The BGLU was founded in 1919, emerging as a labour union amongst black dockworkers. Led by Hubert Critchlow. It soon expanded into a colony-wide labour movement.Whitten, Norman E., and Arlene Torres. Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations. Blacks in the Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 148. BGLU was not the first trade union in the Caribbean, but was the first to be legally registered.Honychurch, Lennox. The Caribbean People. Surrey: Nelson Caribbean, 1995, p. 118.
