Black Tuesday - 50th Anniversary

BLACK TUESDAY

1

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

2

BLACK TUESDAY

50th Anniversary Message from The Rt. Honourable Perry G. Christie, MP, SC Leader, Progressive Liberal Party

My Fellow Bahamians, It is entirely fitting and appropriate that the Nation pauses on the 27th day of April 2015 to remember and salute the importance of Black Tuesday and its 50th anniversary.

The modern Bahamas did not come about by accident. Rather it was achieved through long and selfless struggle and sacrifice by men and women, many of whom have since gone onto their heavenly reward.

To reflect on how young most of these leaders of that time were, and to appreciate the fact that persons senior to them were prepared to follow their leaders; and participate in a process which offered no treasure other than that the lives of their fellowmen and the conditions under which they endured in their country would be improved, is itself remarkable and commendable.

In today’s Bahamas where so often there is a catastrophic abundance of uninformed opinion attached to personal attacks and vile and vicious conjecture, it is refreshing to look back at the harsh and difficult period to which our national heroes inured 50 years ago and appreciate their civility, humanity and decency in the face of the most difficult of odds.

The Bahamas will long owe a debt of gratitude to Lynden Pindling, Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Ena “Mama Do” Hepburn, Jeffrey Thompson, Carlton Elisha Francis, Orville A. Turnquest, Paul L. Adderley, Warren Levarity, Doris L. Johnson, Dr. H. W. Brown, Clement T. Maynard, Arthur A. Foulkes , Arthur Dion Hanna, Randol Fawkes, Spurgeon Bethel, Beryl Hanna, Marguerite Pindling and the other scores of participants who stood on the brink of history.

Black Tuesday, 50 years later summons every Bahamian to do their part to create a wonderful and transparent democracy and to continue to seek to build a just society where the economy of this country is accessible The Rt. Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie Prime Minister

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

„

„

BLACK TUESDAY

3

Demonstrations are necessary to bring about desirable change.

-Premier Lynden Pindling 1968 Speech at Yoga Retreat

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

4

BLACK TUESDAY

Message from Bradley B. Roberts National Chairman, Progressive Liberal Party

I am both humbled and delighted to add my voice to such an auspicious occasion in the modern political development of The Bahamas.

The National Workers’ Strike of 1958, the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the attainment of the voting franchise in 1962; the attainment of Majority Rule of 1967 and our 1973 Independence rank among the other major historic events that shaped the modern Bahamas we enjoy and live in today.

As we reflect on our fair Commonwealth fifty years later, we should take pride in our accomplishments as a people such as our legendary stable democracy which is one of the oldest in the region; equality in the voting franchise and participatory democracy; our relatively high standard of living and stable economy; universal access to primary and secondary education; and the freedom of upward mobility.

Although we have much to be thankful for and Almighty God has brought this country from a mighty long way, there is much land to be possessed. Income inequality and economic justice continue to register as one of the unfulfilled promises of the era of Black Tuesday and Majority Rule. On this occasion I urge all Bahamians to not only agitate for greater economic participation in the ownership of the Bahamian economy, but to live up to their part of the social contract, become partners with the governments and exploit ownership opportunities as the government works to diversify the Bahamian economy. This process begins with education and training.

Fifty years later, too many of our young people have squandered the hard fought freedoms secured by our forefathers and are wreaking social havoc on this country. They have disgracefully betrayed the promises of Majority Rule by having no self-respect, no respect for personal property and no regard for human life. The mandate of this generation is to accept the proverbial baton of leadership from the Majority Rule generation and safely deliver this country to the next generation of leaders a more civil, stronger, safer and richer.

Celebrating the golden jubilee of Black Tuesday gives us cause to pause and reflect on from whence we came as a nation; to analyze the many teachable moments of that era in our national development so that we may take stock, recalibrate our national priorities where necessary and to vigorously strive toward our ultimate goal which is to move forward, upward and onward together in building the best little country on earth.

Sincerely, Bradley B. Roberts National Chairman Progressive Liberal Party

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

„

BLACK TUESDAY

5

„

I am not going to sit down. I don’t abide by this 15 minutes business. Its darned foolishness.

-Milo B. Butler MHA South Central District

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

6

BLACK TUESDAY

Message from the Honourable Obadiah H. Wilchcombe MP Chairman of the 50th Anniversary of Black Tuesday Committee Progressive Liberal Party Greetings.

I am especially privileged to have been invited by Mr. Bradley Roberts, our National Chairman, to head the 50th Anniversary of Black Tuesday Recognition and Celebrations for our party.

Black Tuesday as an official publication of the Progressive Liberal Party is replete with the great and vibrant history of the movers and shakers and colourful and larger than life personalities, who stepped forward in the mid 1950s to chart a new direction for the Bahamian people when they came together to establish the first political party in The Bahamas, the PLP. It had never been done before and in terms of the times in which the Party was established, it was a bold, innovative and as subsequent history would establish, a step that would reverberate down through the ages, even to present times.

The bold but risky political action of 27th April, 1965 has gone down in history as Black Tuesday. Many of the heroes and heroines of that day have passed on but their story and their heroism is amply brought to life in this publication. We thank God for those heroes who walked that stage on April 27th 1965 and who are still with us today:-. Sir Orville A. Turnquest, Sir Arthur A. Foulkes, The Honourable Arthur Dion Hanna and Dame Marguerite Pindling, and Effie Walkes, among countless others whose names were lesser known. There were leaders but there were ordinary men and women who walked with the leaders on that fateful Tuesday. They will always be remembered.

Looking forward to the next 50 years, I think Bahamians everywhere would agree with me that thanks to that one single galvanizing moment, we, as a people, are on course as a nation. We are deepening our hard won democracy, healing old fissures and wounds and finally finding the courage and honesty; to confront head on, the issues that led to Black Tuesday. We must continue to do so without rancour, division or dishonesty.

Yes, there was a time in Bahamaland when a mighty White Oligarchy strode the land, Colonialism denuded all and sundry of their true national identity and pride. There was a time in our land when there was lack of opportunity for the vast majority of our people: lack of opportunity in education, employment and housing, to kanme but a few areas. But, bustling within the hearts of every freedom loving Bahamian was an urge to cast off this uncomfortable mantle and breathe in the winds of change that were sweeping the free world.

Black Tuesday set the stage for White and Black Bahamians who hitherto before had been disfranchised from their true worth and value to create a Bahamian Dream and to achieve and attain any office in this country. Since that great day on April 27th 1965, we have sworn in three Black Prime Ministers at Government House where nine Bahamian Governors General have served since 1973.

As a politician of this era, Black Tuesday beckons me to call on the young people of my country to pause for a second to study and to read and to learn about the struggles and sacrifices that our National Heroes made in order for us to inherit the country we live in today.

I want to also humbly admonish our young people to take a page from a chapter in the epoch story of Black Tuesday and come to appreciate how much national good has been achieved when there are set national goals and the leadership and the people are on one accord.

As we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Black Tuesday we remember and all those who are now in the pantheon of our national history. There were leaders but there was, also, those great and mostly unsung Bahamians who are the foundation upon which our deepening democracy is built. It is our duty to BUILD on what they achieved and to end the madness of crime, man’s inhumanity to man, irresponsible and reckless public conduct and more importantly we must shun and avoid the rear guard activists who use social media and other platforms in their mean spirited and unpatriotic campaign to achieve dubious and non-productive personal agenda. They do a disservice to the memory and to the sacrifices of those who stove to build a better Bahamas.

The Mace and the two Hour Glasses were symbolic of the people and the people’s business and the people’s country.

50 years later let’s continue to get it right.

Sincerely, Obadiah Wilchcombe MP Chairman Black Tuesday 50th Anniversary Committee

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

BLACK TUESDAY

7

BLACK

TUESDAY Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

„

This is the symbol of authority, and authority on this island belongs to the people; and the people are outside. Yes the people are outside and the Mace belongs outside too.

- L. O. Pindling, April 27th 1965

„

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

8

BLACK TUESDAY

F

or 200 years the Minority’s governance was absolute and unchallenged. Their wealth and privilege was professed as a divine entitlement and fortuitous for the Black Majority, up from slavery; was the patrimony and magnanimous social acceptance the minority may allow.

vantages and risks; the hunger for freedom continued to stir in the belly of the Bahamian masses.

In 1958, having learned the cruel lesson of disorganized labour agitation during the Burma Road tragedy, and having garnered new skills absorbed on the Contract in the Northern and Southern United States, where Black Bahamians were hired as crop pickers; the Colony endured The General Strike which lasted for 26 days.

Through inglorious deference and a regimented structure which was a devout and strict detail of Colonial rule, minorities enforced their rule with a

Police Force comprising steady recruitments from other Caribbean colonies and the United Kingdom; and the backup insurance of the frequent pres-

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

ence of British military, might and fire power, such as was seen in the Burma Road Riot of 1942. Yet against these seemingly insurmountable disad-

The new Minority heirs of governance and control relished their title as “The Bay Street Boys”. Bay Street the main thoroughfare of the City of Nassau.

It was where they controlled the economy, had their professional and service offices, their shops, and varying enterprises and more importantly, The House of Assembly, The Legislative

BLACK TUESDAY

Council, all within the shadows of a jail and a police station.

The Progressive Liberal Party was formed in 1953, introducing party politics to the colony.

Less than five years later its complexion had changed and it would have as its illustrious members the distinguished men and women, who are regarded today as National Heroes of the highest order.

Lynden O. Pindling was its colourful leader with a voice, charisma and presence that commanded the support and attention of the masses Cecil

Wallace Whitfield became its National Chairman and served from 1962 to the eventful 1967 general election. In its ranks were Arthur Foulkes, Paul L. Adderley, Arthur Dion Hanna, Orville Turnquest, Warren Levarity, Clement T. Maynard, Milo Boughton Butler, Cyril Stevenson, Doris Johnson, Eugenie Lockhart, Bertha Isaacs, Clifford Darling, Granville Smiley Butler, Fernley Palmer, Percy Munnings, Donald Nine Rolle, Jeffrey Thompson, Carlton Francis, Bazel Nichols, Georgianna K. Symonette, Effie Walkes and Clarence Bain.

The Bay Streets Boys formed

their political party known as the United Bahamian Party the UBP three years later.

In its ranks: Premier Sir Roland Symonette, Asa Pritchard, the Canadian Donald Delbeanas, George Baker, whose roots were from Syria, Foster Clarke, Basil and Godfrey Kelly, Robert Bobby Symonette, the Reverend Dr. W G. McPhee, Fecky Brown, Sir Stafford Sands, Geoffrey Johnstone, Peter Graham, Noel Roberts, Sir George Roberts and Roy and Norman Solomon.

Women got the right to vote in the 1962 general election

9

and notwithstanding the PLP racking up 45 per cent of the popular vote to the UBP’s 36.6 per cent, the UBP was returned to governance in a psychological landslide with 21 seats to the PLPs 8.

Cries of gerrymandering, bitterness, election dirty tricks and illegalities permeated the atmosphere of the PLP. Historians Gail Saunders and Michael Craton observe that the 1962 defeat shaped the new radicalism of the PLP, caused it tune up the volume on its disenchantment with the racial,

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

10 BLACK TUESDAY

What the UBP grossly underestimated was the terms of endearment young Black Bahamians had for the Civil Rights movement going on in the United States. The “News of the World” film reels on the struggle for freedom and the end of discrimination on the African continent. New leaders like Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyeyere, Patrice Lumumba and the inspiring works of Frantz Fanon were the literary gems passed between friends who longed for a new order.

political and social order and unashamedly pushed the race question onto the table:- When will Black People ever be ready to govern in a democracy?

Three years into its term in office in 1965 the UBP came to the House of Assembly with a report from the Boundaries Commission in which it was being suggested that the pend-

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

ing 1967 general elections be contested on the same disputed Voters Registration List of 1962.

Something had to give. The proverbial stuff was about to hit the fan.

Perhaps the UBP had interpreted the hand writing on the wall and this was what encouraged them to get the Boundaries Commission report passed by the House as early as 1965, wanting to stem any floodgate and an even more militant PLP in the lead up to general elections in 1967.

Influenced by an Action group within the PLP, the conservative

BLACK TUESDAY

11

Borrowing from the great freedom anthem, “We Shall Overcome” they had heard on the Civil Rights march on Washington for the “I have a dream” speech, the protestors roared like a mass Baptist Choir as they entered Bay Street from Parliament Street. They had marched from Windsor Park on Wulf Road to let the Premier know that his threats no longer intimidated them and they were here to support the PLP , the Official Opposition in asking that the Commission’s Report not be allowed to go into a Committee of the whole and subsequent passage.

“Amend! Amend! Shouted the protestors. elements of the party fell in line as the PLP stood its ground against the wicked Boundaries manoeuvre. Hundreds of angry Bahamians marched in protest to Bay Street on the morning of April 27th 1965 where the UBP Government was posturing on adopting the Commission’s report in the House of Assembly.

Earlier that morning Premier Sir

Roland Symonette had gone on ZNS Radio Bahamas to make his third radio address to the colony in ten days. Sir Roland in thinly veiled threats that jobs would be taken from the protestors, contracts revoked and the dreaded Riot Act, if it had to be read, as it was in the Burma Road Riots would be the consequence of the protestors actions.

In the 1962 General Election the UBP controlled the Radio broadcasts where their campaign message was that the colony could not afford to trust governance to the Black members of the PLP. The UBP alleged the PLP would govern with a Communist ideology.

The UBP said the sustainability of a booming Tourism industry would fizzle up and die under a PLP Government; as White tourists would stop coming here.

The black masses had become immune to the 1962 dirty tricks. Bahamians were following the Civil Rights struggle in the United States with a keen attachment. Dr. Martin Luther King has paid several visits to the colony and was friends with Bahamian labour leaders such as Charles Rodriquez and Randol Fawkes and Bimini Businessman Ansel Saunders.

Inside the House of Assembly the Bay Streets Boys dug in their heels, content in their conviction that they could have the General Elections on the convoluted Register of Voters.

Again the UBP were betting that PLP protestors did not truly represent the wishes and inner longing the masses for change.

When Speaker Robert Bobby Symonette, the son of the Premier took the Agenda immediately to a resolution to dissolve into a Committee of the Whole which would give the UBP majority the endorsement to use the 1962 Register, Pindling, Milo Butler and Spurgeon Bethel began their interventions with amendments to the Resolution.

Change was about to come to the Colony.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

12 BLACK TUESDAY

T

he crowds had begun arriving on Windsor Park from 7am. They shared breakfasts from they brought along and small store owners in the general vicinity did a thriving morning business. As the PLP Leaders began arriving, the crowds pressed for pep talks and encouragement. Lynden Pindling, the Party Leader calmly explained again what was at stake in the House of Assembly.

If the UBP could conduct the next general elections on the 1962 Register the hopes of achieving a victory and Majority Rule would again be denied and the people would have to wait another five years when it was almost certain the UBP would have another election ploy to use to entrench themselves in political power.

INSIDE THE HOUSE APRIL 27th 1965: POWER TO THE PEOPLE this eventful 27th day of April in the year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty Five.

Historians and journalists who recorded the morning’s march have said they detected no fear or reluctance in the faces and moods of the marchers. Rather

Cecil Wallace Whitfield, the party’s National Chairman supported Pindling’s position and thanked the supporters for their courage and participation.

Whitfield called for a peaceful march and reminded the mass crowd that destiny was on their side.

With more prayers, a constant jostling of the Police who seemed to want to find a reason to stop the marchers from leaving Windsor Park, the huge throng was on their way. Placards told of their impatience, their tolerance, their resistance and the history of the struggle which brought them here on Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

they saw defiance with every step and every move they made.

Every song they lifted up, every hoot they scattered must have told Bay Street in the words of Freddie Munnings Senior popular hit to “Beware. Bay Street coming down beware.”

and Carlton Francis stayed on Bay and Parliament Street as the Marshalls.

Whitfield, Jeffrey Thompson

The amendment called “for the

Inside the House of Assembly Pindling calmly and eloquently moved for an amendment to the Resolution.

BLACK TUESDAY

House not to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole for further consideration at this time of the draft order under Section 63(7) of the Constitution”.

Spurgeon Bethel moved the second amendment that “this House approves a national registration campaign being held by the Government to ascertain the true Voter population distribution in the Bahamas and the appointment of a United Nations Special Commission to delineate Constituency boundaries.”

Milo Butler, his imposing figure and booming voice rose to

second the amendments and exhausted his 15 minutes. The UBP Minister for Health Foster Clarke moved for Butler to be given an extension which was quickly used up again.

don’t abide by this 15 minute business. Its darn foolishness,” Butler had bellowed from his seat as the Speaker ordered a

13

cordon of Policemen to take Butler by his shoulders and forcibly remove him from the Chamber.

Only three days earlier, on debate on the Boundaries Commission issue, Butler had grown impatient as he exhausted his 15 minute time on his feet and refused to yield to the Speaker.

“I am not going to sit down. I Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

14 BLACK TUESDAY The vote on the PLP sponsored Amendments were soundly defeated. The vote for the House to resolve in a Committee of the Whole was swiftly passed and the UBP Government were one step nearer to a general election in 1967 on a Voters Register that was at best guess work with no scientific statistical or empirical data by the Government.

Pindling rose again. “: We do not ask the House to do what the Opposition wants or to draw up the boundaries where we want. All we ask is that the machinery available to the Government be used to find out accurate figures of the voting population. How else can we proceed when the Commission admits the figures are only guesses” Pindling said.

This was followed by Arthur Dion Hanna who too exhausted his 15 minutes and refused to yield. Again Police were summoned to physically remove the diminutive Hanna from the Chamber.

Pindling as Leader of the Opposition was allowed three

extensions to his 15 minutes on the floor that eventful Tuesday Hanna had chided the Premier Sir Roland Symonette for his national address over Radio that morning in which there was no doubt that the Government intended to deal harshly with the demonstrators.

“This is the symbol of authority and authority on this island belongs to the people and the people are outside. Yes the people are outside and the Mace belongs outside too.”

The stoic faces of the Bay Street were granite in their determination to have it their way.

Outside in the streets the crowds had grown weary and merry and could be heard all the way up in the chamber.

“Amend! Amend!” they shouted.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

BLACK TUESDAY

PIndling spoke again: “It is obvious that the Government did not intend to do anything about the amendments. We tried to lay all our cards on the table, we tried to get the Premier to indicate whether he would be prepared to amend the Draft, but it appears that it is the intention of the Government to push this matter through. This only shows they mean to rule with an Iron Hand. If this is the intention of the Government, I can have no part of it.”

Only minutes earlier the Speaker jostled the Leader of the Opposition on how nice his

voice sounded in the Chamber to which Pindling quipped he intended to use it very effectively in the streets at the break.

Milo Butler commented that the Chamber seemed humid and air was not circulating and rose and opened a window on the Opposition side of the room.

The UBP did not see it coming.

Calmly again Pindling left his seat and approached the Speaker’s table where the 165 year old Mace, the symbol of the Speaker’s authority was nestled on its stand. He picked it up.

“This is the symbol of authority and authority on this island

belongs to the people and the people are outside. Yes the people are outside and the Mace belongs outside too.”

Pindling tossed the Mace through the open window where it could be heard crashing into the streets as the crowds outside roared.

The 35 year old Leader of the PLP then led his Parliamentary team in a walk out of Parliament.

The Government was in a catatonic shock. The Speaker began to mumble something to

15

which Randol Fawkes, the lone Member for the Labour Party reminded from his seat that in the absence of the Mace under Parliamentary Rules there could be not conduct of business in the House.

In the streets the people were ecstatic. The UBP may have passed their Commission Boundaries Order but the world was no being summoned to pay attention to the election unfairness and the skilled Gerry mandering of a relic of a bye gone order trying to steal new life in a democracy that had grown alien and non-receptive to their brand.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

16 BLACK TUESDAY

„

The Riot Act, Sit Down on Bay Street and Rally on the Government Ground In the current propensity of The Bahamas the PLP has little to offer in opposition to the UBP but an appeal to Black racialism and colour consciousness. This is the line that has intensified in the past year. With that has been a desire on the part of the extremist members of the PLP for violence in demonstrations. The desire culminated in the disorder in the House of Assembly on April 27 (sic) when Pindling threw the Mace through the window of the House and Milo Butler threw out the hour glasses.

Adderley and Turnquest and S.S. Bethel claim to have no prior warning of his intention. Adderley made equivocal statements about the incident at the time and has not done so again since.

But he and Turnquest (who is a good Anglican Churchman and Chancellor of the Diocese) and Spurgeon Bethel are the moderates of the Parliamentary members of the PLP.

- His Excellency Sir Ralph Grey Colonial Governor

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

„

BLACK TUESDAY

Revolutions never turn backwards.

Magistrate John Bailey appeared from his Court House and read the Riot Act to the hundreds of protestors. Would Burma Road be repeated?

Pindling and Whitfield and Francis and Thompson and the PLP Parliamentary team now in the streets kept the crowd under control.

Pindling and the PLP had adopted the non-violent ideology of Dr. Martin Luther King, who had adopted the strategy from Mohandas Gandhi in the violent and bloody conflict which ended colonialism in India.

Policeman appeared from the four corners of the House on Parliament Street and East Street, equipped in their riot gear – hats, wicker shields and wooden batons.

Pindling stood on the top of a small Post Office van which workers gladly helped him onto.

He called for 100 volunteers to join him in a sit down right there and then on Bay Street.

Hundreds sat down.

“Disperse peacefully and depart to your habitations or lawful business places upon pains contained in the Penal Code for the prevention of tumultuous assemblies,” Magistrate Bailey might as well have been talking to the deaf.

Once again the leadership of

Pindling again addressed the people reminding them that “your fight is not with the Police.

Obey themif you are told to move.”

That day thirteen demonstrators were arrested and hundreds more were pulled off the main street and deposited onto the sidewalks by the Police.

The Police Commissioner Nigel Morris had directed senior Officers John Crawley, Cyril Joseph and Errington Watkins to clear Bay Street.

Having made their point Pin-

dling and Whitfield marched the crowd to the Southern Recreation Grounds on Market Street and Blue Hill Road for a short rally and invited them to return again at 7pm that evening for a Mass Rally and further instructions.

The UBP and its rear guard forces and allies were in shock but not for long.

17

son McDermott, the expatriate editor of the Nassau Guardian had previously referred to the party as being comprised of “dirty unwashed men”. Now McDermott was advocating punishment for Pindling for tossing the Mace and Butler for the hour glasses. He also began a public fund appeal to have the Mace repaired.

That evening The Tribune left no doubt of how opposed to they were to the political action in and around the House on Black Tuesday.

Its evening newspaper screamed, “The dignity and honour of the House was trampled on this morning.”

The PLP machine had long determined that it had no allies or support in the media of the Bahamas. When the PLP had first been formed BenLest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

18 BLACK TUESDAY

‘We are a Majority people with Minority problems’ Black Tuesday opened the corridor to the progressive path which led to Majority Rule and brought The Bahamas in line with other colonies of Great Britain in Africa and the Caribbean as the “winds of change” battered the entrenched status quo and would change forever the race, colour and class codification of governance.

To grasp the significance of Black Tuesday Bahamians have to come to the subject bereft and innocent of the fierce and combative politics of today. It is a fact that the on the 27th day of April 1965 The Bahamas

was governed and or ruled by a largely White Mercantile Oligarchy and people of colour were consigned to lesser and inferior roles.

This rationale is best encouraged by the fact that the political leaders of Black Tuesday came from the rank and file of the Progressive Liberal Party and some of its leading organizers would part company on an unrelated ideological and personality issue years later to form the Free National Movement. Interestingly enough, one key member of the parliamentary group, Paul Adderley took his small group of moderates and formed the National Democratic Party

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

(NDP) but his was a short lived grouping and would remain a footnote to the history of that time. By 1968, Paul Adderley had returned to the fold of the PLP and by 1972 he had become a Member of the Cabinet.

All of these National Heroes, living and dead have defended the integrity and honour of Black Tuesday even after and during their political separations and reunifications.

The desperate and dangerous fallacy of minority rule was a clear and professed agenda of Colonial rule; which believed that the Black people of the Bahamas were at best suited entirely for mercantile roles and the hand-

picked few that could be used in other capacities must avow allegiance to the status quo and understand that they were caste superior to their own brothers and sisters.

Royal Governors from Charles Dundas in the 1940s, whom the Duke of Windsor replaced had written reams of reports to the Colonial Office in London subscribing inferiority and mediocrity to the masses. That Ralph Grey, Royal Governor in 1965 -25 years later, could report to the Colonial Secretariat in London that Black Tuesday was an indication of the “violence” the extreme elements of the PLP were introducing to the politics of the Island and entire currency

BLACK TUESDAY

adult suffrage has been enjoyed for more than half a century and it is so easy to take it for granted.

It must be remembered that the final conclusion, elimination and eradication and consignment to the dust bin of history of the Property Vote came with fierce and determined political protest and action from the PLP. Representations to the Colonial Secretary and visits and petitions for oversight at the United Nations finally compelled the colonial rulers to outlaw the practice. of the PLP amounted to nothing more than “racialism” and “colour consciousness” and thus they were no match for the UBP, defines again the institutionalized disrespect that the ruling class and powers were attending to the awakening righteous will of the people for the political power base to proportionately reflect the statistical realities. These series of reports by colonial Governors of the then colony of the Bahama Islands clearly were casted in a very jaundiced view, no doubt heavily influenced by anecdotal and very bias reports from the very group, the mercantile minority, which

MAJORITY

the majority was pitted against.

That the Bay Street Boys bought into this pernicious atrocious social categorization should come as no surprise. Long before he was to take office as Premier Roland Symonette had stood on the floor of the House of Assembly and declared that from his own personal experiences the Bahamian masses were a poor and non-productive work force.

It must be remembered that the ruling oligarchy held power before the 1962 Constitution by virtue of the property vote. Bahamians today would be reviled at any such concept as universal

How did the Property Vote work? Simple. Given that wealth and property was for the most part confined to the ruling white class and near whites (mulattoes), on Election Day a registered voter could cast a vote in any district on any island where he owned property.

Additionally for every individual piece of property that person held he was entitled to a vote.

Leaders of the minority party such as Roland Symonette, H.G. Christie, the Kellys (Trevor) and Stafford Sands, as an example of a few, could vote multiple times.

The colonial masters in England,

19

ignoring their own history of progressive democracy which had been brought about by the reforms in England in the 1ith century chose to ignore and not apply the same principles to those of colour in the colony of the Bahamas.

While the property vote flourished women, (both white and black) were denied the right to vote until 1962.

Thus April 27th 1965 the Mace, the Hour Glasses and the hundreds of people who sat down on the street set the clock on count down for a quiet revolution that would be true to its cause and never turn back.

In 1967 Majority Rule triumphantly came, undoing years of injustice and suffering. In 1973 the colonial cloak was shed forever and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, an Independent nation stood in its place.

Bahamians working and passing along Bay Street today see very little evidence of the time –just50 years ago – when this area was the political and economic capital of the colony. The parliamentary buildings comprising the House of Assembly and the Senate chambers,, Queen Victoria’s statue in Parliament Square, a statue in honour of Milo Butler in Rawson Square and the cortege of blue plated Cabinet Minister Vehicles

RULE

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

20 BLACK TUESDAY outside the Cabinet Office in the Churchill Building are the things we take for granted and forget they were achieved by struggle and sacrifice.

The news media – The Tribune and the Nassau Guardian historically played down the importance of Black Tuesday in 1965. They were more concerned about raising funds to repair the orb on the Mace, which was estimated to be around One Thousand pounds, rather than

historians of the period who for their own purposes or reasons could not embrace Africanism or nationalism and saw in the power grid of the PLP, a rude, unnecessary and troubling challenge to the status quo of the UBP. Bahamian scholars at universities have great difficulty in treating as reputable sources the works of Dr. Gail Saunders and Michael Craton and Dr. Paul Albury for glossing over the

the voters were more comfortable with the status quo and direction of the economy and the benefits of the Tourism Industry and could not trust their livelihoods and future to an inexperienced PLP. Hardly the dispatch or findings usually subscribed by historians.

The harsh and undeniable fact of the matter was that the PLP outpolled the UBP in the popular vote in the general election of 1962 and yet only ended up with 8 seats to the UBPs twenty one.

Bay Street was not just the major road in the city of Nassau. Bay Street was a political institution and it had to be broken as it was a symbol of the ruling power class. It was here that they had their businesses, their professional offices and ruled for an unbroken 300 years in various dispatches of governance and from the seat of power through the Executive and Legislative Councils and The House of Assembly.

to agitate and press for transparency in the Register of Voters and a scientific approach to how boundaries should be drawn in order for General Elections to be more fairly contested. It was clear that they co-habitated a very different world than the average Bahamian.

Equally to blame for the lack of identity and pride that the Bahamian people should attach to the historic, chivalrous and courageous struggles of their fore parents and leaders were the

significance of Black Tuesday. In fact the collective work of Saunders and Craton in commenting on Black Tuesday makes the terrible factual error of not attributing more succinctly the victory of the UBP in the 1962 general elections to the very same egregious reasons the PLP were protesting the use of the same Register of Voters in 1965 for use in the subsequent general elections.

Indeed it is proffered that the UBP won the election because

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

Government House, the official residence of the Colonial Governor, who was sent from Great Britain, maintained varying units of power as the Constitution went through several changes but the end result was that Bay Street was in charge.

The sons and daughters to the great grand sons and daughters of the African diaspora were conditioned and aided by an expatriate foreign religious clergy to the Gospel that “White was right, Brown could stick around and Black should get back”, with strong scriptural foundation.

A point that Dr. C. R. Walker so poetically described when

he appeared before the Duke of Windsor’s Commission enquiring into the Burma Road Riot.

Pompey, the Slave in Exuma would test the waters of how the Colonial Government would dispatch its own justice against White offenders of the law. The terror and tragedy of Kate, the slave girl in Crooked Island had made its way around the archipelago. Magistrate Powles sentencing of a white merchant, a Mr. Lightbourne, to jail for the horrific beating he inflicted on a Black man and the revolt of the White community over the sentencing as Powles, who had to flee for his life out of the colony were well known.

The Burma Road Riot of 1942 and the unleashing of a Welsh Quarter Guard during the resulting curfew as Black men were shot dead in the streets must have conditioned most persons to accept the status quo and recognize that the Colonial enforcers would not hesitate to put down any challenge to the status quo.

It is best summed up in the poetic and powerful epitaph of Dr. Walker, who in addressing the Duke’s Commission said of his people, “we are in the majority but we have minority problems.”

It would be almost impossible to imagine today that rights, freedoms, privileges we take for granted and expect as a right were denied to our great grandparents and they took a stand to change things.

As celebrated as Sidney Poitier became on the screen and his Oscar history making moment, one of his best works, as a Black doctor attending white patients in the movie, “No Way Out” was banned in The Bahamas because the UBP felt it would lead to an expression of passions amongst the Black population.

BLACK TUESDAY

It would take the courage of leading Black citizens like Dr. C. R. Walker and A. F. Adderley, Maxwell Thompson and the Citizens Committee to lead the protest to get a government living a lie to get them to reverse their decision and allow the movie into the theatres; of course at the theatres where Blacks were allowed to go. The Savoy Theatre down town was off limits to Black People.

Black workers and entertainers at the Royal Victoria Hotel , situate opposite the Post Office on East Hill Street and Parliament Street could not be served in the dining rooms where they entertained tourists and the Bay Street

elite. These workers knew as well that their entrances to these places were limited exclusively to the back door and back gate.

It would take a protest from Freddie Munnings Sr, one of the country’s then most successful black entertainers and businessmen to sit on the counter at the Grand Central Hotel down town and demand service where it was a foregone conclusion blacks could not be served there.

By the time the Progressive Liberal Party was formed in 1953 the charged current of intolerance to the unfairness of the status quo had already gained sufficient voltage.

When Etienne Dupuch, the publisher and editor of the Tribune and who also sat in the House of Assembly, moved his Resolution in the House of Assembly for racial discrimination to be eliminated in the mid-1950s it was considered that such practices were a natural part of the social landscape. For Dupuch, a black man married to a white woman from the United States, he must have experienced the humiliation of this disgusting practice.

“Look Up And Move On – The World is watching” became the thematic chorus of the Bahamian People on their trek of Majority Rule achieved on January 10th 1967. Then Premier Lynden Pindling stirred his countrymen to this dynamic new focus. All around the globe oppressed people were rising up in search of their indigenous rite of passage. The “Winds of Change” identified by Harold McMillian in his 1960 address to the Union Parliament of South Africa was not confined to the African continent but were breezing in the English held Caribbean, and Bahamians were slowly adjusting to the new climate.

Majority Rule may have been a polite way of saying that the status quo had changed. “Say it loud. I’m Black and I’m proud”,

21

The James Brown 1968 hit succinctly told the emerging story.

The song became the official anthem of the Black Power Movement in the United States and ignited a sense of purpose and identity in Black people in the Caribbean. Here in our own Bahamas, school children readily and enthusiastically recited the lyrics. Radio Bahamas played it regularly.

“Say it loud. I’m Black and I’m proud,” infused the political transformation of The Bahamas.

That it came along one year after Majority Rule was achieved was purely coincidental. The 200 year all-consuming psychological cloak of Colonialism, which imported its foreign identity and rules on its realm; along with the rule of a merchant minority White oligarchy could best be countered with Black pop culture.

For two centuries Black people had been told that theirs was a life destined for subjugation.

Up from Slavery, the Negro advanced his cause by claiming as his new personification in the term “Black”. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. unveiled his “I have a dream “Speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, the word

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

22 BLACK TUESDAY “negro” was still the accepted identification.

When Milo Butler disrupted the proceedings of the House of Assembly while tributes were being paid to the late Sir George Roberts, a former member for Harbour Island and at the time of his death a member of the Legislative Council, it was to complain that “three Negro women are locked up in jail

Contract”.

These Bahamians encountered the harsh and vicious system of “Jim Crow” and it is believed that upon their return home, considering the social balance of acceptance of the rule of the minority White Oligarchy and the absence of terror and violence to maintain control and superiority, most Black Bahamians were numbed to change.

Minus Treasurer; Alicia Johnson Executive Member and the “Advisory board “consists entirely of men – All Bahamian negroes”.

“The Bahamian Black immigrants played such an active role in Florida and the women a far more active role than in their native Bahamas not only suggests that the immigrants included some of the more socially progressive Black Bahamians but also tells something about their roles, aspirations and appreciation of Black men and women relative to each other as well as to the dominant element in society in the USA compared with the Bahamas at the time” wrote a Bahamian scholar.

Black Bahamians instrumental in building South Florida – Del Ray Beach, Miami Beach, West Palm Beach, Key West, and settled in Liberty City and Coconut Grove.

Bahamians would be surprised to learn that as early as 1898 Black Bahamians Immigrants in South Florida were complaining to Queen Victoria and the Colonial Secretary in The Bahamas about how they were being treated in the Deep South.

tonight and no one gives a damn about it”.

Marcus Garvey had given some semblance of acceptance to this term by forming the United Negro Improvement Association, still today regard as the most powerful and lethal seed planted against racism, colonialism and imperialism.

By the early 1900s Black Bahamians were immigrating to the Southern United States for jobs in agriculture, menial labour and building of railway lines across the USA; and by the middle of the century they were moving again in large numbers on “The

An FBI agent reported in 1921 that most of the one thousand UNIA members in Miami were Bahamians, “who bitterly resent the colour line as drawn in Florida”.

In South Florida the record shows an entirely different Bahamian. Ninety per cent of the membership of the United Negro Improvement Association were Bahamians. The Men’s Chapter was strategically Bahamian and the Women’s Chapter was no different by 1925: Lilly Farrington Vice President; Nettie Troublefire Secretary; Emma Rolle Asst. Secretary; Olga

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

“Some of our numbers have been lynched and others have had mock trials and been hanged or imprisoned unjustly and we live in fear of mob violence from the Southern White Element” said the urgent dispatch to the Monarch.

Then came the more troubling story of an Anglican Priest from The Bahamas who was lynched in South Florida and this story was reported in The Miami Herald in July 1921.

Archdeacon Irvin, a Bahamian clergyman, who has been ordained in Nassau, had ministered at St. Agnes Church in Coconut Grove Miami since

1915 was accused of preaching equality “to negroes”. He was seized on July 17th 1921 by eight (8) masked men; gagged, handcuffed, whipped and tarred and feathered and dumped out of a speeding car. Threatened with death if he did not leave Miami within 48 hours. He remained.

With all of the recent international notoriety around the Police incidences in Ferguson Missouri and New York where Black young men have died as a result of Police interaction, and Grand Juries have returned with verdicts which have led to street protests, Bahamians would be shocked to learn than in 1927 a Black Bahamian suffered a similar fate in Key West Florida.

In 1927 this Bahamian was shot by a White Florida policeman after a traffic accident. The British Government demanded compensation for the victim’s family and the issue dragged on with The Tribune reporting on July 8th 1931. “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and “I Can’t Breathe” would have met with a much different reaction in the South Florida of 1927.

Ambassador James Bryce urged the Foreign Office in London to investigate but admitted to Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey that “coloured people are not treated with much consideration. Cases such as these are unfortunately so frequent as to exact no censure in the Southern States.”

The Scotsman Magistrate Powles in “The Land of the Pink Pearl” has detailed frightening and vivid account of racism The Bahamas. Sitting as a Magistrate before World War 1, he sent a White Bahamian merchant to prison for having inflicted a vicious and grievous whipping on a negro woman. The town erupted in chaos. How could a white man go to jail for doing that which he had been or-

BLACK TUESDAY

dained by Scripture to do: Subjugate and to punish his servants.

Powles was chased out of The Bahamas and his book, banished from distribution by the minority White Ruling Class.

The Burma Road Riot of 1942 came as the cataclysmic tremor which awakened an emerging new social justice in The Bahamas. Men like Charles Rodriquez, who had worked in the USA and encountered and experienced organized labour agitated for change.

The abdicated King of England The Duke of Windsor, who made no secret of his dislike for negroes and his discomfort with having been exiled here, worked an arrangement with the American Government for negro Bahamians to again travel to the USA as migrant workers on a Plan which came to be known as “The Contract”.

Once again “The Contract” has been grossly misrepresented in Bahamian folklore as if this was a glorified period of high earnings and peace for these Bahamian workers. It was not.

From July 1943 to 1963 some 5,000 Black Bahamians were recruited under this plan for their labour. In New York – Apple Orchards; In Minnesota – Corn; In North Carolina- Peanuts; In Florida –Citrus, Sugar Cane and beans.

The Burma Road Riot had come about when Black Bahamians discovered that White Americans recruited by the American Pleasantville Construction Company to build the new airport were receiving almost triple in wages for the same job description they were performing.

“The negroes are busy complaining now that the base is nearing completion and some of them are being laid off. I should not

be surprised to see more trouble – but this time one is somewhat prepared and there is more fire power on the island to deal with the situation,” wrote Wallis Simpson , The Duchess of Windsor to her Aunt in Europe in September 1942 from Government House in The Bahamas.

During the unrest on Bay Street and the curfew which was imposed Government House has ordered a regiment of Welsh soldiers in barracks in Nassau to take control of the streets. Several Bahamians were shot dead for breaking the curfew.

It is important to also gauge that the Duke of Windsor also negotiated a somewhat comfortable work programme with the American Government “for poor White Bahamians” the same time the Blacks “were going off to pick fruit”.

In 1945 ninety one (91) poor whites were recruited from the Bahamas to work dairy farms in South Florida. They all returned at the end of year citing their discomfort with the weather, never again to be engaged. For whatever it is worth.

Now against the back drop of this fact one has to reconcile a conclusion made by Colonial Governor Sir Charles Dundas in 1940, whom the Duke of Windsor replaced.

Wrote Dundas, “It is my considered opinion that the Bahamian Coloured people are by nature and inclination essentially employees and that they are little fitted to be independent producers… there are of course some exceptions; but as far concerning the mass of the people experience of them forces me to the conclusion that they will do far better as agricultural labourers than as producers.”

This description and general-

ization of Black Bahamians was not lost on a younger Roland T. Symonette, as a Member of the House of Assembly. Symonette went even further in the 1930s with this harsher pronouncement:- “We have the worst class of labour in this colony it is possible to have. Our labourers are beyond anyone’s imagination.

It doesn’t take much for him to live and he doesn’t want much.

If his pay is 10s (shillings) a day for a week of six days and raise it to 15s (shillings) he will only work for four days. Give him longer hours in one day and increase his pay he will quit work right now. The next thing is there is very little they can do. I am not one to run down our people – I have tried in my business to help them in every way but they are impossible”.

Black Tuesday and its 50th anniversary will evoke much debate and focus.

Perhaps 50 years later, Bahamians can come to the table and openly discuss, without rancor or bitterness the forbidden race card, which they have been told is taboo.

Nothing speaks more to this travesty as the opposition and rhetoric which attended the airing of the world famous television series, Roots, on local television in 1972/73. Black people joined a mounting challenge that the television series would

23

conjure up race hate in the country and also was being used by the PLP to gain an emotional advantage over the electorate.

Roots went on to become the most watched television series ever on American television and the popular appeal of the American people to a story which chronicled the arrival of an African family as slaves onto the American shores and their new life is in a large part credit-

ed with the eventual passage of a national holiday in the United States to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King. This holiday was signed into federal law by the Republican President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

As Dr. Walker said to the Duke’s Commission, “ we are a majority people with minority problems”.

Fifty years later, the nation may have the courage to get up off apologetic knees and celebrate one of the greatest and most pivotal political events of our history.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

24 BLACK TUESDAY

THE

WOMEN

OF THE REVOLUTION Dame Dr. Doris Johnson

Educated at university abroad Doris Johnson upon her return home threw herself into the struggle for Majority Rule and Women’s Suffrage. She wrote eloquently of the events of Black Tuesday in her work, “The Quiet Revolution”. She unsuccessfully contested a seat for the PLP and went on to serve as the first PLP Woman Cabinet Minister in the country and as President of the Senate. A high school is named in her honour.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

BLACK TUESDAY

25

ENA T. (“Mama Do”) HEPBURN Hailing from Cat Island and a renowned dress maker/fashion designer and businesswoman, Ms. Hepburn OF “Mama Do” as she was affectionately known joined the struggle for Majority Rule and was amongst the marchers on that morning of April 27th 1965 who entered Bay and Parliament Street from Windsor Park. When L. O. Pindling left the House of Assembly having tossed the Mace and stood on top of the Post Office van and asked for fifty volunteers to join him in a peaceful sit down on Bay Street; it was Ms. Hepburn who broke ranks and was the first person to climb the Police barricades, in white pants; and take her seat in the public road with the leaders.

Following her courageous lead, hundreds of men joined the sit down. She would be physically dragged off Bay Street, taken to a Police Station and charged with disorderly behavior and damaging government property to wit a Policeman’s tunic and shades. Mr. Pindling represented her in the Magistrate’s Court.

EFFIE WALKES An early pioneer in the PLP Movement her history with Majority Rule and Black Tuesday keep her on the public speaking circuit whenever anniversaries of these events are celebrated.

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

26 BLACK TUESDAY

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

BLACK TUESDAY

27

Published: January 17, 1967 Copyright © The New York Times

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years

28 BLACK TUESDAY

Lest We Forget …. We’ve come a long way in 50 Years