Joseph Matthew Sebastian

Joseph Matthew Sebastian (7 July 1891 – 25 June 1944) was a Caribbean trade union leader and politician.

Joseph Matthew Sebastian was born in 1891 in Johnson's Point, in the Parish of St. Mary, Antigua. Following this, he studied to be a teacher. Upon completion of this part of his education, he attended the Mico College in Jamaica from which he graduated first in the class, and with first class honours (he was 15 years old). He pursued a long career as an educator before he left that profession to pursue the cause of the workers in St. Kitts.

On January 8, 1913, Sebastian married Miss Inez Veronica Hodge, which resulted in 12 children.

In 1917, two Kittitian men returned to St. Kitts: Frederick Solomon and George Wilkes (who both lived in the U.S.). They were joined by Joseph Alexander Nathan, who had left New York some years earlier. All three had been inspired by Marcus Garvey (in 1916), and started spreading Garvey's message: of new hope for poor Blacks. Mr. Nathan was already established in St. Kitts as a merchant, and he decided to help establish and pioneer a movement whose goal was to eradicate hunger and poverty of the working class, and establish an acceptable standard of living. The association that these men formed was the Universal Benevolent Association. In addition, the Universal Benevolent Association was responsible for teaching reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. In addition, The Association encouraged saving and banking, and a death benefit plan.

In 1918, J. M. Sebastian became the President of the Universal Benevolent Association.

Together, Solomon, Wilkes, and Nathan founded an organization called the "Union", to help the poor, disenfranchised, marginalized, and underprivileged, in particular, those working in the sugar cane fields and at the Sugar Factory, in St. Kitts. F. Solomon was the President, J. Nathan was the Secretary, and G. Wilkes was the Treasurer.

In 1921, the Union acquired its own newspaper, The Union Messenger, which became the mouthpiece for its message of social reform and reconstruction. However, the newspaper needed an editor. It was at this point that J. M. Sebastian resigned his teaching position, joined the three pioneers, and became the newspaper's Managing Editor, and President of the Union. In addition, before his death, Sebastian bought the rights to the newspaper, and he owned the printing press that was used at The Union Messenger. Upon Sebastian's death, ownership was passed to his widow, Mrs. Inez Veronica Sebastian, who then allowed the newspaper to continue to use the printing press (in perpetuity), and she appointed Joseph Nathaniel France the editor of The Union Messenger.

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