EDITOR, The Tribune. `

Each February is Black History Month in the United States. This is the month Americans reflect on the significant contributions of African Americans and the struggle for equality, from the Civil War era to the civil rights movement in the twentieth century.

Recently, it was brought to my knowledge that the late Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell, Sr, was actively engaged in fighting against adherents of the civil rights movement and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. When the federal government under President Ronald Reagan declared that every third Monday of the month of January would be Martin Luther King Day, Falwell was adamant in his opposition to honouring the fallen civil rights icon with a national holiday. I had always admired Falwell for his conservative and evangelical ideas. I didn’t know that he founded Lynchburg Christian Academy as a segregated private school, in his opposition to the Supreme Court Brown vs the Board of Education ruling in 1954. While Lynchburg Christian Academy would accept ethnic minorities two years after its founding, it is deeply troubling to this writer that the founder of Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty University and the Moral Majority was prejudiced against Blacks.

It is also deeply unsettling to this writer that iconic individuals within the evangelical community in North America, such as J Gresham Machem, John R Rice and Lewis Sperry Chafer of Dallas Theological Seminary, may have also harboured racist views towards ethnic minorities. I understand that prominent African American Pastor Tony Evans was not allowed to enroll at Dallas Theological Seminary because of the colour of his skin in the 1970s. Whatever one’s views are regarding King and his theology, no one within the evangelical community can deny with a straight face that his contributions to the US are seminal. This is a sobering fact that even the Southern Baptist Convention has begrudgingly accepted. I think we as Black Bahamians can learn from this development regarding the prejudices we hold for the defunct United Bahamian Party and Sir Stafford Sands. Black Bahamians must accept the historical fact that it was Sands who was the architect of the financial services sector and tourism -- economic pillars of the modern Bahamas that we as Black Bahamians rely on. Indeed, Sir Stafford is the father of tourism. Period. End of discussion.

It is not Sir Clement T Maynard, as claimed in his well-written 2007 memoir “Put On More Speed”. While no one can deny that Sir Clement made significant contributions towards enhancing the tourism sector, it would be a classic case of historical revisionism to state that he is the father of modern tourism. Maybe by adding the qualifier “modern” to the word tourism, historical revisionists are attempting to distinguish the tourism model Sands implemented from the one Maynard tinkered with. This cannot work for the simple reason that both Sands and Maynard were contemporaries. Maynard was born in 1928, which was just 15 years after Sands’ birth in 1913 in Nassau. Moreover, when Sands died in England in 1972 at age 58, Maynard was about 44 years-old. Both were actively involved in frontline politics during the 1960s. Therefore it is disingenuous to label Sir Clement the father of “modern” tourism. The tourism we see today is the model Sir Stafford crafted in the 1940s and 1950s. It was Sands who transformed the once seasonal tourism industry into a year-round industry. And no one can state with a straight face that Sir Milo B Butler is the father of finance as one former Cabinet minister claimed a few years ago. That distinction belongs to Sir Stafford, who is also credited for overseeing the transition from the British shillings and pounds to dollars and cents in the 1960s as finance minister. I had chosen to preface this opinion piece with the documented views of certain White evangelicals regarding King because I see a correlation between that and the attitudes of certain prominent Bahamian clergymen towards the UBP and Sands.

A Brethren pastor from a Family Island was furious that a young mother had sent her kids to church donning Free National Movement T-shirts shortly after the 1982 general election. The kids were sent home. The pastor was a dyed-in-the-wool Progressive Liberal Party supporter. Coincidentally, that was the year PLP writer Michael A Symonette published his The New Bahamians. Symonette mentioned the UBP elements within the FNM. Most Bahamians back then were extremely hostile towards the FNM because they saw it as party fronting for the UBP. In addition to the aforementioned Brethren pastor, this writer recalls the deeply disparaging remarks expressed by a Church of God of Prophecy pastor about the FNM leadership of the 1970s and 1980s. I also recall similar views expressed by a Holiness church preacher. According to her, a vote for the FNM would be a vote for UBP elements. Bahamians would recall the ruckus caused by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham when he announced that Sir Stafford’s image would be placed on the $10 banknote in 2000. This move was vociferously opposed by the then Opposition PLP. This move reminds me of Falwell’s opposition to MLK Day.

When the PLP achieved majority rule on January 10, 1967, Sir Stafford would resign from the House of Assembly as Nassau City MP and relocate to Spain. According to Bahamianology, Sir Stafford sold his City Markets franchise to Winn Dixie in 1967. The former UBP Cabinet Minister was a successful businessman and attorney who would represent Wallace Groves, the founder of Freeport. It was Sir Stafford and the UBP who played massive roles in the crafting of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement. He would also oversee the introduction of casino gambling to The Bahamas -- a move the PLP, owing to its pandering to the Baptist Church, would oppose. The PLP would then have a change of heart once in the government, much to the annoyance and disillusionment of Carlton Francis, who would serve as finance Minister in the Cabinet of Sir Lynden O Pindling from 1967 to 1973. Was Sands a racist? According to the late PLP MP Edmund, he wasn’t. While we may not agree with his sore loser attitude after losing to the PLP, it would be unethical of educational and political stakeholders to continue perpetuating the myth that finance and tourism were established by individuals other than Sir Stafford Sands. We may not like him, but he’s an integral part of Bahamian history.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama.

February 25, 2024.