January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Our path to desegregation smooth by comparison
Members of the Progressive Group were there. They talked about the individuals behind the Progressive Group's successful 1959 Theatre Boycott that broke the back of Bermuda's national policy of formal racial segregation.
Former MP and Cabinet Minister C.V. Jim 'Voice of Summer' Woolridge recalled names of Flatt's villagers who had a big impact on the rest of Bermuda. Historian 'Bill' Zuill spun a story that gave interesting background to Whitney Institute and the famous inventor - Richard Fessenden*.
Louis Mowbray told the story of his grandfather, a self-taught Bermudian scientist, who helped establish Bermuda's Aquarium. There were others who described an enclosed and self-sufficient village society that, as happens the world over, lived its own life within the wider ambit of a bigger Bermudian society.
As the walk-and-talk went on, I understood what was happening and I enjoyed it. I heard and listened as ordinary Bermudians reached back and grasped at their own still mostly unwritten history. I was fascinated.
But there was one small but recurring note of discordance. It is a note I've heard several times before. I heard it last during an interview that I gave to a high school student who was researching for a history project.
Bermuda's Theatre Boycott began on June 15, 1959. Eight days later, on June 23, 1959, all theatres were closed. By July 1, all theatres re-opened with an open door policy that meant that blacks could now sit anywhere they chose. Hotels and restaurants had announced and implemented a new open-door policy on June 29 - two days earlier. However, this new hotel and restaurant policy applied only to public spaces. Blacks were still barred from booking and using a room in a hotel. This de-segregating was followed by an extension of the Vote in 1963.
So, in just sixteen days, Bermuda's largest and most easily visible racial barriers had collapsed; and four years later, the Vote was extended.
No violence here
In other places, it was different.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks precipitated a bus boycott. That bus boycott began on December 5, 1955. Three hundred and forty-three days later, on November 13, 1956, the Montgomery Bus Boycott ended - and blacks could finally sit anywhere they chose. In the U.S., voting changes didn't come about until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - two years after Bermuda's initial extension of the right to vote**. In South Africa, universal franchise didn't come until 1993.
In Bermuda, some things happened faster and there was no massive wave of violence*** - certainly not the kind of fire-hosing, police-dog using, sjambok whipping, Birmingham bombing, and Sharpeville shooting that took place in other countries.
However, I find that some Bermudians - among them the young student who interviewed me - seem to be searching for a racial history that has the bloody and bestial tone and style shown in Birmingham, Sharpeville, Soweto, and at the violent confrontation on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
In contrast to these bloody clashes, Bermuda's journey from segregation to a more open society was characterized by the kind of confrontation, compromise, and begrudging cooperation shown in the 16-day Theatre Boycott - and throughout Bermuda's 400 year history.
On that Flatt's walk-and-talk, I found that one or two questioners - like that student - seemed to be seeking evidence of a bloody battle for 'black' rights. They're not alone in that quest. There are many other black Bermudians who seem to be searching for a bloody racial history.
But the violence, blood, and gore isn't there. It didn't happen on the scale as in other countries.
Black and white Bermudians certainly did disagree, squabble, and fight. Mostly though, Bermuda's blacks and whites confronted, compromised, cooperated, and copulated their way to the Bermuda that exists today. Put another way, we certainly 'got on one another's nerves' - but just as certainly, we also 'got in one another's pants and panties'.
It's in our written history****, our folk history, and our family names. It's in our genes and our skin colours. Globally, it's what sets us apart and defines us as Bermudian. n
*My son, Laurion, went to Brown University (RI) on a Fessenden-Trott scholarship. (In 2006, Laurion repaid those Fessenden-Trott scholarship funds -$36,000 - so that 'others might have the same opportunity').
**Bermuda's second voting rights change came in 1968. The third came in 2002.
*** In Bermuda, there were ten killings in the five year period between September 10th 1972 and December 4th 1977. Police Commissioner. Governor. Governor's ADC. Two Bermudian shopkeepers. Two Tourists and one Bermudian in a hotel arson. Two men hanged.
**** See First Edition of Cyril Packwood's "Chained on the Rock" - especially page 86.[[In-content Ad]]
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