W. Richard Jacobs, Amb.

Ambassador W. Richard Jacobs (1945-2021)

Ambassador W. Richard Jacobs, who contributed to significant social change in the Caribbean and Africa, died in Kingston, Jamaica on February 11, 2021. He was 76 years old. The son of W.G. Henson Jacobs, an Anglican/Episcopal priest, and Beatrice Edith Jacobs, Ambassador W. Richard Jacobs was born in Trinidad-Tobago. He spent his boyhood years there and in Grenada, where he attended the Grenada Boys Secondary School (GBSS). According to his sister, Mary, “even as a boy he showed leadership and was chosen for special roles. I recall that he made a presentation of a golden nutmeg to Princess Margaret who visited Grenada and was selected to play a cameo role in Island in the Sun, one of the first movies to be filmed in Grenada.

Ambassador Jacobs moved with his family to Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1958. He was the first person of colour to attend the Collegiate School for Boys in Manhattan, the oldest educational institution in the United States. He excelled there as a student, actor and athlete. He served as captain of the basketball team and co-captain of the football team. He attended Colby College in Maine for his freshman year, then transferred to warmer climes at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica in 1963.

At the University of the West Indies, he excelled in both scholarship and student leadership and was elected in 1966 as President of the Guild of Undergraduates. In 1968 he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to attend Oxford University in the United Kingdom (UK). While there, he married June Powell of Mandeville, Jamaica. They had two daughters, Olayinka and Nasolo. As part of his Rhodes Scholarship studies, Ambassador Jacobs went to Zambia, where he conducted research on the trade union movement in Africa.

He returned to Trinidad-Tobago in the mid-seventies, where he lectured for 10 years at UWI, St. Augustine. During his time in Trinidad, he also played a stellar role in rebranding and reorganizing the West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT) and in interacting with the progressive trade union organizations, which were becoming acutely aware of the role they were beginning to play in the national, regional and international politics of the post-independence period.

In Trinidad and Tobago itself, his major political contribution had to do with the role that he played in challenging the ascendancy of the Trinidad Islandwide Canefarmers Association (TICFA) which was notoriously deferential to the large companies which were still dominant in the agricultural economy dominated by sugar. Between 1973 and 1975 he and other militants campaigned for and finally achieved the organization of a new representative organization for cane farmers, the Islandwide Cane Farmers Trade Union (ICFTU).

Ambassador Jacobs compiled an extensive body of scholarship throughout his life. He was the author of numerable books and articles addressing social and political issues in the Caribbean and Africa. His subject matter ranged from the history of labour movements to historic perspectives of the Grenada Revolution. He was widely published.

In 1979 W. Richard Jacobs was appointed by the government of Grenada to be its first Ambassador to Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama where he served until 1982. In 1982 he was then appointed Ambassador to the USSR, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and the Non-Aligned Movement and served in that capacity until 1983.

He returned to Africa after his diplomatic service in 1983 and did extensive work in Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. He worked in Zambia for 6 years, as the Head of the Administrative Training Department at the National Institute of Public Administration, as well as the Head of Maxwell House Campus and Senior Lecturer at the United Nations Institute for Namibia, where and was responsible for training the Namibian Diplomatic corps (in exile) and preparing senior local government officials for tasks to be assumed in an independent Namibia.  He then worked at the University of Namibia until 1995 as the first Director of Strategic Planning and Development in the office of the Vice-Chancellor, where he helped to transform the then community college from a colonial apartheid model to an accredited Commonwealth university.

He worked tirelessly in the front-line states against the apartheid regime in South Africa and following the demise of apartheid, he moved to South Africa where he lived until 2014. During those years he became an active member of the ANC, serving as Special Advisor to Raymond Mhlaba (Rivonia trialist who was detained alongside Mr Nelson Mandela in Robben Island ) who was the Premier of the Eastern Cape government, after the first democratic elections. He was also a senior consultant to the Eastern Cape government and was instrumental in the success of rural development projects in tourism and agriculture, by providing mentorship to black South Africans who had been excluded and economically marginalised during apartheid.

Through his consultancy work in South Africa, Ambassador Jacobs was responsible for amalgamating three small Municipalities in the Eastern Cape - he facilitated change management - the training and policies are still being used today at the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. He worked with all key stakeholders in this region, including the Municipal trade unions, to empower Black South Africans in a newly independent nation. Additionally, through the National Treasury, he worked with the Kouga Local Municipality to assist with Poverty Alleviation programmes through economic development and empowerment.

Ambassador Jacobs also served variously as a lecturer at the University of Fort Hare and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and was an entrepreneur with several business interests. He subsequently returned to the Caribbean, spending his final days in Jamaica.

He is survived by his daughters Olayinka Jacobs-Bonnick, Nasolo Thompson, Khwezi Jacobs and son Osagyefo Jacobs; son-in-laws Michael Bonnick and Mendel Thompson; grandchildren Temujin and Mowan Bonnick, Safiya, Ariela, Sorya and Joshua Thompson; his sisters, Mary Nelson of New Brunswick, NJ, Monica Murphy of Philadelphia, PA and their families; his brothers, C. Godfrey Jacobs of Baltimore MD and Ian Jacobs of Cape Town, South Africa and their families. He is also survived by his former spouse and comrades in the struggle for freedom and equal rights around the world.

A virtual memorial service, officiated by Canon Garth Minott of the UWI Chapel, was held on Zoom on March 13, 2021 to celebrate the life of the late Ambassador W. Richard Jacobs.