BAAM: Bahamas Ambassador 2017 Launch Edition

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The Ministry of Youth Sports & Culture Thompson Blvd Nassau P.O. Box N-3913 Telephone - (242) 502-0600 - 0605

The Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson Minister Calvin Balfour - Permanent Secretary Eugene Poitier - Deputy Permanent Secretary Tim Munnings - Director of Sports K. Daron Turnquest - Director of Youth Rowena Poitier - Director of Culture Cleophas Adderley, Jr. - Director of Music & Heritage

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META DAVIS-CUMBERBATCH - PIONEER OF THE ARTS

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ON YOUR MARKS... READY... SET...DR. DANIEL JOHNSON

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OUR CULTURE LEGENDS 2016

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JONQUEL JONES

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OLYMPIC GLORY - THE TREND CONTINUES...

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BUDDY HIELD - ON TOP OF HIS GAME

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THE BUDDY HIELD BASKETBALL INVITATIONAL

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BASEBALL HOW FAR WE HAVE COME

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CONTRACT SIGNED FOR ANDRE RODGERS NATIONAL BASEBALL STADIUM

Published by The Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture and Bahamas Information Services in association with A Culture Shock Media and Projects Masters Business Limited. Earlin Williams- Editor. Teejay Olander-Creative Director. .

Contributing Writers: Ty Olander, Gena Gibbs, Lionella Gilbert, Felicity Ingraham, Lindsay Thompson, Eric Rose, Stirling Strachan, Betty Vedrine, Luther Smith, Kathryn Forbes Campbell, R. Dorsett. Contributing Photographers: Derek Smith, Kent Minnis, Letisha Henderson, Kristaan Ingraham, Peter Ramsey, Raymond Bethel, and Patrick Hanna.

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‘Honouring our People’s Excellence’ “Yes, we have so much to be proud of, so much to be thankful for, but there is still so much unfinished work that stand before us. Let’s band together, therefore, to get the job done, dedicating our best efforts to the glory of God and the continued betterment of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”

Prime Minister The Rt. Hon. Perry Christie MP, PC, SC, LLB The first Bahamian to win an international medal in a field event

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SHAUNAE MILLER THE BAHAMIAN SENSATION

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THE HONOURING OF 38 ATHLETIC LEGENDS

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W.E.B. DU BOIS

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JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

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JOSEPH ROBERT LOVE

THE MINISTRY OF YOUTH, SPORTS & CULTURE: BAHAMAS YOUTH MARCH 2016 / YOUTH LEADERS VISIT THE BAHAMAS PRIME MINISTER

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ALFRED FRANCIS ADDERLEY

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JOHN “CHIPPIE” CHIPMAN CELEBRATED AT ARAWAK CAY

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BLIND BLAKE: ALPHONSO HIGGS

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MINISTER CONFIDENT IN FUTURE OF BAHAMIAN SPORTS

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61 2016 BAHAMAS OLYMPIC TEAM CELEBRATEDN

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The College of The Bahamas (COB) is the national public institution of higher education in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas with campuses throughout the archipelago.

The main campus is located in the capital city of Nassau, on the island of New Providence.

On November 10, 2016 COB became the national ‘University of The Bahamas.’ (UOB). As the national University of The Bahamas, its mission is to support and drive national development through education, research and innovation, and service, by offering high quality, signature programs grounded in the unique features of the Bahamian environment, economy and history.”

BAHAMAS INFORMATION SERVICES L I N K I N G

P E O P L E

NASSAU ZNS Radio Building Harcourt “Rusty” Bethel Drive off Collins Avenue P.O. Box N-8172 Nassau, Bahamas Tel: (242) 326-5803 Fax: (242) 326-5816

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G O V E R N M E N T

FREEPORT Office of the Prime Minister Government Complex East Mall Drive, 4th Floor P.O. Box F-60137 Freeport, Grand Bahama Tel: (242) 352-8525 Fax: (242) 352-8520

Luther E. Smith, Director General Elcott Coleby, Deputy Director Fredericka Lightbourne, Executive Director

w w w . b i s n e w s o n l i n e . c o m

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FAST EDDIE - WON’T SLOW DOWN, HE’S JUST RETIRING

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RONNIE BUTLER: THE LEGEND

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THE JOURNEY FROM POMPEY TO PINDLING

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RACE + COLOUR + CLASS IN THE BAHAMAS: CAN WE HAVE THIS CONVERSATION WITHOUT RANCOR, EVASION, BITTERNESS AND COVER-UP OR APOLOGY

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WE HAVE COME THIS FAR

BY FAITH

THE VOICE OF THE BAHAMAS:

1540 AM - ONLY THE SUN

COVERS THE BAHAMAS BETTER

JOHN BERKLEY “PEANUTS” TAYLOR

SALUTING, RECOGNIZING AND COMMENDING THE CONTRIBUTION OF BAHAMIAN CULTURAL ARTISTS AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS

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COPYRIGHT © 2017 BAAM: BAHAMAS AMBASSADOR, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF A CULTURE SHOCK/ PROJECT MASTERS, IS HEREBY PROHIBITED. BAAM: BAHAMAS AMBASSADOR MAGAZINE P.O. BOX N10042 , NASSAU, N.P. THE BAHAMAS | www.bahamasambassador.com

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Building a Culture Industry in The Bahamas “The Culture Industry in the United States employs 1.3 per cent of their population and generates nearly $30 billion in revenue’ the recent designation by UNESCO of Nassau as a “Creative City” is the first step for The Bahamas to build such a revenue but more can be done by developing arts programming (visual, theatrical, musical) to encourage the Visitor to stay longer and explore more of our unique heritage”.

-Dr. Daniel Johnson Minister of Youth Sports and Culture.

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Dynamite Daisy (Lynn Terez Davis-Nixon)

A REAL BAHAMIAN THING!

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The Culture division of this Ministry and the fine men and women who staff it, are to be commended for the long hours and personal attention to detail and duty they put into their work.

To fully understand the Bahamian Culture, You really have to live it.

Calvin Balfour

Ministry of Youth Sports & Culture Permanent Secretary

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OUR BAHAMIAN HERO! Thomas A. Robinson

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Eddie Minnis

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A REAL BAHAMIAN THING!

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JEFFARAH GIBSON

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The late Meta Davis-Cumberbatch almost missed her calling as a pioneer of the arts, when she was sent by her parents to Bristol University in the UK to pursue medical studies.

Becoming a doctor was not something she liked or wanted to do, so instead of attending classes, she played piano and got lost in the world of Music. Following her innate desire Davis-Cumberbatch eventually became mother of the arts in the Bahamas. She was one of several Bahamian composers celebrated during the ‘Celebration of Bahamian Composers’ with featured singer JoAnn Callender, on the occasion of 40th Anniversary of Independence 2013. DavisCumberbatch’s composition, “South Wind”, was performed by Callender. It was one of many musical pieces that Davis-Cumberbatch created during her time.

She was born in Trinidad in 1900, but spent most of her time developing the arts in the Bahamas.

The extensive work that she has done in developing and preserving what she considered the rich culture of The Bahamas earned her the name ‘Mother of the Arts’.

Mrs.

Davis-Cumberbatch,

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book “Great Awakenings”, which featured the life of the unsung Bahamian heroine.

She saw that the arts in The Bahamas were very fertile.

She made a great impact on people’s lives. She saw her purpose as developing the arts in The Bahamas.

Despite her noticeable gift, her father wanted her to become a medical doctor.

He sent her and two of her sisters to England to become doctors. “Her tutors contacted her parents and asked them why they were forcing her to do it.” Finally her father agreed and sent her to the Royal Academy of Music in London, England.

There, she specialized in piano and pursued a career as a concert pianist. She performed in London, New York and other metropolitan areas in North America and the West Indies.

When she came to the Bahamas she had as her students’ young people who would go on to celebrated careers in their respective Art disciplines. She influenced Hubert Farrington, who went on to dance with the New York Met. She taught E. Clement Bethel, music and Winston Saunders, the drama and theatre. She had under her wing at any one time James Catalyn, Noel Hamilton, Patricia Fountain Isaacs.

She launched The Festival of the Arts, which was the forerunner to today’s National Arts Festival

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and personally spearheaded the drive to put a stage in the Dudes Centre, where it eventually became a performing arts center.

She encouraged and promoted indigenous handicraft and gave lessons to students who wanted to work in straw and knit and weave, and sculpt using local raw materials.

Her energy and her passion and her love for the Bahamian people and the Arts endeared her to all and her contribution will live on forever in the work of hundreds of persons who were touched by her charm, intellect and mentorship. They in turn have and are passing it on.

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On your marks ... ready ... set ...

Dr. Daniel Johnson has ennobled all of us as he carried the baton handed to him by the Prime Minister in May 2012 to run the race for Youth Sports and Culture

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o question about it. Dr. Daniel Johnson infused an exuberant and electrifying energy into the portfolio of Youth Sports and Culture.

Winding down into the final stretch of his five year handle on the reins of the charge given to him by The Right Honourable Prime Minister Perry G. Christie, the Minister spoke about the goal post he realized and gave a peak into an ever greater future for the portfolio.

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It has to be remembered that he inherited a portfolio that had been overshadowed by a predecessor in office who allowed the bitter rancour of party politics to cover the Ministry in a dark pale.

Dr. Johnson upon assuming office presented a kinder gentler approach where the rancid argumentative scour of politics was left outside the gates and once again the nation could buy into the concept of TEAM BAHAMAS without the baggage of a political spin.

Perhaps the crowning point Dr. Johnson’s appointment was the two decade long bitter feud to ring resolution to the warring federation and association factions in baseball to the table.

Dr. Johnson is somewhat humbly proud that this resolution came about while the great baseball icon Jim Wood was still alive.

Sports Academies across the country We are well on our way to the establishment of sports academies across the length and breadth of this country, supported by measurable improvements in the sports and recreational infrastructure including Moore’s Island in the Abaco Cays. These upgrades include a refurbished weight and training room at the College of The Dr. Johnson recounts some of the Bahamas to NCAA Division I standard glorious points in the engagement of his as we transition to a university. The portfolio:Kendal G. Isaacs Gymnasium was totally renovated to NCAA Division I and NBA Rake ‘N Scrape –Sir Gerald Cash Primary standards.

School/Flamingo Gardens The success of our Rake N Scrape band from Carmichael underscores our rich culture and the enormous skills of our young people. We journeyed to the birthplace of Rake N Scrape, Cat Island, where our kids learned from the masters. Our tremendously successful international tour took us to the United Nations and Harlem, the birthplace of an American cultural renaissance in its own rights.

Dr. Johnson saluted his administrative team at the Ministry, Mr. Calvin J. Balfour Permanent Secretary, Director of Youth K Darren Turnquest; and Mrs. Linda Moxey Brown the former director of Culture and the current incumbent Rowena Poitier and Director of Sports Tim Munnings for their support and patriotism.

This paradigm shift in youth and sports development will make for healthier and stronger minds and bodies; less interpersonal conflicts as we focus on team building and goal orientation and a greater sense of national pride as our youth prepare themselves to accept the baton of leadership of this country.

envy of the region. University Commons will include Baseball, Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, Swimming, Diving, Volleyball, Racquetball, Judo, Soccer, American Football, Rugby, a 9-hole golf course, Flag Football, Boxing and Auto Racing. This will become the country’s national sports park.

University of the Bahamas Sports Programme In preparation for University College Bahamas, the Bahamas government will merge the 460 acre Queen Elizabeth Sports Park with the campus of the college of The Bahamas to create a 500 acre University campus that will be the

Already The Bahamas is the only country outside the United States to host multiple sports sanctioned by the NCAA Division I. Junkanoo, Heritage and Cultural Festivals As we move aggressively to establish culture as a pillar in our national and

economic development, The Bahamas government has hosted 25 junkanoo parades around the country from Abaco to Inagua in 2015 and expanded the E. Clement National Arts Festival to include more than 12,000 Bahamians around the Bahamas. Additionally, in the upcoming school year, the Bahamas will formally institutionalize culture into the academic curricula in all schools nationally called culture in the class.

This is a first for the Bahamas since the Jumbey Village experiment more than forty years ago and a promise fulfilled by Prime Minister Christie .

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UNESCO and Culture Protocols and Conventions We were able to sign these Conventions and get our country fully admitted and participating in the global conduct of the brand known as The Bahamas and giving ourselves the international protection and respect that our product and our artists command.

Team Bahamas This national concept will live on forever and it is the embodiment of our national motto and brings Bahamians together in support of our endeavours singularly or collectively wherever we are called on to show off the brand known as The Bahamas.

Bahamas showcased at IAAF track meets/NCAA Bowl Games The Bahamas is back in the business of

sports. We have co-branded with the NFL and NBA; hosted a successful CARIFTA games, two IAAF Bahamas World Relays; hosted two NCAA Division I Bowl games; and we are scheduled to host the youth Commonwealth games in 2017. I am heartened that the state is more formally recognizing many of our athletes that have given most of their lives to the development of this country, its national pride and culture in addition to its national identity.

Festival of Fire Santiago de Cuba In July 2015 The Bahamas descended on the second largest city in Cuba on the invitation of the Cuban Government at this historic festival. We there as the Country of Honour and we presented in a form and fashion that the scores of other nations of the world who were present came to respect, adore and praise. Every aspect of our Culture was represented and when we closed the Festival with our signature Junkanoo Rush Out the world stood still and declared in unison ‘Bahamas El Numero Uno’.

The Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium…

Major League Ball on the horizon The newly signed contract for the construction of the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium, a $21 million world class facility, will strengthen our co-branding with Major League Baseball as we attract Major League franchises to The Bahamas for training and exhibition games as well as international baseball tournaments. In the process we are memorializing one of our great athletes and native sons who propelled this tiny country onto the international stage.

The National Youth Policy Our National Youth Policy with no small input from the community leaders in Carmichael would institutionalize the manner in which our country develops its youth because youth development is national development. This policy will shape the quality of the country’s future leadership for generations to come. May I also add that the Bahamian youth played a significant role in the creation of the National Development Plan because the country realizes that it is brightest and surest when it properly prepares its youth – the next generation of leaders.

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Moores Island Abaco Sports Academy Dormitory, Grass Track and Multi Purpose FIeld Construction has begun on a new sports complex in Moore’s Island which includes a new track and field on property just across from the airport and is expected to be completed by early 2017.

The project is part of a larger government contract to upgrade infrastructure in Moore’s Island which was awarded to Big Cat Equipment from Abaco.

Integrated Building Services designed the site and is managing the project but the Ministry of Works is handling the finances for the island-wide project.

The sports complex is being constructed over a 17.4 Acre site and will contain a grass surface track and grassed soccer in field. In addition to the track and soccer field the site will include a beach volleyball court, beach soccer pitches, cross country running trail, basketball court, hard surfaced volleyball court, multi-Use pavilion, picnic area and a Tot Lot (children’s play area).

Also under construction just across from the new track and field is the Moore’s Island Student Athlete Program (MISAP) Dormitory Building.

MISAP is a registered non-profit organization that recognized the work of Pastor Anthony Williams with the successes of the Moore’s Island Track Club and embarked to expand on this work by creating a structured organization with the goal of developing student athletes who would qualify to receive college scholarships for track and field.

Chairman Nick Dean, (Principal of Integrated Building Services, Ltd) said, “Our goal is to have more Moore’s Islanders and mainland Abaco kids attend college than ever before.

Track and field will be the vehicle to make that happen.”

The MISAP dorm is a 4,000 square foot building being constructed to house student athletes who will live and train in Moore’s Island.

The dorm will house 20 to 30 boys eventually and will be completed by the end of the year. The building will also function as a hurricane shelter for Moore’s Islanders during major storm events (the building can comfortably hold 60 + persons in an emergency).

“The dorm is an example of a public private partnership between my company (Integrated Building Services, Ltd. – www.gointegrated.com) and the Bahamas Government,” Mr. Dean said.

He said, “IBS has agreed to handle the site designs and project management of the complex in exchange for a government grant to MISAP to construct the dorm. MISAP is building the dorms with the help of a substantial government grant and small donations from private donors including the MISAP board members.”

“Consistent with the Prime Minister’s promise during the election period where he highlighted Moore’s Island as a really gifted athletic community and the work of Rev. Anthony Williams (Coach of the Moore’s Island Track Club) who has carried that community on ‘his back’ so to speak, we felt that it was necessary to bring this project to the island” - Dr. Daniel Johnson

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National Beach Soccer Stadium Amphitheater The $2.5 Million facility, being built at the site of the original complex at Malcolm Park West, will be capable of hosting over 3,000 patrons and equipped with a number of modern amenities.

As the build up for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017 continues, local stakeholders continue to promote the country and the upcoming historic event to the international beach soccer community.

The Bahamas hosted the FIFA BEach Soccer World Cup 2013 – CONCACAF Qualifier

In an event expected to revolutionise the sport in the country, 16 teams from around the world will be taking part in the tournament hosted April 27 to May 7, 2017 at the new beach soccer stadium, currently under construction near the Nassau side of the Paradise Island Bridge.

The new beach soccer facility at the foot of the Sir Sidney Poitier Bridge has an expected completion date of early 2017.

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Bruce LaFluer, project architect and member of the BSWC Bahamas 2017 Local Organising Committee

University Commons

“The government, in conjunction with FIFA, decided to put this 2.5 million stadium which will house about a capacity of 3,097 persons”

-Bruce LaFluer

The 15 Acre Central Park expected to be completed Spring 2017. Located between The National Stadium Complex and the new $100 Million dormitory at the University of Bahamas.

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Dr. Hervis Bain, MBE, designer of The Flag and Coat of Arms Rev. Dr. Philip Rahming, OBE, Author of The Pledge Nettica Symonette, Hotelier and Writer; Calvin Lockhart, Actor Phillip Burrows, Playwright Chan Pratt, Visual Artist John Cox, Visual Artist Chantal Bethel, Visual Artist

CULTURE 4

Recognized for their outstanding contribution to arts, entertainment, music, business, tourism, and journalism, fortythree Bahamians were lauded as “Cultural Legends” during a ceremony, July 5, held in Pompey Square, the event part of the country’s 43rd Independence Anniversary Celebrations.

It played out like a star-studded affair as one by one the honourees took centre stage in Pompey Square to receive their awards as the country heard about their accomplishments and contributions to the overall development of The Bahamas.

Pompey Square, named after a slave who revolted against slavery, was elegantly decorated in the national colours of Aquamarine, Gold and Black.

It is with profound gratitude, we present the 43 CULTURAL LEGENDS:-

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John Beadle, Visual Artist Stephen Burrows, Sculptor Al Collie, Entertainer and Businessman Eloise Lewis, Entertainer Quinton “Barabbas” Woodside, Junkanoo Artist

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Silbert Ferguson, Junkanoo Artist Edwin ‘Apple’ Elliot, Musician Charlie Adamson, Musician and Entertainer Vernal Sands, Hotelier and Tourism Ambassador Eugene Dupuch, Playwright Sly Roker, Entertainer and Musician Nat ‘Piccolo Pete’ Saunders, Entertainer and Musician Mildred Sands, Tourism Ambassador

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Calvin Cooper, Playwright and Actor Frankie Zhivago Young, Entertainer Wilfred Solomon and the Magnetics, Entertainer and Musician Visage, Entertainer and Musician Sammy Thompson, Junkanoo Artist Lawrence Carroll, Dancer Richie Delamore, Entertainer The Soulful Groovers, Entertainer and Musician Harl Taylor, Fashion designer Tony Seymour Sr., Entertainer Cedric Munnings, Musician Brad Lundy, Entertainer and Musician Mary Kelly, Journalist Calsey Johnson, ZNS Tribute John Jefferson Scavella, Broadcaster Gordon Lowe, Broadcaster Ed Bethel, Journalist/Broadcaster Elva Russell-Rolle, Broadcaster Carl Bethel, Journalist/Broadcaster Cindy Williams, Broadcaster Nadine Beneby, Broadcaster Chris Fox, Musician

WWW.OURCULTUREWARRIORS.COM

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Sir Sidney Poitier Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE born February 20, 1927, is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author and diplomat.

In 1964,Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor,for his role in Lilies of the Field.

The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three successful films, all of which dealt with issues involving race: To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, making him the top box-office star of that year.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies, such as A Piece of the Action, Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, (with friend Bill Cosby), Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder) and Ghost Dad (also with Cosby). In 2002, thirty-eight years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated “To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.” Since 1997, he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan.

On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.

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LET US TELL OUR OWN STORY

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The Bahamas is fast becoming a major player in sports throughout the world.

This year the Bahamas experienced a female basketball player being selected sixth in the WNBA draft, when Jonquel Jones a native of Freeport, Grand Bahamas was selected sixth after an outstanding season at George Washington University.

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The 6' 6" Center is now playing for the Connecticut Suns after being trade by the Los Angeles Sparks. Although the first few games didn't start off great, things have picked up and now Jonquel is playing up to her expectations.

Jonquel has a great future and no doubt will be one of the staples in the WNBA. The likable young lady moved to Maryland at the age of 14 under the guardianship of Riverdale Baptist High School coach Diane Richardson. As a young lady she played on a court built by her father Preston Jones in the back yard of her grandma's house.

The road for Jonquel was not easy and she remembers the lesson she learned as a youth from the local basketball coaches which include Gladstone "Moon" McPhee who's HOYTE's program she came through. She was only the third Bahamian woman to earn a Division One basketball scholarship in the United States. She spent two plus seasons at George Washington after her freshman year at Clemson. She was ranked among the program's career leaders in scoring, rebounding and block shots. She also earned a three-time All-Atlantic 10 Conference pick.

In each of her two plus seasons at GW, Jonquel was the only A-10 player to average a double-double. She was the leader and won

just about every award there was in her last two seasons. Her stellar play rewarded her with the sixth pick in the WNBA. Although the Los Angeles Sparks drafted her, she was traded to the Connecticut Suns immediately after for a top player, Chelsea Gray and the Sun's number one pick next year.

Jonquel has struggled initially as her team was losing starting the season off with a 2-12 record. However, since then Jonquel has found her grove and the Sparks have rebounded. Although things don't look good for them this year, they expect great things to happen next year, especially with a couple of off season trades. There is no question that Jonquel is a star player and her transition from college to the WNBA has been more than expected and the future will definitely bring new things.

Jonquel was recently honored in the Bahamas when she had a portrait exhibited on the Walk of Fame at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium. In a lavish ceremony,the Ministry of Sports recognized Jonquel's star power and rewarded her with this tribute. Her fellow Grand Bahamian Buddy Hield was also honored and the two of them have placed Grand Bahama in a very positive light for producing quality star sports athletes.

Although the WNBA does not have the star power of the NBA, they have come a long way since they first started 20 years ago. Jonquel is the second Bahamian to play in the WNBA after Waltiea Rolle who was drafted with the 36th pick some two years ago. Since then Waltiea is no longer in the WNBA but still playing professionally. Jonquel is expected to have a long and productive career in the WNBA as her rookie season has already shown the star power that she possessed in college.

While at George Washington University Jonquel broke many of the major records and established herself as one of the greats to ever come out of that school. She was the first ever first round pick and the sixth player to come out of that program into the WNBA. She finished her collegiate career ranked third all-time in rebounds. She also hold the single season record in rebounds, fourth in scoring and fifth in blocked shots.

The 22-year old Bahamian is the daughter of Ettamae and Preston Jones. She has two brothers and four sisters. The future looks great for Jonquel and the Bahamas is behind, just like Buddy Hield in the NBA, especially Grand Bahama.

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Cecil Cooke Cecil Cooke (May 31, 1923 – May 1, 1983) was a sailor and Olympic champion from the Bahamas. He competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where he won a gold medal in the star class, together with Durward Knowles.

Cecil Cooke will long be remembered as the quiet and dedicatedforce in Bahamian Yacht Racing history. To many of us with whom hecame into contact, he will remain the knowledgeable personalityforever comfortable with nature’s elements, particularly the sea.His great strength was his seamanship, which definitely made thedifference between the Bronze Medal won by the team of Sloan Far-rington and Durward Knowles in the Melbourne Olympics of 1956 and the Gold Medal won by himself and Durward Knowles in

the Tokyo Olympics of 1964.A Champion swimmer himself, Cecil was perhaps more widelyknown in local circles for his assistance with the introduction of organized swimming in New Providence schools.

He was a source of in-spiration during this country’s first ever interschool swimming cham-pionships, held at the former Fort Montague Hotel’s swimming poolin 1966.

He remained a primary champion of The Bahamas Swimming Federation, assisting in the development of this sport throughout The Ba-hamas. He was a permanent fixture at all swim meets, either as anofficial or meet organizer.Aside from his Gold Medal performance at the 1964 OlympicsGames, Cecil Cooke’s greatest credential was the promise e held forand encouraged in the young people of The Bahamas

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Sir Durward Knowles Sir Durward Randolph Knowles (born 2 November 1917) is a sailor and olympic champion from the Bahamas. He competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where he won a gold medal in the Star class, together with Cecil Cooke. He received a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He had previously competed for the United Kingdom in the 1948 Olympics finishing in 4th place in the Star class together with Sloane Elmo Farrington.

Durward “Seawolf” Knowles was introduced to the sport of sailing byhis father who was himself an ardent sailing enthusiast.

Durward hadalways favoured the star class yachts and it is in this category that hehad astounding success at the Olympic Games, participating in them formore than forty years, earning two medals for The Bahamas in theprocess.Durward’s first major international competition was in 1946, whenhe finished third in the World Championships in Havana, Cuba.

Thefollowing year, “Seawolf” along with his crew, Sloan Farrington,teamed to win the World Championship in Los Angeles, California.The Bahamas had no Olympic Charter of its own in 1948, so toparticipate in the Olympics that year, Farrington and Knowles had totravel to London where they handily won the British elimination series,and qualified to represented England at the Olympic Games in 1948.

Inthose Games the Bahamian pair finished fourth, having suffered abroken mast in one race and a disqualification in another, therebyaccumulation points in just four of the six-race series

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Thomas A. Robinson Thomas Augustus “Tom” Robinson (March 16, 1938 – November 25, 2012) was a track and field athlete from the Bahamas, who competed in the sprint events. He was born in Nassau, New Providence. Thomas Robinson Stadium (15,000 seats) in the Bahamian capital Nassau is named for him since its construction in 1981.

Robinson represented his native country in four consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1956. At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, he won gold in the 200 yards dash and silver in the 100 yards dash. He again won silver in the 100 yards in the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. He claimed a gold medal at the 1962 Central American and Caribbean Games. Robinson was a contributor on the University of Michigan track team from 1958 to 1961, winning multiple team and individual Big 10 championships during his tenure. He was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1985. He was a finalist in the 100 meters at the 1964 Summer Olympic Games but finished 8th due to injuries.

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Frank Rutherford Frank Garfield Rutherford, Jr. MBE (born November 23, 1964) is a retired triple jumper from the Bahamas. He competed in three Olympic Games, and won a bronze medal in 1992, becoming the first Bahamian Track and Field Olympic medalist. He now runs a program which prepares young Bahamian students to play college basketball and American football in the United States. He was a four-time participant at the World Championships in Athletics.

Rutherford won the Bahamas its first World Championship medal with a bronze in the 1987 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

He was the US Indoor Track and Field champion in the triple jump in 1991 and still currently holds the triple jump record for the University of Houston.

He followed that with winning a silver medal at the 1992 World Cup in Havana, Cuba.

Rutherford is considered the Olympic pioneer in the Bahamas because he was the first to win medals at the Olympic and World Championship levels. He is considered the Father of Track and Field in the Bahamas.

He started the Frank Rutherford Foundation, a Houston, Texas-based programme to assist young Bahamian sportspeople in gaining academic qualifications through college.much like Rutherford. The Foundation’s goal is to help the students attain a college scholarship. More than 60 Bahamian young people have been helped by Rutherford and his foundation and all of them have graduated from college.

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he Bahamas Olympic Team won a total of 2 medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics. What this means for a country of this size is that we are giants among giants. Many countries with millions of people have not achieved the success we have in the Olympics. This is a phenomenal feat and one that every Bahamian should be proud of. Our Shaunae Miller won Gold in 400m, something that Tonique Williams did in 2004, and our 4X400m men's relay team won Bronze. But we also made the Finals in the 100m hurdles with a record-breaking performance with Pedrya Seymour and the Men's High Jump with Donald Thomas and Trevor Barry.

The Bahamas accomplished a lot considering our small size and the athletes performed to their best, making semi-finals in Swimming and Rowing and in Track and Field. Per capita we are in the top five in the world with one Gold and one Bronze. And although we only sent 32 athletes, they made their presence felt in this 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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represented in sailing in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland.

Eustace Myers was the first Chef de Mission with the sailing team of Durward Knowles, Sloane Farrington, Basil Kelly, Donald Pritchard, Kenneth Albury, Godfrey Higgs and Basil McKinney. The Bahamas was in close contention, but failed to secure a medal in the 1952 Olympics.

The Olympics is the premier sporting event in the world. The Bahamas Olympic Committee was started in 1952 after Sir Durward Knowles sailed in the 1948 Olympics but there was no association and they sailed under the British flag. At the time Knowles and his crew member Sloane Farrington came fourth. They even had to compete in the British trials in order to make the Olympic team, truly a major accomplishment.

When the next Olympics came around, the founding fathers of the Bahamas Olympic movement had worked feverishly to get it done so that Knowles and Farrington could then sail under the Bahamas banner.

Thus the Bahamas Olympic Association was started and today we have the Bahamas Olympic Committee.

The founding fathers were: Sir George Roberts, started off as president of the association; Hon. A.F. Adderley, Hon. Godfrey Higgs, Roscoe Albury, Chris Brown, James Robertson, Gerald Cash and Eustace Myers.

For the first time the Bahamas was officially

With the newly formed association up and running, the first order of business by the founding president Sir George Roberts was to get the other sporting disciplines involved. So in 1954, a three man track & field team attended the British Empire (Commonwealth Games) in British Colombia, Canada. The team did not win any medals but they became the first international track & field team for the Bahamas.

Then in 1956, the Olympic Association began to reap the fruits of their labour, with Durward Knowles and Sloane Farrington sailing away with the bronze medal. It was the first Olympic Medal of all times for the Bahamas when they came in third in the star sailing at the Melbourne Australia Olympic Games.

In the late 1957, Robert H. "Bobby" Symonette succeeded Sir George Roberts as president of the BOA. Shortly after in the spring of 1958, a new young sprinter emerged in Thomas Augustus Robinson.

Tommy was tearing up the tracks at home and in college. So despite the limited funds, the BOA was able to send Tommy to the Commonwealth Games in 1958 in Cardiff, Wales.

Tommy traveled alone and delivered the Bahamas the biggest victory in track and field internationally. Tommy won the Gold medal in the 220 yard dash and the Silver medal in the 100 yard dash.

The Bahamas had now obtained world recognition in track and field, and the

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drive for more had started. Although the BOA was now responsible for four internationally acclaimed Games - The Commonwealth Games, The Central American and Caribbean Games, the pan American Games and of course the Olympic Games.

Sir Durward and a new crew member Cecil Cooke, won the first ever Gold medal for the Bahamas in the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Now the drive was on. The Bahamas participated in all four international Games and a good showing. However, it was not until 1992 that a young triple jum,per named Frank Rutherford brought the Bahamas their first ever Olympics Bronze Medal. It was a trendsetter. Although the Bahamas

had won medals in the other Games, but nver the Olympics until Frank's accomplishment.

The Bahamas went on to Olympic glory with the Women's 4X100m team winning a Silver and then a Gold to be forever known as the Golden Girls.

Tonique Williams winning the 400 meters and dominating that event in the Diamond League where she had to split the overall prize of $1,000,000.00 was also a phenomenal feat. In the 2012 London Olympics the Men won the 4X400m Gold medal and became known as the Golden Knights. The Bahamas now turned around and won two more track and field medals with Shaunae Miller winning the Gold and the Men's 4X400m winning the Bronze.

The future looks bright and there is no doubt that the Bahamas will continue to build on this trend, winning at successive Olympic Games. Yes Tokyo 2020 here we come!

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Pauline Davis- Thompson Pauline Davis-Thompson (born July 9, 1966) is a former Bahamian sprinter. She competed at five Olympics, a rarity for a track and field athlete. She won her first medal at her fourth Olympics and her first gold medals at her fifth Olympics (Sydney 2000) at age 34 in the 4x100m Relay. In 1984, she was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the 1984 CARIFTA Games.

She ran at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics the following year and although she narrowly missed out on a medal in the 400m, she helped the Bahamian team to a silver medal in the 4 x 100 metres relay. She suffered a dip in form in 1997 – she made both the 400m and 100m relay finals but failed to win a medal in either event. She received her first World Championships gold medal two years later, in 1999, aiding the Bahamian relay team to victory.

She won a gold medal in both the 200 metres and the 4×100m relay at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She originally finished in second place in the women’s 200 m behind Marion Jones, but in October 2007 Jones admitted taking performance enhancing drugs and was stripped of the title. On December 9, 2009, Davis-Thompson was finally awarded the gold medal.

After her track career, she went into athletics administration, being elected to the IAAF council in 2007

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Tonique Williams Darling Tonique Williams-Darling (born January 17, 1976 in Nassau, Bahamas) is a Bahamian sprint athlete. She won the gold medal in the 400 meters at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Williams-Darling had a breakout year in 2004. She started with a bronze medal at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest, Hungary, running a personal best behind Russia’s Natalya Nazarova and Olesya Krasnomovets.

Then in July, at the Rome meeting of the IAAF Golden League, Tonique broke Mexican world champion Ana Guevara’s 23 race winning streak in the 400 meter race.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece Williams-Darling beat Guevara again. Winning the race, she became the Bahamas’ first individual Olympic gold medalist.

After the Olympics she secured the win in the overall Golden League-jackpot, cashing in US $500,000 after splitting the US $1M pot with Christian Olsson. She also won the gold medal in the 400 meters at 2005 World Championships in Athletics, in a head-tohead race with American 400-meter specialist Sanya Richards.

In November 2012, she was elected as Public Relations Director of the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) for the period 2012-2015

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BUDDY

HIELD What's in a name, one might ask! But for Buddy or Buddy Buckets, it's a multiple of names. Yes, his real name is Chavano Rainier Hield, but the world now know him as "Buddy" Hield, a young Bahamian basketball player who took College basketball to new heights this past season while playing for the Oklahoma Sooners in his Senior Year.

At just 22 years of age, Buddy was drafted sixth in the 2016 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Pelican. He was a shoo-in for the NBA after he was named Big 12 Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016. He also received four major national player of the year awards, the John R. Wooden Award; the Naismith Award, Sporting News Player of the Year and the Oscar Robertson Trophy.

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Buddy had originally thought about the NBA draft after the 2015 season, but basically listened to sound advice led by his mother, to stay in school and finish his final season. Buddy did that and he graduated from Oklahoma and was rewarded with an NBA selection as the sixth pick.

But more importantly Buddy's senior year at Oklahoma was a dream come through. Although he won just about every award there was for College Basketball, he increased his stock for the NBA and was a lock for a lottery pick.

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and helped him to have access to opportunities. The rest is history.

Buddy is a grateful young man and he has recognized all of the people that have helped him, especially in Grand Bahama. He was raised by his mother and they lived in his grandparents house in Eight Mile Rock. But at a young age, family and family values was instilled in him. He was taught the word of God and became grateful for the little that he had.

Although the future looks bright, Buddy will carry a lot of people with him to the Promised Land.

Naturally an automatic millionaire, especially after signing a rookie contract worth more than $3.5 million the first year, Buddy came home to the Bahamas at his earliest opportunity and immediately gave back to his country that showed him so much love while in College.

The future looks bright as Buddy has demonstrated that he believes and loves the Bahamas. His camp this past summer was outstanding and big things are expected for the future.

What's in store for Buddy as a rookie with the New Orleans Pelicans? Well for starters Buddy is prepared for what's to come. He expects to play but perhaps not immediately as a starter, but he feels confident that he'll make the adjustment to the NBA. But all of this was nothing more than a dream for Buddy. He grew up in Eight Mile Rock in Grand Bahama and played basketball with a milk cart as a basket. He demonstrated a passion for the game even as a young man. Most of the local coaches in Grand Bahama recognized the talent in Buddy

The rookie contract that he signs allows him to develop into the player that he wants, without having to worry about financial matters. Presently the little more than $3.5 million contract in his first and second years will give him the comfort to help those that he wants to help. However, once he develops into the type of player that he knows he can become, the third year of his contract the Pelicans can pick it up and extend to him a more than $15 million contract.

Then he'll be able to do the things that he wants.

For now, Buddy is focus on his rookie season in the NBA and playing alongside some of the greats. All eyes will be on him as he's known to be a shooter and the New Orleans Pelicans need just that. One thing he can rely on and that is every Bahamian will be a new Pelican fan and pulling for Buddy.

Yes Buddy Hield is a popular name especially since his last year in Oklahoma, where he led the Sooners to the Final Four of the NCAA and won almost every major award in college basketball for the 2016 season.

We now expect him to bring his bubbly personality to the NBA and the New Orleans Pelicans. Great things are in store for Buddy and he knows that a whole country, The Bahamas is behind him.

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BUDDY COMES HOME Chavano ‘Buddy’ Hield was bombarded by scores of excited visitors and Bahamians at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) when he arrived yesterday afternoon.

“I want to say thank you for the welcome,” Hield said moments earlier during a press conference in the VIP Lounge at LPIA.

Hield, a rising Bahamian basketball star who was drafted sixth by the New Orleans Pelicans at the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft, was met with a Junkanoo rush out at the airport.

“I appreciate everybody coming out here.”

Tourists and locals rushed to greet him and take selfies with the Grand Bahama native.

Oh Thursday, Hield, along with over 30 Bahamian sports legends, will be honored by the Ministry of Tourism at the Thomas A. Robinson Stadium.

Hield graciously and meticulously shook every hand and posed for every selfie.

LPIA baggage handlers, taxi drivers, guests, locals and the media alike ran towards Hield as he walked towards his car. It was pure pandemonium.

Dozens watched as his entourage, escorted by police outriders, drove away from the airport.

Many were giddy and filled with laughter.

“I can’t believe I got a selfie,” one tourist said.

Unbeknownst to them, Hield was off for food he said he can only find in The Bahamas: Bamboo Shack.

Hield will take part in a litany of activities during his visit to The Bahamas.

On Saturday, he will take part in a youth basketball clinic at the Kendal GL Isaacs Gymnasium.

Hield said his focus will be to reach young Bahamian children, especially boys.

“A lot of kids in Nassau need somebody like me to inspire them, especially the young boys,” said the Grand Bahama native.

“I’m really looking forward to the invitational.

“I’m excited to be here. I’m glad to be back home.

The weather is so different and I’ve been in America so much so I need the food. That’s what I’m missing.

“I’m glad to be here and give back to the kids.”

Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Dr. Danny Johnson said Hield has proven to be not just a gifted athlete, but a man of character.

“Not since Mychal “Sweet Bells” Thompson have we seen the likes of this individual sitting on my right,” he said.

“You are now in a class of gentlemen sir.”

Director General in the Ministry of Tourism Joy Jibrilu said The Bahamas has become overtaken by “Buddy-mania”.

“You have represented The Bahamas so well and you have made every single one of us so proud,” she said.

“More importantly, we are a small nation and in every generation you may be blessed to find among us a special citizen or maybe two who rises to international fame.

“We cherish these giants. In you Buddy, we recognize that we have a rare Bahamian.”

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he Buddy Hield Basketball Invitational took place on Saturday, July 23, at Kendal G.L. Isaccs Gym. Photos show: Adam Johnson named the MVP (with $10,000 scholarship cheque behind him) during the Invitational; the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson Minister of Youth, Sports & Culture with welcome remarks; Minister Johnson enjoying the game on the court with two young players; and Virgina Kelly of the Ministry of Tourism with presentation to Azaro Roker, right -- Slam Dunk Champ during the Invitational, with Buddy Hield, second left, and Minister Johnson, left. (BIS Photos/Patrick Hanna)

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The Golden Girls At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the five „Golden Girls“ of the Bahamas proudly accepted four gold medals and one silver medal—an amazing record for a country this small. Debbie Ferguson, Chandra Sturrup, Sevatheda Fynes, Pauline DavisThompson, and Eldece Clark-Lewis were dubbed the Golden Girls in 1999 after their first place finish at the prestigious World Championships in Seville, Spain.

Their incredible achievements at the Olympics a year later showed the world why they had earned that name. Ferguson, Sturrup, Fynes, and Davis-Thompson all won gold medals in the 4 x 100 meter relay.

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The Golden Knights On Friday, August 10th , 2012 The Bahamas team of Chris Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu, and Ramon Miller shocked the world when they defeated the United States in the Men’s 4x400m relay. Only two other countries in history had won this event.

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Contract Signing for the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium, July 18, 2016 at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium. (BIS Photo/Derek Smith)

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Baseball Stadium Plans -- Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Works and Urban Development the Hon. Philip Davis (second right) and Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson (second left) chat while viewing what the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium will look like upon completion. Also viewing are Arnold Forbes (right) Parliamentary Secretary, and Colin Higgs, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works and Urban Development.

Minister of Works and Urban Development the Hon. Philip Davis, at podium, presents the plans for the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium at the $21 million contract signing, July 18, 2016 at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie is at left; Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson, at second right; and Permanent Secretary Calvin Balfour, at right.

The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture in conjunction with the Ministry of Works and Urban Development held a press conference and contract signing for the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium on Monday, July 18, 2016 at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium.

The contract in the amount of $21 million was awarded to Woslee Construction, which was represented by company president, Mr. Ashley Glinton. Work on the structure is scheduled to begin around mid-August.

The stadium is to be located opposite Government High School.

Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie said “build a stadium that would leave me in awe as I drive by it.” He continued, “something that would say this is a national baseball stadium.”

Minister of Youth, Sports, and Culture the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson said the stadium would be one of the best in the world. He said the stadium would mean that The Bahamas could host AA, AAA Class spring training and even professional baseball games.

Ground breaking for the Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium. From right are: Daughter of Andre Rodgers, Gina Rodgers-Sealy; Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson; Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie; and Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Davis

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Gary Bain Gary Bain was legendary on the Bahamian horse racing scene in the 1970s. In 2015 he has rode numerous winners on the South Florida racing. He began his career as a 12 year old boy at the former Hobby Horse Race Track at Cable Beach and for almost five consecutive years he earned the title Jockey of the Year, having amassed the majority of wins on his mounts over the four month local horse racing season.

In 1979 Bain moved to South Florida after the controversial closure of the local horse track. A number of horsemen at the time including Trainers George Burrows and Larry Demeritte also relocated to the US. Burrows has gained a solid reputation

as a breeder in Ocala, Florida where champion thoroughbred horses are bred. Demeritte is a champion trainer in Louisville Kentucky.

Gary Bain, at 63 is still going to the Winners Circle at Gulfstream Park and Calder Horse tracks in Florida. He has won the WHAS Stakes on Kentucky Derby Day in 1996 aboard Hoop Coyote Hoop and in 1983 in the Reality Division of the Florida Stallion Stakes on My G.P. “I’m 63 going on 19” says Bain. “I do a lot of galloping in the morning to stay in shape.”

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Elisha Obed

Obed entered the amateur ranks at age 12. Fighting almost weekly, he ran up an undefeated record of 46-0 (16 knockouts). At 14, he decided to turn professional.

For almost 6 years, he lingered on small promotions on the island of the Bahamas. He was billed as undefeated, but he had lost a fight by knockout to veteran Kid Carew. His loss to Kid Carew was unlisted for almost 8 years, as he was reported incorrectly as undefeated in the press until his loss to Eckhard Dagge. In 1975 he captured the WBC Light Middleweight Title by defeating Miguel de Oliveira.

He defended the title twice before losing the belt to Germany’s Eckhard Dagge in 1976 when he quit, claiming he had blurred vision. Obed stated that he had been thumbed in the eye by Dagge. In actuality, he was later found to have a detached retina and is legally blind in that eye.

Obed decided to enter the middleweight ranks. By 27, he was back to where he started from, fighting on local fight cards in Nassau. He retired in 1988.

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SHAUNAE

MILLER The Bahamian Sensation!

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ever before in the history of the Bahamas in athletics, has one person ever generated as much publicity as the new Bahamian Sensation, Shaunae Miller.

Our newest Bahamian Olympic Champion for her now famous 400 metres victory over the the World's Best 400 metre runner Alyson Felix, Shaunae will go down in our history.

Born just 22 years ago, we all knew that this young lady was destined for greatness. She attended the Big Red Machine, St. Augustine's College and help SAC to dominate the high school track and field championships.

In 2011 Shaunae became the first Bahamian to ever win the 400 metres in the World Youth Championships in Athletics.

She then went on and signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Georgia. However, in 2012 she participated in her first Olympics, but unfortunately did not get out of the heats. But that was a sign of things to come.

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In the world indoor championships in 2014 she won a bronze medal. Then in 2015, she won a silver medal in the World Championship behind Alyson Felix. But in the 2016 Rio Olympics Shaunae was determined to let the world know that she had arrived, when she beat Alyson for the Olympic Gold.

What we don't know about Shaunae however, is that her determination to succeed was evident years before the Olympics. She has put in the work ethics to be a world champion and to remain a world champion for years to come.

Although she is a pro athlete having signed various endorsements, she has stayed grounded and is committed to bringing the world's attention to the Bahamas. When she attended the University of Georgia she set many school records and the eyes of the college world began to take notice. But that was only the beginning. Shaunae is the first person to hold the Youth and Junior titles at the same time. Her moment in history began to take form.

Shaunae has major plans and a lot of them include her native country the Bahamas. Having just announced her engagement before the Olympics, many people thought that she would be distracted, especially thinking about marriage, babies and where they would live.

However, Shaunae has put those fears aside as she has dominated leading up to the Olympics and the only thing left was her showdown with Alyson Felix. Shaunae did not disappoint, she beat Alyson and became the reigning Olympic

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Champion in the 400 metres.

A look back at Shaunae's history is astounding.

She even won the Austin Sealey award at the Carifta, then went on to dominate World Youth and Junior events. Not since Tonique Williams-Darling, did the Bahamas have a world dominance in the 400 metres. The good news is that Shaunae has time on her side at only 22 and once she can stay healthy there is no telling what the future holds.

One thing that Shaunae knows is that the Bahamas is behind her 100%. Following her Olympic victory, she has visited schools and islands in the Bahamas and has been a hit wherever she went. She is our hero and the newest Bahamian Sensation!

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Prime Minister Christie, second left, Minister Wilchcombe, left, and Minister Johnson, right with Honouree Basketball Player Sterling Quant. (BIS Photo/Derek Smith)

Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie said that it was always a "special pleasure" for him to participate in any ceremony that lifts up the names of people who have impacted The Bahamas in "very special ways".

"The word 'legend', in itself, speaks to the fact that history will accord each of you a very special place in the annals of sporting history in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas," Prime Minister Christie said at the 43rd Independence Celebrations Ceremony Honouring Athletic Legends, at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre, July 21, 2016.

Also among the dignitaries present at the ceremony were Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Works and Urban Development the Hon. Philip Brave Davis, Minister of Tourism the Hon. Obie Wilchcombe, and Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson.

The Thirty Eight Honourees for the nation’s 43rd Anniversary of Independence are: Eddie Ford; Frank “Pancho” Rahming for Track and Field Coaching; Ed Smith for Football; Donnie Martinborough for Sailing; Edward Leon “Apache” Knowles for Softball; Wil Culmer for Baseball; Keith Parker for Coaching; Bradley Cooper for Discus and Shot Put; Sterling Quant for Basketball; Ray Minus Jr. for Boxing; Sir Arlington Butler as a Trainer; Tom “The Bird” Grant for various sports; Leonard “Boston Blackie” Miller for Boxing and Cycling; Cecil Rose for Basketball; Cynthia “Mother Pratt” for Volleyball; Ivan Johnson for Cricket; Della Thomas - Bodybuilding; Andy Knowles as a swimming coach; Peter Gilcud for Basketball; Dr. Timothy Barrett for Triple Jump; Chavano “Buddy” Hield for Basketball; George “Tony” Curry for Baseball; Yolett McPhee McCuin as an NCAA Women’s Basketball Coach; Vince Ferguson for various sports; Dame Albertha Isaacs for Tennis; Byron Ferguson for Volleyball; Richard “The Lionheart” Johnson for Softball; Gorman Gomeo Brennan for Boxing; Edmundo Moxey for Baseball; Candice DeGregory Culmer for Softball; Fred “Papa” Smith for Baseball; Linda Ford for Softball; Glen “The Master” Griffin for Softball; Charles Thompson for Basketball; Randy Rolle Sr. for Baseball; Laverne Eve for Javelin; Edney Bethel for Softball and Jonquel Jones for Basketball.

Prime Minister Christie told the 38 athletic legends recognized that day that there were so many of them who had “lifted the spirits of Bahamians” wherever they had played or served.

Prime Minister Christie shared stories about how he knew each honouree and the part they played in his life, telling in particular, how he

met a nine-year-old Buddy Hield and they posed for a photograph, where the youngster insisted that he held the basketball for the group shot.

He pointed out that Mr. Hield was not living, at the time, a life of “any degree of comfort” financially in his household.

“This is one of the magnificent stories of our country, where so many of you can reminisce tonight, looking back at your own past, to know that life was not easy for you and your family; and the conditions under which you worked, you played, you performed, was not as some have it today -- and that even to those of you who performed, you did not even have the nutritional contribution that some of the modern athletes have (for proper physical development),” Prime Minister Christie said.

“So, I urge those of us who are in public life, and on both sides of the democracy, to recognize that we have an obligation to understand the relationship between those young people who contribute to the sporting development of our country and, in the process, uplift the glorification of sports through their achievements,” he added.

“We owe them a further commitment to develop our country on the basis that they have demonstrated what sports, talents and gifts can do for The Bahamas,” Prime Minister Christie said.

“We should feel good, notwithstanding the challenges of our country, about what our country has been able to produce and there is no secret to the fact that the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, per capita, is the greatest sporting nation in the entire world. God Bless The Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”

DEFINING THE NATION'S RICH HERITAGE

Bahamas Youth March 2016 Scenes from the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture's Youth March, Sunday, October 30, 2016 that comprised young people from various schools, youth organizations, and bands. It started at Clifford Park and proceeded downtown, over the hill, and back to Clifford Park. The march takes place each year during October -- Youth Month -- led by the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson (pictured guiding C.R. Walker Senior High School students). (BIS Photos/Derek Smith)

Youth Leaders Visit the Bahamas Prime Minister Youth Leaders of the community paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie, pictured centre, on October 27, 2016 at the Office of the Prime Minister. They were accompanied by Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture the Hon. Dr. Daniel Johnson and Director of Youth, K. Darron Turnquest. (BIS Photo/Peter Ramsay)

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Photography by Fel icity

Ingraham

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John "Chippie" Chipman

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Celebrated at Arawak Cay

t’s never too late to start something new; and the legendary entertainer John “Chippie” Chipman proved that as he successfully hosted his first ever birthday bash on the historic plantation grounds opposite Arawak Cay this Saturday.

The site is a part of his family’s heritage, and he thought it would be the perfect location for a major birthday bash. Prior to 2016, Chippie would have birthday celebrations through the former Lifebouy Street, now John Chipman Street where he lives. But it became quite obvious that the amount of offspring he has produced, combined with the children of the community who usually invade his yard, and the many friends he has from all walks of life in Bahamian society, would make it hard to sustain in that area.

The birthday bash featured multiple tents offering free food and guests to invitees. Chicken souse with home made Johnny cake, hotdogs and hamburgers, and fresh meat off the grill were served. Beers and

sodas were also provided. Children played with balloons and toys to entertain themselves until the much anticipated birthday rush-out. Metellus Chipman took a break from his Arawak cay stall to provide fresh coconut water, served in the coconut shell with a straw, to some of Chippie’s lucky guests.

The DJ played a host of popular Bahamian music, while guests took turns taking the microphone to give Chippie their special birthday wishes.

Chippie wore his Junkanoo Hall of Fame Jacket, emblazoned with his medal from Queen Elizabeth, MBE ( member of the British Empire).

Minister of Youth, Sports & Culture Dr. Daniel Johnson attended the bash and commented that it is important to honor the great works of the living legends amongst us. He brought birthday wishes on behalf of his entire ministry, especially the Department of Culture.

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Minister Confident in Future of Bahamian Sports Minister of Youth, Sports & Culture Dr. Daniel Johnson is singing the praises of Bahamian athletes after another successful round of Olympic competition. While many countries with greater resources and bigger teams fail to produce a medal, The Bahamas continues to stand out with a medal count per capita that makes it one of the most successful sporting countries in the world.

Since taking office as Minister of Youth, Sports & Culture, Dr. Johnson came up with the TEAM BAHAMAS concept, which is designed to show every Bahamian how they represent a part of the national team of The Bahamas.

"Team Bahamas is conceptualized to capture the ethos of the Bahamian collective spirit in cementing and galvanizing a national unity in support of the country's culture, people and institutions, as well as intellectual and sports endeavors at home and abroad" said Dr. Johnson.

The success of Bahamian athletes was the inspiration behind formulating a concept that could bring the entire country together as a team. Athletes continue to prove their worth on the international stage.

BAHAMAS OLYMPIC TEAM CELEBRATED

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t the ceremonies were: Shaunae Miller, 400m Gold Medalist; Michael Mathieu, Bronze Medalist 4x400m Relay; Alonzo Russell, Bronze Medalist 4x400m Relay; Chris Brown, Bronze Medalist 4x400m Relay; Steven Gardiner, Bronze Medalist 4x400m Relay; Stephen Newbold, Bronze Medalist 4x400m Relay; Demetrius Pinder, Member of the 4x400m Relay Team; Pedrya Seymour, 110 Hurdles; Sheniqua Ferguson, Women’s 200m; Anthonique Strachan, Women’s 200m; Lanece Clarke, Women’s 4x400m Relay; Christine Amertil; Women’s 4x400m Relay; Emily Morley, Rowing; Trevor Barry, Finalist High Jump; Teray Smith, 200m; Shavez Hart, 100m, 200m; Jamial Rolle, 100 metres; Jamal Wilson, High Jump; Leevan Sands, Triple Jump; Latario CollieMinnis, Triple Jump; Bianca Stuart, Women’s Long Jump; Tynia Gaither, 100m, 200m; and Debbie Ferguson-Mckenzie, Assistant Coach.

Not pictured: Adanaca Brown, Women's 100m Hurdles; Devynne Charlton, Women's 100m Hurdles; Jeffrey Gibson, Men's 400m Hurdles; Donald Thomas, High Jump Finalist; Dustin Tynes, Swimming, 100 m Breaststroke; Joanna Evans, Swimming; 200m/400m/800m Free Style Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, 50m/100m Free Style & 100m Fly; Carmeisha Cox, Women's 4x400m Relay; Shaquania Dorsett, Women’s 4x400m Relay; and Adrain Griffith, 100m. (BIS Photos/Raymond A. Bethel, Sr.)

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he cultural community, public servants and friends of Eddison “Fast Eddie” Dames gathered this weekend to celebrate with him as he retires, after having given the government of The Bahamas more than 42 years of dedicated service.

Worker’s House was transformed into the scene for a masquerade ball held in his honor, under the patronage of Prime Minister Perry G. Christie.

“Fast Eddie”, as he is fondly called, could be described as a larger-thanlife character, Mr. Christie said, adding that he is always distinguished by his appearance and booming voice.

“I am privileged to have known him for many years... since early childhood he has been a devotee of Junkanoo and it is interesting that over all the years, he has remained one of the more avid developers and promoters of this art form,” Mr. Christie said.

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“It is through persons such as Fast Eddie that Junkanoo has taken root throughout The Bahamas and is now embedded as a part of our cultural mainstream.”

Although well-known in his current capacity as Assistant Director of Culture, Fast Eddie also spent many years as an air-traffic controller, assistant manager at Nassau International Airport, and Training Officer at the Road Traffic Department. He was responsible for the rewriting of the Emergency and Security Manuals for the Civil Aviation Department and was also charged with the responsibility of being the chairperson and coordinator for the Emergency Disaster Planning Committee. He is a founding member of the Bahamas Air Traffic Controllers Association, which led to the formation of The Bahamas Air Traffic Controller Union. At the Road Traffic Department, he established for the first time, a training course for all Road Traffic Supervisors and Officers.

Within the Ministry of Youth, Sports & Culture, Fast Eddie is known for the establishment of

the Junkanoo Festival Period National Championships. Annually, he traveled throughout the Family Islands to select the island champions in the categories of best cowbeller, best drummer, best dancer, and best two and five-men horn combo.

In his personal life, he grew up under the Valley Boys, rushed with the Pigs, and is currently the Public Relations officer for the Saxons Superstars. He has served as a Junkanoo ambassador around the world and has received awards and certificates in this regard, including from the Smithsonian Festival of American Folk Life, the Martin Luther Parade in Perrine, Florida and the State of Louisiana Governors’ Award.

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Junkanoo Icon Percy "Vola" Francis attended the ball to give warm regards and celebrate with his long-time Junkanoo friend. Members of the National Junkanoo Committee were also in attendance. Willis George Bethell and William Wallace, co-chairpersons commented: "As he retires, he will be remembered for his great organizational skills, his love, his passion, his commitment, his dedication and his great sacrifice to ensure than Junkanoo would remain the greatest cultural experience on earth".

In his civic life, Fast Eddie is an Anglican who served in various facets of the church, including choir, Anglican Church Men, and Anglican Young People Association. He is also a member of Columbus 16 lodge and participates in a number of community outreach programmes.

He served as secretary to the Bahamas Boxing Commission, the National Sports Advisory Council, and the National Regatta Committee.

“A huge pillar in our Bahamian cultural society and an exemplary figure for the younger generations to follow,” is how Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Dr. Daniel Johnson described him. Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe added: “While the Public Service record shows Fast Eddie’s reputation as an innovative bureaucrat, it is his artistic personality that has captured the public’s imagination.”

A well-known cultural artist, MC, entertainer, and ardent Junkanoo dancer, Fast Eddie isn't retiring and calling it quits. He recently released his book of poems in audio form on CD called "The Eyes of My Inner Self ". He is excited about the release of his first movie - he is the executive producer of new local film called "Goudda Sons of Titan".

His affiliations with the Caribbean Music Festival, Kiwanis and various sporting organizations will also keep him busy beyond his retirement.

His notable achievements include: Award of Honor - Bahamas Public Service Union 40th anniversary for long and dedicated service to the union; Gold Award for Tourist, Hotel and Catering Industry held in Madrid, Spain; and Bahamian Cultural Icon Award 2015.

Retirement ball chairperson Chiquita Dames, co-chairs Bernadette Davis-Smith and Clifford Martin, along eith Aileen Spencer, Sharon Paotier-Cadeau, Lekeisha Bostwick, Geonise Nairn-Ewing and Pedro Lee thought it fitting to honor Fast Eddie with a holiday cruise for two, two seperate hotel overnights for two, and dinner for two.

Attendees enjoyed listening to Fast Eddie's audio book, wacthing dance performances from the Saxons female dancers, listening to Fast Eddie and Vola Francis sing the classic rendition of "My Way" and danced to the sounds of the Royal Bahamas Police Force Pop band, which played Bahamian music until midnight.

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Recognized for their outstanding contribution to arts, entertainment, music, business, tourism, and journalism, forty-three Bahamians were lauded as “Cultural Legends” during a ceremony, July 5, held in Pompey Square, the event part of the country’s 43rd Independence Anniversary Celebrations.

Minister Daniel Johnson Tours Renovations to National Swim Complex and Gymnasium

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The Ministry of Youth, Sports, & Culture officially launched the national 50th anniversary celebrations of Majority Rule during a press conference at its Thompson Boulevard headquarters, under the theme, “ Many Islands, One People�.

The nearly year-long cultural calendar of planned events will commemorate half a century since The Bahamas navigated through its own of Civil Rights Movement, better known as The Road To Majority Rule, leading up to the 50th anniversary on January 10th, 2017.

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Ronnie Butler is a living legend in our country. His hard work, stamina, endearing personality, charm and of course his talent has fared him well.

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Regarded as the “Chairman of the Board” of the entertainment industry in this country Mr. Butler has captured in song just about every tenet of our culture and commented without fear of favour on a wide range of issues through his music.

Mr. Butler has been able to win converts to this style of entertainment from a second generation of Bahamians and before he got ill about three years ago, hundreds of primary school children looked forward to Mr. Butler visiting their campus to perform.

His songs are hardly off the radio that their lyrics are vaulted into the pantheon of the Bahamian language of the street or the pop culture. Almost ageless and seamless in his voice and performances, Mr. Butler can hardly ever walk into any public place without being recognized and appreciated.

He has given this country timeless classics such as “Going Down Burma Road”, “Shotgun Wedding”, “Looking Pretty and Smiling” . “Who Put the Pepper in the Vaseoline?”. “Old Sayings” and his

Ronnie's "Am a Married Man" was featured in Tyler Perry"s movie "Why Did I Get Married?"

duet performances with Sweet Emily to make “ Look What You Do to Me” and with his contemporary Count Bernardino to record, “ Age Aint Nothing But A Number”, both songs scored and written

by Fred Ferguson, are highly regarded parts of his large body of work.

Mr. Butler is a versatile artist, who is just as comfortable in a scorchy or raunchy calypso, a fast and furious rake and scrape or a soft touch ballad. Mr. Butler had brought audiences to tears when he tries on gospel or performs in honour of a fallen comrade or friend at a funeral service.

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Trio” and got a small evening job performing at The Carlton House Hotel on East Street. Here Mr. Butler began to learn the bongo drum and was back- up singer.

Audiences gave Ronnie the encouragement he needed and by the age of 17 he had quit the construction field and joined the power house band, “King Eric and His Knights”.

With the King and Knights, Ronnie got to take his musical and voice skills to another level and to tour with the band in the USA, Canada and the Family Islands.

In 1963, after 9 years, Ronnie parted company with King Eric and formed his own band “Ronnie and the Ramblers”. They played the “The Big Bamboo”.

In 1964, Ronnie released his first album entitled:

His fan base amongst tourists and Bahamians is always at an all time high.

Mr. Butler has also used his star quality to bring focus and attention to the needs and challenges of his fellow entertainers and his hospitality and generousity, while it goes unsung by him; is praised by his friends and associates.

Born on 17th August, 1937 in Nassau., by the age of 14, Ronnie quit school and set out to learn a skill in the construction field, to better assist and care for his mother and siblings. Always drawn to music and singing, the young Ronnie, along with two friends formed a band called “The Alexander

“Ronnie Steps Out”. Five years later, in 1968, Ronnie and The Ramblers were invited to play at a club in Washington.

For his work Mr. Butler was made O.B.E (Member of the Most Excellence Order of the British Empire) in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s 11 New Year’s Honors for the year 2003. Mr. Butler is also a recipient of the 2004 Cacique Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ministry of Tourism.

They don’t get any bigger than Ronnie Butler.

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oor non privileged White Bahamians with no lineage to the political gentry were victims as well of the race and class discrimination exercised by the ruling oligarchy. Poor whites, whose votes were needed could find jobs in Kelly Lumber Yard, The Betty K Shipping Agency, Donald D’elbenas and Sons Wholesale Grocers, The Stop N’ Shop, The Nassau Shop, Navios Corporation, MacAlpine Construction Company, insurance companies and the banks.

Former Chief Justice Sir Leonard Knowles, a White Bahamian in writing his history of The Bahamas said Sir Stafford Sands was an avowed “white supremacist”.

Holding sway over the colony’s economic and political power base for over quarter of a century, Sands abandoned The Bahamas when his party lost the government on January 10th 1967, taking up residence in Spain; never again to return. His seat in the House of Assembly was vacated and contested in a subsequent bye-election. His rationale- he could not live in a Bahamas where the pendulum was now swinging in another direction. He died in Europe in 1975.

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BAAM - Launch Edition 2017 70 The story book illusion of a Tourism Industry that was revived by the Development Board and Sir Stafford Sands, the country’s first Minister of Tourism in 1950 must be countered against the back drop of the easily verifiable facts and issues; which during this period a large segment of the Bahamian People were basically denied the fullest participation not just in the Tourism Industry but also in the governance of their affairs.

The tale which is the Stafford Sands story about the Development Board, which was the forerunner of a Ministry of Tourism, must be seen in the context that this took place less than eight years after the Royal Governor the Duke of Windsor empanelled a Commission to discuss the Burma Road Riot of 1942 and how such unrest is to be avoided in the future. The Burma Road Riot came about as a result of labour disputes between the Black Bahami-

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We are in the Majority but we have minority problems.

an work force and the American Pleasantville Construction Company and its White American workers. If Airports are critically essential to Tourism then the fact the project was the Airport must account for a critical understanding of the period.

One of the most outstanding leaders of the masses during this period was Dr. C Walker and he was summoned to appear before the Duke’s Commission and assist with the solution.

Said a courageous Dr. Walker, “The underlying causes for this social unrest are manifold. We are in the Majority but we have minority problems. We are poorly housed, poorly fed and poorly educated.

Truth to tell, we are the wretched of the earth.”

Yet various histories on line and in text books on Tourism in this country under the Stafford Sands module basically ignore these essential fibres and choose rather to present a dishonest dispatch of a unified people united behind a popular government and its economic and Tourism agenda.

Nothing can be farther from the truth.

This is a period of wide spread social, labour and political unrest in the then Colony of the Bahama Islands where a plethora of injustices exist. It is during this same period; where many historians have told this illusion about the Tourism Industry under the Sands module, that the majority of the Bahamian people supported The General Strike, Black Tuesday and raised monies for their new political leaders to address the United Nations and the Imperial Government in the UK on these racial and political injustices and disparities.

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Just as significantly this was also the period when Tribune Publisher and Editor Sir Etienne Dupuch would move his landmark Resolution calling for Racial Discrimination to end in the colony.

How it is that historians ignore these major tenets of the oppressed life in the colony while painting this illusion of a fully participatory and healthy democracy is disingenuous.

Consider this:- The main thoroughfare of down town Bay Street was unapologetically racist. Blacks could not see a movie in the Savoy Theatre down town or eat a meal in the Grand Central Hotel. Major restaurants such as the Grand Central Hotel did not allow Black Bahamians to sit on the bar in the cocktail lounge or in the back of the dining room. The celebrated Bahamian Entertainer Freddie Munnings Senior made history when he entered the establishment and demanded to be served. Black Bahamian workers at the Royal Victoria Hotel could not enter the dining rooms.

Tempers would flare again when Black Bahamian Actor Sidney Poitier starred in “No Way Out” and the minority Government banned the showing of the film in the colony. Blacks vigorously protested. Leaders like distinguished Black Bahamian Jurist Alfred Francis Adderley and Dr. Walker were livid. Eventually the government relented and Blacks were allowed to see the flick in over the hill theatres.

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When the famous Black American soloist Nina Simone stepped onto the stage of a local five star hotel in Nassau and did not see Black faces sitting up front for her performances she rebuked the White gentry which had , as was customary filled all of the front row seats and pushed the few Blacks bold enough to buy a ticket to the back.

Tourism offices overseas were fully manned and operated by White foreigners; many of whom had never even been to The Bahamas.

Travel agencies like R H. Curry and other shipping companies and airlines like BOAC, later British Airways and Pan Am and

COLONIALIZATION vs BAHAMIANIZATION

Black Bahamian entertainers were recruited as part of the Bahamas’ overseas marketing team. They played and performed in major US and European cities and then returned home to the inequities of their country.

Chalks were manned by all White foreign staff.

There were no Black Bahamian hotel managers and fewer matrie’d’s. In the Casinos foreigners held all of the croupier and pit

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boss jobs. There were no Black Bahamian Executive Chefs. Policemen were recruited from elsewhere in the Caribbean and the top ranks were usually held by White foreigners. Few Bahamian policemen advanced beyond the rank of Chief Inspector.

Foreigners served as Secretary to the Cabinet, Secretary of Revenue and Permanent Secretaries were mostly recruited from overseas. Major Government agencies like Lands and Surveys were also headed by expatriates.

This was not lost on the established Church.

The Catholic and Anglican Dioceses and Methodist were headed by expatriates.

Milo Butler, already a successful businessman and admired politician would angrily confront the manager of The Royal Bank of Canada down town and demand to know why no Black Bahamians were working as Tellers. The very first two Black Bahamians

hired to work as clerks in the banks were Paul Allen Dean and Anthony Tony Allen.

In Cable Beach and West Bay Street where the tourism district was being built, The Brown Land Company put into ordinances in Real Property conveyances that Blacks could not purchase land in Westward Villas, Skyline Drive and the Grove. “Only for the Caucasian race�.

In Freeport, Grand Bahama the Port Authority governed with a firm hand and executive and front of the house jobs in the hotels, restaurants and store fronts were staffed by foreigners. Grand Bahama also had the iniquitous proposition of a supernumerary Police Force manned by an all foreign staff. A Gate divided Freeport from the outlying districts and Bahamians needed a special approved Pass to go into Freeport and after 8 pm daily they were required to be behind the gate. A large work force from Malta- Whites, were recruited by the Port for many of these jobs.

The modern history of Tourism in The Bahamas and the fullest participation of the Bahamian people began to unfurl as then Colony of The Bahama Islands achieved Majority Rule on January 10th 1967.

Prior to Majority Rule the Bahamian people were largely viewed as incidental to the industry; which provided limited employment and business opportunities for domestic workers, taxi drivers, shop

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clerks, dining and entertainment workers.

The issues of class and race still decided who worked where in the industry and the accesses that would be allowed. Few if any Black faces were out front in the department stores of down town Bay Street and Blacks had to enter through the back door of the restaurants and hotels in which they worked.

US newspapers had written about the stark racism that governed the British Colonial Hotel whose racist owner refused to allow Black Bahamian employees beyond his back gate and even in hotels he owned in New York, this businessmen refused to even allow Black Americans to work as Elevator Hops, which was a job basically subscribed to Blacks in US. Various

labour protests in Nassau finally convinced the owner of the British Colonial Hotel to grudgingly allow three blacks to work as doormen and bellmen. While the former minority Governing Party can be credited with reviving the Tourism

Development Board in 1950, which had been started as early as 1914 and floundered with the Great Depression and seen some spurt of activity during the period of Prohibition; and whilst Tourism grew from a three to six month seasonal enterprise into an annual industry, it is not only at the dawn of Majority Rule that Bahamians were given a national ideology on their involvement in this industry.

This came about through the education programmes that the new

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Government led by Lynden Pindling set out to achieve. Premier Pindling in recognizing the importance of the industry assumed the Cabinet portfolio of Tourism in the administration.

Capitalizing on the new government’s popularity and credibility with the masses Pindling set about on an education campaign.

The colony adopted as its watchword the slogan, “Look Up and Move On. The World is Watching”.

It is largely through this message that the Bahamian people were strengthened on their participation in the Tourism Industry.

The Government commissioned an educational programme in the form of a Comic Book in which Black Bahamians involved in various sectors of Tourism played out their daily lives and coached each other on hospitality, courtesy, honesty and the value of the industry to the further development of the country.

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“WE BUILT SOUTH FLORIDA”

Black Bahamians were finding jobs in the Southern United States from the turn of the 20th century. They were instrumental in the building of Del Rey Beach, West Palm Beach, Miami Beach, Key West and Coconut Grove and Liberty City in Florida.

“There is very little they can do” “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”.

- Sir Roland Symonette, Premier

This type of electioneering would be condemned in today’s modern Bahamas but in 1962 this was the message of then governing party, UBP.

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FIRE ON GOVERNMENT HILL

“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.

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Coloured Bahamians are not treated with much consideration

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.”

‘Hewers of wood and totters of water’

“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. Royal Governor His Excellency Charles Dundas

L O IT P A

LAB

C OUR

Say It Loud, I‘m Black And I‘m Proud

A REAL BAHAMIAN THING!

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RACE + COLOUR + CLASS IN THE BAHAMAS: Can we have this conversation without rancor, evasion, bitterness and cover-up or apology?

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ace has become the topical hot button issue. In the Northern United States, that nation is finally asking the question about how White Americans truly regards the heirs of the Great Migration from the Jim Crow Southern United States over 100 years ago. Could it be that the unprecedented killings of Blacks

by White policemen suggest a serious undercurrent of a race problem and issue?

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On Sunday January 11th 2015 the editorials and Op-Ed pieces in several major US newspapers were raising this question.

In our own Bahamas, in November 2014 the National Art Gallery opened a profound exhibition entitled “The Antillean: An Ecology”. The Exhibit sought to explore the race from the Black Bahamian’s point of view. The exhibits, some no doubt troubling; seemed to suggest that the common brotherhood of the Black man in this country may be displaced in how the people of Haiti are viewed in some quarters.

One week after this Exhibit opened, another group gathered at the Museum in a Panel Discussion to discuss and dissect what it means to be White in this country and how does Privilege play out in the normal scheme of things. Mostly made up of White Bahamians and by some who described themselves as “mixed” what was very clear and evident is the secret discomfort White people have about how they claim this country views them and how Black Bahamians perceive them.

They were unafraid to speak honestly and from the heart. It is usually other people who prefer to speak from their bending knees. In this Issue of BAAM we review the common shared struggle of Black Bahamians who left to work in the United States at the dawn of the 20th century.

We review how foreign Colonial and Bahamian Leaders held controversial views on the enterprise and future of the Black Bahamian and his entitlement to share in the economy of the country of his birth.

Finally we present the profiles of several remarkable personalities whose influence on the world and the Bahamas during this period still reverberates today.

Bahamians can easily glide into subjective prejudices such as the comment often presented that Jamaicans are “biggity and uppity and if you don’t watch them they will boss everything”.

We present a profile on Dr. Robert E. Love, a Bahamian who not only moved to Jamaica and had a tremendous influence there but still today is credited with the political thought and ideologies which shaped that country’s rise from Colonialism to statehood.

This great Bahamian was also the key promoter and mentor of Marcus Garvey, a National Hero of Jamaica who was largely influenced to direct his United Negro Improvement Association on Dr. Love’s teachings and advice.

We present W. E. B. Dubois, one of the most celebrated Black American scholars and a leading intellectual voice for social and racial justice in his time. Dr. Dubois is a descendant of The Bahamas and hails from Long Cay.

We present the author of the American Black National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing “, Ambassador and Educator James Weldon Johnson, another American who descended from The Bahamas. His mother’s house still sits on Meeting (Dillet) Street.

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We present Stephen Dillet, who gave to The Bahamas from his native Haiti before the Haitian Revolution and made significant contributions, even serving as the first Black elected legislator.

We present Bahamian Dr. C. R. Walker, the intellectual leader of Farm Road who boldly asked then Governor the Duke of Windsor, after the Burma Road Riot- “Are you the one we looked for or are we to look for another” as he detailed the ravages of racial and economic injustice to the Duke’s Commission.

We present A. F. Adderley, one of the first Black men in the world to graduate from Cambridge University with a degree in law and who was denied the appointment of Chief Justice because he was black but acted in the capacity on several occasions.

When the Colonial Government of The Bahamas banned the classic Sidney Poitier movie, “No Way Out” from playing at theatres it was Dr. Walker and Mr. Adderley, who protested along with the Citizens Committee. The rulers would eventually relent and the movie was shown.

The stories of these National and International Heroes are presented to give hope and restoration and guidance to a generation of younger Bahamians.

It may be that a people more in touch with their history and their past can appreciate their common goal and learn to live in harmony, peace and brotherhood.

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Written by Earlin Williams, Edited by E. Luther Smith Research by Daniel Williams

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“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

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. Every car had an 8 track cartridge player with the song always on key and it was a crowd pleaser at parties.

“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 300 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.

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 Churchill after the second world war 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”, 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

James Brown was a much loved Black American artist emulated across The Bahamas. His frequent visits and his impromptu appearances on the Jeff Scavella “You Asked for It Show” on Radio Bahamas on Saturday nights closed the city down.

In The Bahamas as was almost universally, it was the age of the African Dashiki. Afro picks with the symbol of the clenched Black fist carved into the handle was de riguer as it was the only way of caring for a wild head of hair commonly referred to as an Afro. The same fist raised at the Olympic Games by Black American athletes which was so revolutionary and political costed them their medals.

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Yet it still seemed like an antithesis. To be Black was to admit a handicap and then to be asked to proud about it seemed ambiguous, even cynical.

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 “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 North Eleuthera Member of the House of Assembly Sir George Roberts, it was to complain that “three Negro women are locked up in jail tonight and no one gives a damn about it”.

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

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 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 Oligar-

chy and the absence of terror and violence to maintain control and superiority, most Black Bahamians were numbed to change.

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 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 were 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.

“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 had been ordained in Nassau, had

The Burma Road Riot of 1942 came as the cataclysmic tremor which awakened an emerging new social justice in The Bahamas

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 that 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 the incident in its edition of 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, the British Ambassador to

Washington, 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 in The Bahamas. Sitting as a Magistrate before World War I, 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 ordained 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 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”.

This arrangement had less to do with the economic or social welfare of the Bahamian negro but had had more to do with the fact that young American men were at war and there was a dire shortage of labour across the economy of the United States.

Although the “Contract” has been grossly misrepresented and glorified by some, it cannot be denied that it proved a boon for The Bahamas in more ways than one with remittances coming back to families in The Bahamas and more importantly in the socialization process it did open Bahamian eyes to a wider world

BAAM - Launch Edition 2017 84 where despite its limitations there were was a sense of social justice.

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 ones left in The Bahamas were the spark for the Burma Road Riot 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.

THE FARM ROAD BOYZ-A CLASSIC BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY THE LATE MAXWELL STUBBS JP. CAN YOU IDENTIFY THE DISTINGUISHED GROUP?

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. -GOVERNOR CHARLES DUNDAS

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 this back drop one has to reconcile a conclusion made

by Colonial Governor Sir Charles Dundas in 1940, whom the Duke of Windsor replaced.

BANNED IN THE BAHAMAS!

Sidney Poitier in the movie ‘No Way Out’ about the first black doctor in a white hospital.

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The abdicated King of England the Duke of Windsor, who made no secret of his dislike and his discomfort with having been exiled here

This description and generalization 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”.

While for many these issues may remain contentious, controversial and uncomfortable, the artists involved in the NAGB exhibition have succeeded in scaling the walls of social diversity to present to the nation without rose coloured eye glasses The Bahamas’s challenge to harmony, multiculturalism and social definition.

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W.E.B. Du Bois W E B Dubois is a descendant of The Bahamas hailing from Long Cay. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (known as W.E.B. Du Bois) was born at Church Street, on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the United States, the son of Alfred Du Bois and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois. The couple's February 5, 1867 wedding had been announced in the Berkshire Courier. Alfred Du Bois was born in San Domingo, now known as Haiti. Alfred Du Bois, himself, was descended from free people of color, and he could trace his lineage back to one Dr. James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York. This physician, while in the Bahamas, had sired, by his slave mistress, three sons—including Alfred—and a daughter.

W.E.B. Du Bois identified himself as "mulatto," but freely attended school with whites and was enthusiastically supported in his academic studies by his white teachers. In 1885, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Fisk University. It was there that he first encountered Jim Crow laws. For the first time, he began analyzing the deep troubles of American racism.

After earning his bachelor's degree at Fisk, Du Bois entered Harvard University. He paid his

way with money from summer jobs, scholarships and loans from friends.

After completing his master's degree, he was selected for a study-abroad program at the University of Berlin.

While a pupil in Germany, he studied with some of the most prominent social scientists of his day and was exposed to political perspectives that he touted for the remainder of his life.

Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895, and went on to enroll as a doctoral student at FriedrichWilhelms-Universität (now HumboldtUniversität). (He would be awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Humboldt decades later, in 1958.)

Writing and Activism Not long after, Du Bois published his landmark study—the first case study of an AfricanAmerican community—The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), marking the beginning of his expansive writing career. In the study, he coined the phrase "the talented tenth," a term that described the likelihood of one in 10 black men becoming leaders of their race.

While working as a professor at Atlanta University, W.E.B. Du Bois rose to national prominence when he very publicly opposed Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise," an agreement that asserted that vocational education for blacks was more valuable to them than social advantages like higher education or political office. Du Bois criticized Washington for not demanding equality for African Americans, as granted by the 14th Amendment. Du Bois fought what he believed

was an inferior strategy, subsequently becoming a spokesperson for full and equal rights in every realm of a person's life.

In 1903, Du Bois published his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of 14 essays.

In the years following, he adamantly opposed the idea of biological white superiority and vocally supported women's rights. In 1909, he co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and served as editor of its monthly magazine, The Crisis.

Pan-Africanism and Death A proponent of Pan-Africanism, Du Bois helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to free African colonies from European powers.

W.E.B. Du Bois died on August 27, 1963—one day before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington—at the age of 95, in Accra, Ghana, while working on an encyclopedia of the African Diaspora.

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James Weldon Johnson Bahamians feel a sense of honor and pride in knowing that the roots of James Weldon Johnson, one of the most prominent and influential men of the 20th century in shaping the Civil Rights movement and equality for Blacks are in The Bahamas.

James Weldon Johnson, is a descendant of The Bahamas. His mother's house still stands on Meeting (Dillet) Street in Nassau.

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920 he was the first black to be chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer.

He served in that position from 1920 to 1930.

Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novels, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture.

Johnson was born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Helen Louise Dillet, a native of Nassau, Bahamas, and James Johnson. James’ maternal great-grandmother, Hester Argo, had escaped from Saint-Domingue during the revolutionary upheaval in 1802, along with her three young children, including (James Weldon Johnson’s grandfather), Stephen Dillet (17971880). Although originally headed to Cuba, their boat was intercepted by privateers and they were

brought to Nassau, Bahamas instead.

There they permanently settled. Stephen Dillet was the first man of color to win election to the Bahamian legislature in 1833 (ref. Along this Way, James Weldon Johnson’s autobiography).

James’ brother was John Rosamond Johnson, who became a composer.

The boys were first educated by their mother (a musician and a public school teacher) before attending Edwin M. Stanton School. His mother imparted to them her great love and knowledge of English literature and the European tradition in music. At the age of 16, Johnson enrolled at Clark Atlanta University, a historically black college, from which he graduated in 1894. In addition to his bachelor’s degree, he also completed some graduate coursework.

The achievement of his father, headwaiter at the St. James Hotel, a luxury establishment built when Jacksonville was one of Florida’s first winter havens, inspired young James to pursue a professional career. Molded by the classical education for which Atlanta University was best known, Johnson regarded his academic training as a trust. He knew he was expected to devote himself to helping black people advance. Johnson was a prominent member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Johnson and his brother Rosamond moved to New York City as young men, joining the Great Migration out of the South in the first half of the 20th century. They collaborated on songwriting and achieved some success on Broadway in the early 1900s.

Johnson served in several public capacities over the next 40 years, working in education, the diplomatic corps, and civil rights activism. In 1904 he participated in Theodore Roosevelt’s successful presidential campaign. After becoming president, Roosevelt appointed Johnson as United States consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela from 1906 to 1908, and to Nicaragua from 1909 to 1913. In 1910, Johnson married Grace Nail, whom he had met in New York City several years earlier while working as a songwriter. A cultured and welleducated New Yorker, Grace Nail Johnson later

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collaborated with her husband on a screenwriting project.

After their return to New York from Nicaragua, Johnson became increasingly involved in the Harlem Renaissance, a great flourishing of art and writing. He wrote his own poetry and supported work by others, also compiling and publishing anthologies of spirituals and poetry. Owing to his influence and his innovative poetry, Johnson became a leading voice in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

He became involved in civil rights activism, especially the campaign to pass federal legislation against lynching, as southern states seldom prosecuted perpetrators. Starting as a field secretary, he became one of the most successful officials in the NAACP; as executive secretary, he helped increase members and reach by organizing new chapters in the South. During this period, the NAACP was mounting frequent legal challenges to the southern states disfranchisement of African Americans at the turn of the century by such devices as poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and white primaries.

Johnson died in 1938 while vacationing in Wiscasset, Maine, when the car his wife was driving was hit by a train. His funeral in Harlem was attended by more than 2000 people.

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Joseph Robert Love

and gained an M.D. degree. Love

the blackman should not consider himself

was a great admirer of Toussaint

inferior to the white man in any way at all.

L'Ouverture, Haiti's first patriot and

He is charged with having helped change the

he spent 10 years in Haiti (the first

attitudes of white Jamaicans towards those of

black republic) and was appointed to

colour.

a high executive post in the Medical Department. There, he continued as

Love published two works, "Romanism is not

an Anglican Clergyman and became

Christianity" in 1892 and in 1897 "St. Peter's

a Rector of a church in Port au

true position in the church, clearly traced

Prince.

in the Bible". He became ill in 1906 and was forced to end his short but active political

Bahamians tend to associate Jamaicans with

In 1889, Love came to Jamaica where

career in 1910. Robert Love died on 21,

being more aggressive and assertive and direct

he started the influential newspaper the

November 1914 and is buried in the Parish

in their drive and focus as compared to the

"Jamaica Advocate". Love soon made a name

Church yard at Half Way Tree. Robert Love is

laid back decision making styles of Bahamian

for himself as a fearless journalist. He was

also noted to have had a strong influence on

culture. However Bahamians would be

deeply concerned with the social conditions

the thinking and work of Marcus Garvey

surprised to learn that a Bahamian is credited

of black people in Jamaica. Using his paper,

with shaping the political acumen and

he tackled serious questions such as Negro

thought process of the Jamaican drive for self

education from the black man's point of

determination and an offset to colonialism.

view. He believed that young girls, as well

Dr. Robert Love, a Bahamian not only lived

as young boys should be educated up to the

and worked in Jamaica but held high office

secondary level. One of his main themes was

and amongst the persons he mentored is Dr.

that a people cannot rise above the standards

Marcus Garvey, with whom he assisted with

of its womanhood. The Advocate encouraged

developing the Garvey’s movement.

black people to assert their equality, educate themselves and develop self esteem and pride

The new debate on reparations that is

in their African heritage.

engulfing talk and discussion in former European colonies was begun by Love and

In 1906, Love campaigned for the seat of St.

Garvey.

Andrew in the general elections and won. He was also chairman of the St. Andrew Parochial

Joseph Robert Love was born in the Bahamas

Board, a member of the Kingston General

on the 2nd of October, 1839. He began his

Commissions and a Wolmer's Trustee. He

career first as a teacher and then went to

was also a Justice of the Peace for Kingston.

Florida in the United States where he took

Love did not think factors such as skin colour

orders in the Episcopalian Church. He also

or status should be important when selecting

studied medicine at the University of Buffalo

a representative. It was his philosophy that

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Alfred Francis Adderley Alfred Francis Adderley was born in Nassau on November 16, 1891 the son of Mr. Wilfred Parliament and Letitia Eliza McMinn Adderley.

He attended Boys‘ Central School and the Nassau Grammar School until 1908 when he entered Denstone College, Staffordshire, England. He worked in New York City for a year to help finance his education and in 1912 he entered St. Catherine‘s College, Cambridge from which he received the B. A. and LL B. degrees with honours. From 1915 to 1919 he worked in the War Factory Service as Assistant Pay Master at White City, London. A member of the Middle Temple, he was called to the English Bar in 1919. He then returned to The Bahamas to practice law and was called to the Bahamas Bar in August 1919.

In 1923 he was elected to the House of Assembly for Eleuthera and in 1928 he was returned for the Western District. He served for several years as Legal Advisor to The House under Speaker Malcolm. He was appointed to a seat on the Legislative Council in 1938 and to the Executive Council in 1946. At the time of his death he was a senior member of that body.

In the King‘s Birthday Honours in 1951 he was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He also presided

as Acting Chief Justice that same year at the October Sessions of the Supreme Court.

He married Ethel Millicent Louise Lunn on April 29, 1925 and fathered two sons: Dr. Francis E. Adderley, M.D. and the Honourable Paul L. Adderley, former Minister of Finance and Minister of External Affairs, Education and Culture and Attorney General. Mr. A. F. Adderley also held the Chairmanship of the Electrical Board and the Airport‘s Board and was a member of the Civil Service Committee.

He was chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Nassau, a member of the Vestry of St. Mary‘s Church and a member of the Board of Governors of St. John‘s College.

As a youth he was a keen cricketer and tennis player and also participated in track sports.

He was responsible for the formation of the Bahamas Cricket Association and held the office of President until he resigned. He was also made Honorary Life Vice-President of The Bahamas Amateur Athletic Association.

Throughout his public career he was a strong advocate of social legislation. He served for ten years on the Health Board and six years on the Board of Education.

In his profession Mr. Adderley was regarded as the Colony’s most outstanding trial lawyer and one of the most able advocates in The Caribbean.

He held the distinction of having acted as counsel for the defence in more murder cases than any other Bahamian lawyer of his day. He was the Crown prosecutor in

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the Oakes Murder Case in which Marigny, the accused was acquitted.

A school was named after Mr. Adderley to acknowledge his contribution to Bahamian Society.

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THE VOICE OF THE BAHAMAS

From its inception, Zephyr Nassau Sunshine (ZNS) radio has been a powerful medium in Bahamian society.

It has played an integral role in the delivery of information throughout the chain of the Bahama Islands.

It is considered to be a “cultural icon” for the country, linking Bahamians to their roots via programmes, which showcase those elements that define Bahamian culture. Dating back to its introduction in 1936, ZNS radio has stayed true to its role as a “linking agent” and has been able to simultaneously inform the masses while promoting “Bahamian identity.”

Although the station began as an experiment of the Broadcasting Unit of The Bahamas Telegraph Department, it eventually spiralled into a major national institution known as the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas, with a network of radio and television stations.

These stations, of course, were “powered” by personalities who breathed life into the programmes, captured the audience’s attention and delivered the much-needed information throughout the islands. These programmes included community announcements, weather updates, morning devotions, music and other ‘cultural’ type programmes.

Former Chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation and radio and TV personality, Dr. Calsey Johnson, reminisced about the roles these personalities played at ZNS. He said that many people made invaluable contributions to the success of ZNS radio.

“There were many people who made a difference at ZNS. Take for instance, Wycliffe Miller (the Son of a preacher man); who was one of ZNS radio’s most popular announcers as he disseminated information using professionalism and passion; or Brother Barry who hosted Gospel Song time. He inspired the people through soothing and soulful music and words during the early mornings.”

The announcers, he believes, utilised ZNS as a vehicle to propagate “Bahamianism.’ Dr. Johnson also recalled the important role that

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As early as 1931, Radio Station ZNS broadcasted on channel “VP7NF”, operating out of the historic Vendue House

The legacy of Harcourt Rusty Bethel, the first General Manager and the Voice of ZNS was cemented with the street leading to the Station renamed in his honour.

ZNS radio played during storms or hurricanes.

He said that Bahamians trusted that ZNS would deliver sound and accurate information in order to keep them safe.

“John Jefferson Scavella played an important role during national disasters (namely hurricanes).

The entire nation depended on Scavella, ZNS and others during the hurricane season to inform

them of storms, hurricanes and all types of weather and national disasters,” said Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson also discussed programmes such as Hospital Calling, a programme, which was designed to “uplift” and bring spiritual healing to patients in hospitals and clinics and the role of JJ Stubbs and Mark Gates, whose programmes focused on delivering messages, and music which promoted hope and optimism.

Of course, there were other personalities at ZNS who contributed to influencing Bahamian culture at ZNS. Such persons included: Elva Russell Rolle, Anthony Foster, D. Picewell Forbes (current Member of Parliament, Charles Carter, Rose Bradshaw, Anthony Delaney, Carl Bethel, Lithera Miller Dean, Mike Smith and Darold Miller (who, to date, continues to form and shape Bahamianism).

ZNS Radio station was inaugurated on May 26, l936 and had the distinction of being the first radio station to be owned and operated by any Government in what was then known as the British West Indies. Progressively, it evolved into the national institution known as the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas, with a network of radio and television stations.

Radio Bahamas was established in humble surroundings, in the Snappy Hat Shop on Shirley Street between Victoria

and Elizabeth Avenues in the city of Nassau.

Today, the law firm, Graham Thompson occupies the site where the “Snappy Hat Shop” was situated. The station was relocated to its present site in September, l959.

It was founded by Colonial Secretary at the time, the late Hon. J. H. Jarrett and Governor of the colony, the late Hon. Sir Bede Clifford. The radio was born out of the necessity to inform residents in the “Out Islands” about several issues including: information on emergency flights, hurricane warnings, shipping reports and community announcements regarding birth and death notices, sickness, special meetings and events and hurricane warnings.

Despite recent expansions in the communications sector, ZNS still continues to deliver these services even today to the Family Islands. In addition, ZNS Radio still partners with the Bahamas Air And Sea Rescue Association, the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, hospitals, Government Ministries and other institutions, to assist in getting messages to the public.

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Alphonso Higgs has no doubt left

an indelible mark on the landscape of Bahamian music. Ile started developing his skills at an early age with the influence of his mother and older brother -who played the guitar. Progressing from playing on a piece of wood with a string stretched across it, to the ukulele, he continued to master just about every stringed instrument until settling on the banjo. Blind Blake came to be a permanent fixture at the Nassau International Airport later in his life but earlier, his career placed him in the company of kings and some the most wealthy and powerful people in the world.

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still not welcomed with open arms in the hotels and clubs in downtown Nassau.

However, Blind Blake had a charm that kept him floating during the off-season in lodge halls and at private functions. It is said that the wealthy folks that frequented these islands were so pleased with Blind Blake that for years he collected his salary at the end of the season, living off the handsome tips received, When tourism finally became a year round experience, locals were only exposed to this giant through his recordings. Out of these many recordings, it is not believed that Blind Blake gained any reward other than some degree of added publicity. In fact, persons like Harry Belafonte, Joan Crawford and Acker Bilk recorded his songs.

Alexander Maillis, a well-known Nassau lawyer and businessman claims to have given Blake Higgs, his childhood friend, his first break in the music business upon returning home from World War II Maillis recalls that Blind Blake was not blind as a child, and further states that Blake suffered his fate from staring at the sun for extended periods.

After serving time in the armed services, Maillis arrived at the seaport of Downtown Nassau where Blind Blake was playing for pennies. Maillis recalls saying to him, “What you out here with this can playing for pennies! Come with me and play at our hotel. That very evening, Blind Blake showed up with his ukulele at the Imperial Hotel that was owned and operated by the Maillis family, but was rejected by the small combo that was employed there at the time.

In addition to playing for pennies in the Over the Hill areas of Nassau, Blind Blake would

perform in other clubs and venues such as Dirty Dick’s and Blackbeard’s Tavern, St. Mary’s Schoolroom, The Orthodox Hall and the Archer Club on East Street. But life as a musician wasn’t always easy. It was not until 1933 that he found steady employment at the Royal Victoria Hotel where he spent 30 years entertaining tourists. The peak season for tourist visits were between the months of December to April, which provided only a small window of opportunity for musicians and others who relied on the tourism industry to make a living.

During this time in the 30’s, blacks were

There is no denying, however, that Blind Blake is another one of our unsung heroes, although it was claimed that he received a letter of commendation from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in his later years. Blind Blake was seen by many as the old man with the banjo singing at the airport. Many passed him by, not knowing the value of the many contributions that he made not only to this country, but also to younger musicians, opening doors that probably would have still been closed today.

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Paul Meeres Paul Meeres, became an internationally famous dancer. He had danced and directed shows throughout Europe. He arrived in Nassau on a Sunday in July 1957 abroad the Rein del Mar from Spain. The name Paul Meeres first became famous several years earlier when he appeared in the Follies Bergere in Paris. After appearing in many of the leading capitals of the world he returned to Nassau in semi-retirement to open his own Club Chez Paul Meeres. His son appeared there intermittently, and it soon became the most popular night spot in Nassau. Almost every major entertainer in Nassau appeared at Chez Paul Meeres.

Paul’s return to Nassau in 1957 marked the end of a nine months tour of Europe, where in his youth his name had emblazoned the great marquees of the continent.

So excited was Paul when he sighted Nassau and rejoined all his friends who had come out to meet him, that he along with his son, jumped into the ocean and started to swim ashore. Tragedy almost struck, as the huge propeller of the stream ship began sucking the swimmers toward the stern. But just in time the welcoming yacht pulled up and hauled them out of the water.

Paul made a determined effort to uplift entertainment in the Bahamas, but his downfall is even sadder. In an attempt to help a member of his family, he was arrested, convicted and sent to prison. He never recovered from that ordeal. He was totally destroyed.

One day while walking on a street over-the-hill, he was struck and killed by a car. He was truly a legend in his time.

Did y ou kno w?

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Winston Saunders Winston Saunders was born 3rd October, 1941 to Harcourt and Miriam Saunders. He attended Quarry Mission School under the late Thelma Gibson, Western Junior School under late Timothy Gibson, and studio piano under the late Meta Davis-Cumberbatch, He won a place at the Government High School where he served as head Boy, As a musician, he was organist at the Church of the Holy Spirit and at St, Mary’ s the Virgin Anglican Church. He attended The Bahamas Teacher Training College in Oakes Field. In 1964, he obtained a B.A Degree from the London University in the Classics. He returned to Nassau and taught English at St. Anne’s High School from 1964 until 1968. He married the former Gail North on April 15, 1968, and returned to London that autumn to pursue a post graduate certificate in Education at London University.

Mr. Saunders returned to Nassau take up the post of Vice Principal at R.M. Bailey, a position he held from 1969 to 1970.

Later, he became a partner in the law firm of McKinney, Bancroft and Hughes, and worked as a lecturer in Law at the University of the West Indies (Nassau Campus). Between the years of 19932000, he served Her Majesty’s Coroner. In 1975 Mr. Saunders took up the position of Chairman of the Dundas Civic Centre, and served as Chairman until 1998. He over saw the renovations of the theatre, established repertory season, and under his guidance an entire generation of directors, actors and playwrights were raised. He co-directed E. Clement Bethel’s Sammie Swain with Philip Burrows in 1983 and in 1985 for the Command Performance for H. M. Queen Elizabeth II, and in 1987, co-directed the first Caribbean opera in English, Cleophas Adderley’s Ours Boys with Philip A. Burrows; in 1989 and 1990 he produced Dis We Tings I and ll.

It is as a playwright, however, that Mr. Saunders’ greatest achievement was gained. One of them was You Can Lead A Horse To Water is widely recognized as the greatest Bahamian play, and has been produced in Nassau, Freeport, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Michigan, Trinidad and Tobago.

He is a recipient of a number of awards, including several DANSA’s playwriting, the Meta, a Special DANSA for Excellence in Theatre, the Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Citizen Award for contribution to Culture, the Silver Jubilee Award for Culture given by the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in 1998. Until his death on November 25, 2006, he served as the Chairman of the National Commission on Cultural development and Chaired the Independence Committee since 2003. In 2004, he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St, George (CMG), Most recently, his work was the featured Presentation of the Bahamas CARIFESTA Contingent in Trinidad and Tobago.

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or over seventy years, John “Peanuts” Taylor has been one of the most profound entertainers’ local and tourist the world over. It all started at the age of four, when John was walking past the Paul Meeres Club.

He mischievously shouted out, “I can sing and dance better that you.” To which Paul Meeres replied, “A little peanut like you?” That answer prompted John to show off his stuff from that very day. John was born in 1935.

At an early age, “Peanuts” suffered the loss of his mother and around that same time, his father left. His grandmother, Ethel Stubbs stepped in and showered him with the love and the care that he needed. He became a student of the Our Lady’s Catholic School. Fortunately the “Paul Meeres” was a club located just around the corner from the school and became a favorite hangout.

Peanuts started singing and dancing at the “Paul Meeres” at the age of four and around 1940, had the good fortune to perform for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor during their stay at the Government House, downtown Nassau.

His first big break came when George Symonette asked him to sit in for his drummer who was ill. He, up to that point had sung and danced at clubs like: The Jungle Club, Confidential, Junkanoo Club, and the Spider Web just to name a few. The encounter with George Symonette however, introduced Peanuts to the world of drumming and as a result to the world. In 1956, he opened for Nat King Cole and the Mills Brothers in California. He also appeared on the Johnny Carson Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Jack Parr Show and The Ed Sullivan Show

to name a few. Peanuts also composed the theme song for the movie “Calypso Island” during the late fifties. Major networks like CBC and BBC all featured Peanuts on television programs aired between the late fifties up to the early eighties.

Peanuts made perhaps his greatest contribution as a show club owner. His first club, “The Tropicana” opened in 1957 followed by the “Goombay” in 1960 and then “Drumbeat Club” in 1964. It was during this time that he featured many great entertainers. Many honors have been bestowed upon this most distinguished entertainer/ entrepreneur. Amidst them is that of (MBE) Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; the Cacique Award by the Ministry of Tourism; the Legend Award and the Merit of Honor Award.

The most recent award, “Laureate Seal of Honor” was presented to him by the National Trade Union of Cuban Culture in conjunction with the agency. He was also made Justice of the Peace in 1999. Peanuts continues to perform whenever the opportunity arises. Each performance gives a snapshot of the young, tiny boy that danced his way into our hearts over seventy years ago.

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HEDLEY EDWARDS FRANKIE ZCHIVARGO YOUNG

ABIGAIL CHARLOW- A show stopping Jazz and Blues routine endeared her to many.

WILLIAM JOHNSON (d)Seafloor Aquarium Founder.

His family established the country’s first marine park in Chippingham. School children in the late 1960s got their first lesson on our ocean environment. A moratorium on Green Turtle and Hawksbill Turtle shell jewellery manufacturing shut down an important part of his souvenir business. Enter the Conch Shell.

His volleyball playing dolphins and hand shaking sea lions was the draw. Then came the Israeli water park Coral World, just across the street from his and the Seafloor Aquarium sadly shut its doors. Karma was lurking and along came Atlantis and Coral World too was history.

FRANKIE ZCHIVARGO YOUNG- A career that took us through the early 1970s to his 2014 release of “Oh Children of

ANTHONY “SKEEBO” ROBERTS

the World. Let’s find a solution”, his distinctive voice and guitar gave us “Pumpkin, Banana, Peas n’ Corn”, a classic calypso.

HORACE WRIGHT (d)- An Educator with a cockney baritone whose radio programme in the 1970s defined purpose, drive and pointed Bahamians towards excellence.

HEDLEY EDWARDS- Ardastra Gardens Founder (d)- Legend has it that he journeyed to the Bahamas from his native Trinidad, built a dream home and wonderful gardens on a hill overlooking Bozene Pond and got his heart broken when his lady love declined his marriage proposal. But Hedley Edwards put his love into his Ardastra Gardens, the country’s first zoo, where he taught Flamingos how to dance and filled Bahama parrots with nursery rhymes.

WELLINGTON GIBSON“Some play golf with one or two

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tiny balls, Dat‘s something I can’t do at all, Am in love In love with the Bahamas”. And Wellington Gibson burst on the scene in the early 1970s when calypso messaged our Visitors and sold the fun and excitement of the new country and our patriotism.

CHRISTIAN CRAIGG PRATT (d)- A tragedy. Flamboyant and artsy, he left C. C. Sweeting High School in the early 1970s, settled in New York where his fashion career seems like it could take off. Then he was dead. Falling 21 floors in what was seen as a suicide… love unrequited.

MARGIE BARR - “Made up my Mind To Go on Without you”, sang Ms. Barr and Bahamians heard our very own Gladys Knight. “Yes. Am gonna make it, Am gonna make it’ Without you.”

ANTHONY “SKEEBO” ROBERTS- The celebrated maestro of the stage. He has appeared on stage in more than

50 productions. Can be heard on afternoon radio, using his enchanting voice to take listeners down memory lane.

DEACON WHYLLY (d)- The lead singer at the Le Cabaret Theatre in the days of splendor at Resorts International.

SPARKMAN FERGUSON- A celebrated Church of England organist.

CAY GOTTLIEB (d)- Hailed from Marsh Harbour Abaco.

Settled in Freeport Grand Bahama. Opened Cool 96 Radio.

A tragic ending after he gave us “Half Breed … Sweet Delight” and a number of calypso hits.

FATHER FRED FLEISCHERA celebrated musician and theologian taught his craft for many years in the nation’s high schools. His influence and mentoring inspired many of today’s artists.

TRIXIE HANNA

W. A. G. BAIN (d)- His class room on the end of Market Street from the St. Agnes PreSchool churned out hundreds of Bahamian students.

PEPPER JOHNSON- A Diva.

She was fashion ignited on a run way.

ANDREW MCKINNEY- The Dean of Protocol who made us all proud as he took front line with the Royals and Heads of State to display our charm, hospitality, warmth and decorum.

DUNSTAN BABBS- So synonymous with the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band it was often colloquially called “Babbs and Police Band”.

TRIXIE HANNA (d)- One of the early pioneers of Beauty Culture in this country. She opened doors for a wider range of learning and training in the USA and helped gel the formation of a new organization which would be

ROMEO FARRINGTON

the forerunner to cosmetologists advancing their international exposure and skills. Her Mount Royal Avenue Saloon where she ruled the roost with a team of beauticians who inspired men and women to look and feel their best.

Trixie’s was the conversation piece around town, where customers looked forward to weekends for their makeover and the delightful conversations.

PERCY SWEETING AND HOLIDAY EXPRESS- Mr. Sweeting, The President of the Bahamas Musicians and Entertainers Union and Holiday Express hold the record as one of Nassau’s longest running bands and their popularity remains on stream.

APPLE ELLIOT BANDPreviewed in the Magic City Freeport, Grand Bahama.

ROMEO FARRINGTON- The Gentleman of the Limousine and taxi service and the original

PEPPER JOHNSON APPLE ELLIOT BAND

promotional face and voice of Bahama Host.

ALLAN INGRAHAM (d)- Hailing from Palmetto Point Eleuthera, his Colony Taxi service dominated the Prince George Cruise Ship dock in the early 1960s. Mr. Ingraham brought signature professionalism to his transportation business. It was said that out of every ten tourists to walk off a cruise ship, Mr. Ingraham shook the hands of at least five and welcomed them to the Bahamas.

PAT GOMEZ- Former president of the Bahamas Taxi Cab Union, and another distinguished Bahamian who brought a signature brand to their taxi and limousine transportation business.

JIMMY MILFORT, ECONOMY JITNEY - Hailing from Port Au Prince, Haiti, and Jack sat behind the steering wheel of Economy Jitney for more than 60 years, moving two generations of Baha-

mians from Englerston, Centerville, Kemp Road and East Street to down town.

SEAN HANNA (d)-The energetic craftsman behind the Nassau Music Society.

HUBERT CHIPMAN- He broke off from his father, John’s junkanoo operation to co-form The Vikings in the early 1980s. Still hitting the goatskin drum with his dad in the Welcome Center.

DRANNA (d)- People came from all around the island on weekends to visit her kitchen in Bain Town where were conch fritters, potato bread and turkey drums sticks were a must have.

MENA WALLACE- Hailing from Ragged Island, her Bahamian delicacies keep tourists and locals returning for her native dishes at her down town establishment, where Bahamians are doing the cooking.

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JIM RUSSELL (d)-Although closed, His “Palm Tree” hamburgers and lemon merengue pie from his Market Street business, right under the arm pit of Purity Bakery, remain legendary. His conch, grouper, chicken and mutton dishes were enjoyed from the inner city to the suites on Paradise Island.

MERVIN SWEETING- His sister Bertha’s award winning sauce not only caused her name to become the brand of the family business, but Mervin Sweeting, hailing from Deep Creek Eleuthera, is a Bahamian story of how a dream pursued can be fulfilled.

GUS CARTWRIGHT- Hailing from Long island with his mother’s recipes; his Checkers’ franchise has been feeding hungry Bahamians for over 30 years.

GEORGE SKANDALARIS- The Grand Olde Man of Bay Street. His Skans Cafeteria is as well known a Bay Street landmark for cruise ship passengers as the Hilton Hotel.

Well into his late 70s, he continues to manage his operation and provide the hospitality and food which has kept his doors open for more than 45 years and brought Greek fusion to the country’s food fare.

GENE TOOTE (d)- “The Baron” or “Mazookie”, hailing from Long Cay, Mr. Toote was one of the early pioneers in the “numbers” lottery business in the country. Selftaught, he could debate any topic and his personality earned him friends across the political divide.

PERCY MUNNINGS (d)- A legend of a Bahamian, The “numbers” lottery business became his signature brand and his honesty and integrity in his business kept him el numero uno.

FEALY DEMERITTE (d)Credited with giving dignity to the poorest of Bahamians, Mr. Demeritte provided a distinguished business to the country from his Market Street operation. So respected were his

services that many Bahamians instructed before their death that they wanted Mr. Demeritte’s services.

JANE BETHEL (d)- She took over the family business, when her husband Marcus was lost in a plane incident. From her Nassau Street operation.

NAOMI BLATCH (d)- One of the country’s great Educators. The John and Blue Hill Road School is named in her honour.

RALEIGH BUTLER (d)- Mr. Butler became the name and face of the influential political Butler family in the mortuary business.

He introduced the crematorium to the country, trained a number of local morticians and provided a service so distinctive that here again; persons requested his service before their deaths.

CYNTHIA LOVE (d)- A St. Agnes Church luminary and another distinguished educator, whose students’ reach stretched

MERVIN SWEETING

from Quarry Mission Road to what became known as “The Bottom” to all of Nassau Street and heading back to Blue Hill Road for over half a century.

VINCENT “GEECH” FERGUSON (d)- A professional baseball career, denied him, this distinguished Catholic Educator earned the respect of hundreds of his students at St. Augustines College, Aquinas College, and his later years entered the public school system at the A. F. Adderley School. An avid sportsmen, he encouraged strength of mind and academics in his students with athleticism.

BASIL “BAZZ JAZZ” COOPER (d)- n author and journalist, Mr. Cooper began “Speaker’s Corner” in the mid-1980s, allowing for a forum for discussion and debate and to meet the press.

CLARICE GRANGER- A work horse in the Girls Brigade movement.

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BEVERLY MONCUR- Hailing from Jamaica Beverly made The Bahamas her home many years ago, pulling herself up as a liquor shop manager for Audley Kemp and Sons. Struggling to find a niche for her Jamaican cuisine as she entered the business world, her Beverly’s Kitchen, Carmichael Road, has brought a Caribbean fusion to native dining.

MARJORIE CONLIFFE- Another home run business, where her baking skills brought thousands to her shop off Carmichael Road in search of wedding cakes, birthdaycakes, hot cross Easter buns and her breads.

BEV SMITH- The formidable Black American Radio Talk Show Diva, who continues to promote the Bahamas on her shows and in her regular visits, has become involved in topical national issues.

TED SWEETING - Mr. Sweeting began his funeral trade in his father’s business. A Templar in the Grand lodge movement, his Blue

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Hill Road business is amongst the oldest in the country. Thousands of Bahamians filed passed the body of fashion designer Harl Taylor, in the Sweeting Colonial Mortuary, where the murdered young man, sat behind a desk, immersed in his design work.

J B BARRY (d)- The erstwhile “correspondent” for Radio Bahamas ZNS news hailed from North Eleuthera, and his home spun reports and inglorious mix of grammar, syntax and pronunciation got the story told but also left listeners rolling in laughter.

ans took a liking to the Jamaican patties sold on the counter at the station, Original Patties was born.

Today operated by their son in a modern bake shop on Tonique Williams Darling Highway, is a story of how success is about perseverance and working with stuff with which one has a familiarity and knowledge.

TART MAN (d)- What began as a hobby turned into a business and from the corner opposite the NIB on Blue Hill Road this gentleman could not get coconut and pineapple tarts out of the oven fast enough for his faithful customers.

RUDY WILLIAMS- The orchestra conductor, hailing from Spring City Abaco by way of San Salvador, Rudy‘s musical talents held sway at the Silver Slipper Night Club, right under the dilly tree at East Street and McCullough Corner. His weekend matinée close out with “When the living is easy- Stardust” made way for his replacement- the legendary Freddie Munnings Senior. Rudy moved to New York putting his music talents to work there.

THE MOSELEYS (d)- The Moseley’s came here from their native Jamaica. They operated a Gas and Service Station on Boyd Road Chippingham and when Bahami-

RONNIE AMBRISTER - One of the great versatile crooners The Bahamas has produced. Known for his hearty laughter and his endearing stage personality,

Ronnie has graced stages across this country and the USA and is particularly favoured for his range of golden oldies. A voice velvet and distinguished to belt out Gospel; Ronnie is also revered for his contribution to the BMEU and his drive to keep local talent employed and relevant DR. ESFAKIS (d)- DR. HALE (d) and DR. GERASIMOS- These medical doctors who hailed from three different countries, brought Family Medicine with a social conscience to their near down town Market Street clinics.

CYRIL ST. JOHN STEVENSON MVO (d)- A formidable Journalist and Politician. Former Member of the House of Assembly and one of the original founders of the PLP. His incisive editorials in The Nassau Herald, railing against the then established White merchant oligarchy is credited with under girding the intellectual shift which dismantled that system on January 10th 1967.

T

he National Art Gallery of the Bahamas (NAGB) will opened the Eighth National Exhibition (NE8) on December 15, 2016 For the past 13 years, the NAGB has committed itself to the nurturing and fostering of a healthy creative ecosystem and it continues to push the frontiers and foundations of cultural value and consciousness across the nation and its diasporas.

With contributions from more than 60 artists, writers and scholars, this eighth iteration of the National Exhibition, under current Chief Curator Holly Bynoe, will present a rich, four-month long artistic program, interweaving ON and OFFsite exhibitions, performances, screenings, symposiums, readings and education workshops.

Treating the NE as an environ, an organic entity with its various forms, syncopations and traces, it engages with multiple narrative devices in relation to artistic production and practices of thought with a handle on current realities, specifically addressing gender equality, postcolonial concerns, feminism, blackness, the myth of independence and the crisis of nationhood.

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