Check out some of the images, documents and other visual artifacts we uncovered during our two-year investigation
October 23, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
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Maurice Bishop, Grenada’s revolutionary leader, was executed in 1983 along with seven others. The whereabouts of her remains are unknown. For the past two years, we’ve been exploring this mystery, including the role the U.S. government played in shaping the Caribbean nation’s fate, for a six-part podcast. We interviewed more than 100 people, pored over archival photos, examined government documents and visited the sites where events took place. Here we share, episode by episode, some of the visual artifacts and other evidence we discovered.
Episode 1: “Someone Knows”
Our reporting began where it all began: in the courtyard of the military fort where 39-year-old Maurice Bishop, three cabinet ministers and four of his closest supporters were shot.
Photographer Jabin Botsford captured images of the fortress as it appears today. Once named after Bishop’s father Rupert, it is now known as Fort George.
You can still see bullet holes in the basketball pole.
When he came to power, Maurice Bishop was a charismatic young revolutionary who befriended communist leaders. We found photos of Bishop standing next to Cuban President Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, then a member of Nicaragua’s Sandinista junta, at a May 1, 1980 rally in Revolution Square in Cuba.
This was the height of the Cold War. US President Ronald Reagan viewed Grenada’s ties to Cuba – and therefore also to the Soviet Union – as a serious threat. He emphasized this in a live address on prime time television on March 23, 1983: “Grenada, we were told, was a friendly island paradise for tourism. Well, it wasn’t.”
A few months later, on June 5, Bishop came to New York to speak to an enthusiastic crowd. He read from what he said was a “secret State Department report” and told the audience that it revealed the real reason why the United States believed Grenada was a threat: “And if our country is 95 percent of predominantly African descent, “then we can have a dangerous appeal to 30 million black people in the United States.”
We have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department for the report cited by Bishop, but are still waiting. They told us that the “estimated date of completion” is January 31, 2025. We also asked the State Department’s Office of the Historian about the report and were told they had “no information or resources on this issue.”
Ultimately, it was not the United States but tensions within Bishop’s own party that led to his downfall. But archival photos like the one below, taken two days after his execution, show that Bishop had strong support among the Grenadiers even after his death.
This appeal is one of the reasons why this mystery still haunts not only the families of those who lost loved ones, but the entire nation of Grenada. Don Rojas, Bishop’s former press secretary, told us: “I believe it is time for us to bring this to a close and properly memorialize Bishop’s life and legacy. The time has come. It’s long overdue.”
To learn more, listen to Episode 1 of “Comrade Bishop’s empty grave” on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Episode 2: “We all had great expectations”
Grenada is an island nation with 125,000 inhabitants on the edge of the Caribbean. Many of the residents of this former British colony are descendants of enslaved Africans. (And if you heard “Grenada” and thought we were talking about a city in Spain, check out the handy map below.)
In the 1960s, when Bishop came of age, Grenada was still a poor country with many citizens still working on plantations, as her grandparents had done.
There were also families like the bishops. Maurice’s youngest sister, Ellen Bishop Spielman, shared this family photo and told us more about her family and her brother.
“We were very class-oriented. You couldn’t come into our lives if you weren’t in our class. If I left school and spoke to a taxi driver or a servant’s child, I would be reprimanded. We’re pretty stuck,” Spielman said.
Maurice “Was very nice, very good-looking of course,” she said. “He was my doll. You know, I remember one time he was taking a nap and I was playing with his hair and twisting most of his hair. And he got up and was in a rush for a date and couldn’t get her out.”
Ellen Bishop Spielman, Maurice Bishop’s younger sister, at home in St. George’s, Grenada. (Video: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Sir Eric Gairy was the country’s Prime Minister at the time. He was initially popular, but some Grenadians began to view him as power-hungry and corrupt, and he unleashed brutal violence against his political enemies. Here he is at a press conference in February 1974, joking that those who opposed him may have ended up in the cemetery for “natural reasons.”
Eric Gairy gives a press conference to mark his appointment as Grenada’s first prime minister in February 1974. (Video: AP)
The Grenadian Revolution, which Bishop helped lead, was a new beginning for many Grenadians. In addition to the radio reports you hear in this episode, we also found videos that capture life back then.
Scenes around Grenada in 1979. (Video: AP)
We also heard stories about the dark side of the revolution. As much as Bishop projected his idealistic vision of what Grenada had become, cracks quickly began to form. Here is a quote from his speech at Hunter College in June 1983: “The revolution has established as a law that no one, no matter who they are, should be allowed to engage in activities related to the overthrow of the government through the use of force to participate in armed violence. And anyone who moves in that direction will be ruthlessly destroyed.”
In 2001, the Grenadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate “certain political events” in the country, including activities during the revolution. The resulting report found that an estimated 3,000 people were arbitrarily arrested over the course of Bishop’s four-year rule. Some later said they had been beaten and tortured in prison.
There were also bitter power struggles within the ruling party. We interviewed several people who were committed members of the revolution. One of them, Christopher Stroude, had been a major in the Grenadian army.
“It was believed that the revolution would slow down. People were dissatisfied to varying degrees. We weren’t able to deal with the various issues that people were having,” Stroude said.
Christopher Stroude spent time in prison for the murder of Maurice Bishop. (Video: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
We compiled our October 19, 1983 report from interviews with 18 people who were there that day, including some who were later convicted for their involvement in the executions.
At least a dozen people were killed that day Shots. Others died or were injured when they jumped from the fort to escape the gunfire, falling onto boulders 50 to 60 feet deep.
Bishop and the seven others were lined up against a wall in the fortress and shot. While other people’s remains have been identified, the bodies of these eight people are still missing. We couldn’t find photos of all eight.
- Maurice Bishop, prime minister
- Unison Whiteman, Foreign Minister
- Jacqueline Creft, Minister of Education
- Norris Bain, Housing Minister
- Evelyn Bullen, businessman and Supporter of the bishop
- Evelyn Maitland, Businessman and supporter of the bishop
- Fitzroy Bain, Union leader and supporter of the bishop
- Keith Hayling, member of the Marketing & National Import Board and Bishop supporters
Annie Bain told us about her husband Norris Bain, who died that day along with Bishop: “Every October 19th something like this happens. This comes up every October 19, 1983. And no answer.”
But we found someone who has an answer.
To learn more, listen to “Comrade Bishop’s empty grave” on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Episodes 3 through 6 will be available early on Apple Podcasts for Washington Post subscribers. Link your Post subscription to Apple Podcast by searching for the Washington Post channel.
- Episode 1: “Someone knows”
- Episode 2: “We all had great expectations”
- Episode 3: Coming October 30th on Apple Podcasts and November 1st everywhere else
- Episode 4: Coming November 6th on Apple Podcasts and November 8th everywhere else
- Episode 5: Coming November 13th on Apple Podcasts and November 15th everywhere else
- Episode 6: Coming November 20th on Apple Podcasts and November 22nd everywhere else
Do you have a tip to share? Contact The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop team at [email protected].