressing issues. Members gathered on Fridays in St. George's main square and arranged open political debates among the people.
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In December 1963, the 19-year-old Bishop arrived in England to study law at the University of London. to study economics at Brandeis University. In 1966, Bishop received a Bachelor of Law degree at Gray's Inn in London. He often worked in the city as a postman or vegetable packer. From 1963 to 1966, he was president of the Students Association of Holborn College and in 1967 headed the association of students of the Royal College. While studying Grenadian history, Bishop focused on anti-British speeches and the life of slave revolt leader Julien Fédon, the head of the 1795 uprising. In 1964, Bishop participated in the UK's West Indian Standing Conference (WISC) and Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD). He visited socialist Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic. During this period he studied the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. From 1967 to 1969, Bishop worked on his thesis, "Constitutional Development of Grenada". However, he left it unfinished because of disagreements with his thesis supervisor in assessing the 1951 disturbances and general strike in Grenada. In 1969, he received a law degree and became one of the founders of the Legal Aid Office of the West Indies community in London's Notting Hill Gate. This was volunteer work; his main source of income came from his job in the civil service as a surtax examiner.
Return to Grenada and Political Activism
Returning to Grenada in December 1970, Bishop provided legal defence for striking nurses at St. George's General Hospital, who hoped to improve conditions for patients. He was arrested along with 30 other strike supporters. All were acquitted after a seven-month trial.
In 1972, Bishop helped organize a conference in Martinique that strategized actions for liberation movements. The philosophy of Julius Nyerere and his Tanzanian socialism were guiding elements for the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), which Bishop helped organize after the elections of 1972. In January 1973, MAP merged with the Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation (JEWEL) and the Organization for Revolutionary Education and Liberation (OREL) to form the New JEWEL Movement (NJM).
On 18 November 1973, Bishop and other leaders of the New Jewel Movement were driving in two cars from St George's to Grenville, where they were to meet with businessmen of the city. Police officers under Assistant Chief Constable Innocent Belmar overtook Bishop's motorcade. Nine people, including Bishop, were captured, arrested and beaten "almost to the point of death" by Belmar's police aides and by the paramilitary Mongoose Gang. In prison the arrested men shaved their beards, revealing Bishop's broken jaw.
Bishop joined a mass demonstration against Prime Minister Gairy on 21 January 1974. As Bishop's group returned to Otway House, they were pelted with stones and bottles by Gairy's security forces, who also used tear gas. Maurice's father Rupert was leading several women and children away from the danger when he was shot in the back and killed at the door of Otway House. The perpetrators were members of the Mongoose Gang who took orders from Gairy and "carried out campaigns of terror … After this traumatizing event, Bishop said, "we [the NJM] realized that we were unable to lead the working class" since the party had no influence in city workers' unions or among the rural folk loyal to Gairy.
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On 6 February 1974, the day before the proclamation of the independent state of Grenada, Bishop was arrested on charges of plotting an armed anti-government conspiracy. He was taken to the Fort George prison. Police said that while searching his house they found weapons, ammunition, equipment and uniforms, along with a plan to assassinate Eric Gairy in a nightclub, and a scheme for setting up guerrilla camps. Two days later, Bishop was released on $125 bail, and fled briefly to North America. On 29 March 1974, he was in Guyana participating in a meeting of the Regional Steering Committee of the Pan-African Congress. He also continued his law practice.
Leader of the Opposition
In 1976, Bishop was elected to represent St. George's South-East in Parliament. From 1976 to 1979, he held the position of Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives of Grenada. As such, he challenged the government of Prime Minister Gairy and his Grenada United Labour Party (GULP), which maintained power by threat and intimidation and by fraudulent elections. In May 1977, Bishop made his first visit to Cuba.
The Grenada Revolution
In 1979, Bishop's party staged a revolution and deposed Gairy, who was out of the country addressing the United Nations. After taking power, Bishop established a partnership with Cuba. He initiated a number of projects in Grenada, most significantly, the building of a new international airport on the island's southern tip (renamed in his memory in May 2009). Financing and labour for the construction of the airport came from Cuba, although most of the airport's infrastructure was designed by European and North American consultants.
Policies and Achievements
Among Bishop's core principles were workers' rights, women's rights, and the struggle against racism and apartheid. Under Bishop's leadership, the National Women's Organization was formed which participated in policy decisions along with other social groups. Women were given equal pay and paid maternity leave. Sex discrimination was made illegal. Organizations for education (Centre for Popular Education), health care, and youth affairs (National Youth Organization) were also established. The People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) was also formed during Bishop's administration. Critics claimed that the army was a waste of resources, and there were complaints that the PRA was used as a tool to commit human rights abuses, like detention of political dissidents. The establishment of voluntary mass organizations of women, farmers, youth, workers, and militia were presumed to make the holding of elections unnecessary.
Foreign Relations
In his role as Prime Minister, Bishop travelled abroad to cultivate relations and to inform the world about the Grenada Revolution. He delivered a speech to an enthusiastic audience at Hunter College in Brooklyn, New York. It would be his last international speech.
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Overthrow and Execution
In September 1983, simmering tensions within PRG leadership reached a boiling point. A faction within the party, led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, tried to make Bishop either step down or agree to a power-sharing arrangement. Bishop considered the matter for a couple of weeks, but ultimately rejected the proposal. In response, the Coard faction in conjunction with the PRA placed Bishop under house arrest on 13 October.
Large public demonstrations gathered to demand Bishop's release and his return to power. The protesters numbered as high as 30,000 on an island of 100,000, and even some of Bishop's guards joined the protests. Despite the sizable support, Bishop knew the determination of the Coard faction. On 19 October, a crowd of protesters managed to free Bishop from house arrest. He made his way, first by truck, then by car, to army headquarters at Fort Rupert (known today as Fort George), which he and his supporters were able to seize control of. At that point, Coard dispatched a military force from Fort Frederick to retake Fort Rupert. Bishop and seven others, including his cabinet ministers and aides, were captured. A four-man PRA firing squad executed Bishop and the others by machine-gunning them in the Fort Rupert courtyard. After Bishop was dead, a gunman slit his throat and cut off his finger to steal his ring. The bodies were transported to a military camp on the peninsula of Calivigny and partially burned in a pit.
Partly as a result of Bishop's murder, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and the nations of Barbados and Jamaica appealed to the United States for assistance, as did Sir Paul Scoon, Governor-General of Grenada.
Personal Life and Family
Maurice Bishop married nurse Angela Redhead in 1966. They had two children, John (born 1967) and Nadia (born 1969). Angela emigrated to Toronto, Canada, with both children in 1981, while Bishop was still prime minister. He also fathered a son, Vladimir Lenin Creft-Bishop (1978-1994), with his longtime partner Jacqueline Creft, who was Grenada's Minister of Education. Creft was killed alongside Bishop by the Fort Rupert firing squad on 19 October 1983.