|
|
|
|
Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
CAPTION
Following his Progressive Liberal Party’s historic victory in the January 10, 1967 general election, Premier Lynden Oscar Pindling is pictured in the foreground with British Governor Sir Ralph Gray with members of his first cabinet in the background. From left are: Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Milo Butler, Arthur Hanna, Clarence A. Bain, Jeffrey M. Thompson, Carlton Francis, Randol Fawkes, Warren Levarity, Dr. Curtis McMillan and Clement Maynard.
|
I can very well recall the euphoria that engulfed me when it became evident on the night of Tuesday, January 10, 1967 that the Progressive Liberal Party would become the next Government of The Bahamas after election results confirmed that the PLP and the United Bahamian Party had each won 18 seats. Of course, it was not an outright victory for the PLP, but the other two seats in the 38-member House of Assembly were won by Randol Fawkes, who ran as a Labour candidate, and Alvin Braynen, who ran as an Independent. I was absolutely certain that both members would side with the PLP because Fawkes was a PLP at heart and Braynen only ran as an independent because he was refused a nomination by the UBP.
At the time, I was working with The Bahamian Times, the PLP’s newspaper, whose founding Editor was Arthur Foulkes, who was then and still is one of the greatest human beings that I have encountered in my life. I first met Mr. Foulkes when I went to work at the Nassau Daily Tribune as a cub reporter in May of 1960, and he “took me under his wings” and along with Sir Etienne Dupuch, the late Editor and Publisher of The Tribune, taught me whatever skills I possess as a journalist.
Although he was the City Editor at The Tribune, which made no secret of the fact that it was a supporter of the UBP, Mr. Foulkes was a die-hard PLP and an active member of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA), an activist group within the PLP that also included the late Warren Levarity, the late Jeffrey Thompson, the late Basil Nichols, the late Clement Maynard, Eugene Newry, and Roosevelt Godet, among others.
Mr. Foulkes’ commitment to the PLP was so rock-solid that when the PLP was looking for candidates to run in the 1962 general election, he put his job at The Tribune at risk to run along with Arthur Hanna as PLP candidates in the Far East of New Providence. Of course, with women voting for the first time, the PLP fully expected to win the election, but that was not the case, as the UBP won by a landslide.
Mr. Foulkes was among the losing PLP candidates and was either forced to resign or was fired by The Tribune. Arthur Hanna, however, was elected as the Senior Representative for the Far East along with Geoffrey Johnstone of the UBP as the Junior Representative.
After leaving The Tribune, Mr. Foulkes and members of the NCPA started the Bahamian Times. Although I contributed to the production of The Times during its early years, I remained at The Tribune as one of its top reporters until 1965 when I joined the staff of the Bahamian Times full-time.
Because of the overt racism that existed in The Bahamas at the time, which I personally experienced on more than one occasion, I openly became an avowed Black Power advocate, earning the nickname “Rap” Brown, after the well-known American Black Power advocate H. Rap Brown. Indeed, there was a group of us who believed more in the “by any means necessary” philosophy espoused by Malcolm X than in the “turn-the-other” cheek non-violent exhortation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in our “fight” to dislodge the UBP from political power in The Bahamas.
So on the night of Tuesday, January 10, 1967, I drove to the Western Esplanade in my red Austin Healey convertible, which I owned from the time I was working with The Tribune, and I parked and cried like a baby as I looked out over the tranquil waters of Nassau Harbour. HAPPY MAJORITY RULE DAY EVERYONE.
© Copyright 2016 by thebahamasweekly.com
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
