People, Locations, Episodes

Thu, 05.15.1919

Mary Eugina Charles, Caribbean Politician born

Mary Eugenia Charles, a Black politician, was born on this date in 1919.

She was a granddaughter of former slaves and one of five children of John Baptiste and Josephine Delauney from Pointe Michel, Dominica. Her father was the founder of the Penney Bank. Her three brothers were doctors, and her sister was a nun. Charles attended Catholic schools in Dominica and Grenada, and from 1942 to 1946, she went to the University College of the University of Toronto and received a B.A. in law. She continued her law studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

When she returned home in 1949, she became the first woman lawyer on this Caribbean island. When the Dominica Labor Party attempted to limit dissent with a sedition act in 1968, Charles became involved in politics. In 1970, she was appointed to the legislature and, in 1975, to the House of Assembly, where she became the opposition leader. She co-founded the Dominica Freedom Party, which helped Dominica win independence from Great Britain in 1978.

Two years later, Charles became prime minister of Dominica. She immediately began programs of economic reform to end government corruption. In 1983, Charles encouraged the U.S. invasion of Grenada to prevent Cuban infiltration of that island. Two years later, she won a second five-year term and became minister of foreign affairs, finance, economic affairs, and defense. In 1990, she won her third term as prime minister. Her primary concern was to improve the lives of the citizens. She encouraged tourism to a small degree but was determined to preserve the island's ecology and national identity.

There are no casinos, nightclubs, or duty-free shops in Dominica, and Charles wanted to keep it that way. This was in keeping with Dominica's motto, which, in Creole, is Aprus Bondie, c'est la Ter ("After God, the Earth"). Mary Eugenia Charles, who was prime minister of Dominica from 1980 to 1995, died in September 2005.

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