Black Power movement in Bermuda

New book focuses on the Black Power movement in Bermuda

http://www.royalgazette.com/rg/Article/article.jsp?articleId=7da243330030005&sectionId=60

February 8. 2010
By Ruth O'Kelly-Lynch

The Island's black power movement and the impact it has had is the
focus of a book by Bermudian author Quito Swan.

The book 'Black Power in Bermuda the Struggle for Decolonisation',
examines how the movement grew during the Island's tempestuous 1960s
and 1970s and the Government's attempts to thwart it through military
tactics and propaganda.

Central to the book is the Black Power Conference, which brought
activists from across the world to Bermuda's shores in 1969. The
event was organised by the late civil rights campaigner Roosevelt Brown.

The conference was not well received by white elites on the Island
and caused concern internationally. Locally, it was believed that the
conference would further strain racial tensions and frighten white
tourists from coming to the Island. Internationally, there was
concern that it would cause black power to spread across the
Caribbean and threaten Canadian, American and British interests in
the region. The conference caused so much concern that the British
had warships stationed on the Island in case violence erupted CIA,
M15 and M16 agents were stationed at the airport and at locations
across the Island.

The book also examines how the Black Beret Cadre, a small but active
black power cell, evolved and the role they played on the Island.

Mr. Swan is an assistant professor of history at Howard University.

He hopes his book will provide a chronological account of how black
power grew locally, and correct misconceptions that the cadre was a
group of ignorant hooligans who were ultimately responsible for the
murders of Governor Sir Richard Sharples and Police Commissioner
George Duckett. "I believe when people hear black power and Black
Beret Cadre they automatically think of the assassination," he said.
"Burrows [the man convicted of killing Sir Richard and subsequently
hanged, a move that resulted in riots across the Island in 1977] was
an associate of the cadre, he was not a part of it. You would be
hard-pressed to find young, black people in the 1970s who were not
committed to black power."

The Foreign Commonwealth Office in the UK believed the cadre was
involved in the murders, though Police did not find conclusive
evidence to link them.

The black power movement is perceived by some to be anti-white. Mr.
Swan said it refers to black self-determination and anti-colonial sentiments.

Researching the book was a long process as very little had been
written on the topic before, Mr. Swan said. He ploughed through
hundreds of pages of correspondence between the UK's Foreign Office
and Bermuda's governors from the period, information that was
declassified in 2004 and 2005.

He also spent hours in the US State Department looking at papers
dealing with the concerns about the conference expressed by the CIA
on President Richard Nixon's orders, as well as letters written by US
consuls on the Island. And he interviewed members of the Black Beret
Cadre, some of whom appear not to have talked about their involvement
publicly before.

Mr. Swan also scanned hundreds of editions of The Royal Gazette and
the now defunct Bermuda Recorder. He said both had their own biases
when it came to reporting in the 1960s and 1970s.

'Black Power in Bermuda the Struggle for Decolonisation' evolved from
his doctoral thesis. Researching the black power movement in Bermuda
was important to Mr. Swan because he was born during that period and
believes it has shaped much of the Island's current politics and politicians.

"The critical mass of black Bermuda who were born in the 1970s grew
up hearing about the Black Beret Cadre," he said. "It's just that
black people have been persecuted for talking about the oppression.
"Researching the book was hard. Many people will rely on secondary
sources and other books, but I didn't have that. I had to collect
primary sources, do research at the US State Department, go through
old newspaper, FCO files. I was fortunate to receive grants to do
this research."

Mr. Swan grew up on North Shore in Pembroke and attended Berkeley
Institute. He attained a bachelor's degree in Florida and his
master's degree and PhD at Howard University, where he now works. So
far the response to his book has been good. The first shipments to
the Island, which were stocked at Brown & Co. and the Bermuda
Bookstore, have already sold out and more copies have been shipped.

"Most people were excited; they said it was about time that someone
wrote a book," he said. "The response to the book in Bermuda has been
great already.

"And the interest is not just in Bermuda but across the African diaspora."

Mr. Swan said he hoped young Bermudians would read the book and learn
about the struggle black people here went through to overcome
oppression. He believes that colonial history has been taught in
classrooms, when local history should have played a bigger part.

"Bermuda colonial education has historically served to intellectually
erase the voice of black dissent and disconnect the experiences of
blacks in Bermuda from the wider black world," he said. "This has
unfortunately resulted in a certain level of historical amnesia among
many Bermudians, who are astonished to learn that blacks have
historically resisted colonial rule, slavery, discrimination, and
racism, and often contextualised these struggles in a larger
phenomenon of global black self-determination."

He added: "So many people don't know the stories of Sally Basset,
Mary Prince and the Theatre Boycott. It is only recently that people
are starting to talk about the Theatre Boycott and learning about it.

"When people hear 'black power' and the 'Black Beret Cadre' they
automatically link it with the assassinations of the Governor and
Police Commissioner. But it is about more than that.

"People don't discuss the social programmes, the Black Power
Conference organised by Roosevelt Brown. But people who went to the
conference, they remember."

And he said it was equally important young people realise that
desegregation, the right to vote and fair voting boundaries were
things that had to be fought for. "There were men and woman who had
to push things forward," he said

The idea that cadre members were uneducated hooligans has stigmatised
the movement in Bermuda, Mr. Swan believes.

"These were bright young men and woman pushing things forward," he
said. "They were well-read, they were looking at what others were
doing to overthrow colonialism."

In his book he lists Frantz Fanon's 'The Wretched of the Earth',
Mao-Tse Tung's 'Red Book' and J.A. Roger's 'World's Great Men of
Color' as typical reading material of members of the cadre.

Mr. Swan said: "While popular attention has focused on the cadre's
call for armed struggle, its primary operations were educational and
outreach programmes, such as liberation schools, rallies, public
lectures, visits to local school, anti-drug programmes and
publications such as the Black Beret Cadre [A Conspiracy to Kill].

"As the cadre developed into Bermuda's vanguard of black power, it
emphatically challenged Bermuda's oligarchic and colonial Government."

Mr. Swan said researching the book has given him a better
understanding of Bermuda's complex racial history, something he hopes
others will also experience.

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