Dear Editor,
 
I beg your indulgence in allowing me to, for the sake of history, correct a number of inaccuracies and misinformation in a letter written to The Nassau Guardian and published on page four of the December 8 edition of the said media by one Kevin Evans.

For the writer's information, discrimination has been an integral part of the Bahamian culture, from the time of its colonization by supporters of the British Crown in the American War of Independence, in the latter part of the 18th century.  The majority of blacks were slaves, with a few of them known as free men of color up to the time of the abolition of slavery in the late 1830s.

Discrimination (racial) as it was practiced in this country up to January 23, 1956 was part and parcel of the culture of the white settlers that migrated here from the U.S. No white man ever brought a resolution to Parliament against discrimination in this country, and Sir Etienne Dupuch was not the first to bring such a resolution to the House of Assembly.  The late Sir Henry Milton Taylor, a Long Islander who founded the PLP along with others in 1953, while sitting in Parliament as one of the two independent representatives for Long Island, had brought a resolution condemning discrimination in the country some time previously; but it died for want of a seconder.

Although Taylor was a founder and chairman of the PLP, he was sitting in the House as one of the independent members for Long Island, having been elected in 1949, the last of the seven-year terms.

Parliament was dissolved later that year, ending the seven-year life span of the House, and new elections were called bringing into being the beginning of the five-year term of Parliament as we now know it.

Dupuch had no problem securing a seconder for his resolution, as his brother Eugene was also a member of the assembly.  The resolution never got to that stage, however, and it was never debated and will go down in history as being the first resolution that brought about profound changes to a system of racism and inequality in any country on this planet.  If there was another, I have not heard or read of it.  It was an heroic act that deserves national recognition.

For the writer's (Kevin Evans) information Sir Etienne Dupuch, like Sir Henry Taylor, were both products from across racial divides.  There were men of color present in the assembly when Taylor moved his resolution; but he failed to get a seconder.

When Dupuch blazed his political and historical trail through Parliament on that historical night, all the then movers and shakers in the PLP led by Lynden Pindling who had, by then, usurped the leadership position of the party from Taylor and forced the half-white members like Taylor and Cyril Stevenson out of the leadership positions and later out of the party, were outside Parliament with the crowd in support of Dupuch.

Pindling later reversed racism and started a campaign of racial discrimination that had divided friends and families and put this nation on a course so destructive that it destroyed the very fiber on which this nation was built.
 
- Errington W. I. Watkins

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