Politics in an Island State

During the decades of the mid-twentieth century, Wills O. Isaacs was a prominent member of the Peoples National Party. He was then, and remains, one of Jamaicas most controversial figures; beloved by many and reviled by some both within and beyond his party. Isaacs joined the Peoples National Party soon after its official launch in 1938. Quickly he became a leading nationalist, and a strategist within the PNP. Isaacs early work was in union organization and in building local constituency groups, including one intended to attract the commercial class. Another, formed in downtown Mathews Lane, brought him notoriety. In later years, Group 69 was sometimes seen as a precursor to Kingstons garrisons and the wars between constituencies allied to one or the other major party. Isaacs first elected position was on the KSAC council where he served from 1943 to 1954. Elected to parliament in 1949, he held a Central Kingston seat until 1967. In that year, he was elected to the rural constituency of St Ann North East and re-elected in 1972. Throughout his career, Isaacs was a nationalist and a social democrat who identified as a socialist. As a champion of the unemployed and the racially vilified, he condemned capitalisms social failures. He also condemned the market failures involved in cartels and private monopolies. Consequently, he supported some nationalization, especially of Jamaicas central services. Yet, he did not foreclose on capitalism and looked for a dtente between classes. His main target was totalitarianism, both of the right and the left, and of the various nineteenth and twentieth century imperialisms. Isaacs nationalist ire was raised equally by British treatment of African peoples of the trans-Atlantic, and by the fate of Europeans overwhelmed in turn by Nazi Germany and Stalins Russia. He described the path of the PNP as one between the red shirts and the black shirts.