The Tribune

WE NOW have a better understanding of Jesus’ observation that a successful man is not honoured in his own country after government’s announcement — followed by some public protest— that the northbound bridge to Paradise was to be officially named in honour of Bahamian Sir Sidney Poitier.

“Sidney Poitier— he was born in Miami — he aint Bahamian, who he t’ink he is!” was one Bahamian’s comment.

The next day we were in the foodstore and got another viewpoint. It was from an old acquaintance — a retired police officer — who knew Sir Sidney and was a great admirer. He could not think of Sir Sidney as being anything but Bahamian, nor can anyone of our vintage who watched with pride as a poor Cat Island boy climbed the ladder to stardom and was honoured by the world. The retired officer recounted how generous Sir Sidney had been to many Bahamians — quietly so, he never wanted his good works known, we were told. The officer said how much Sir Sidney had helped with the move for majority rule and how he had helped Bahamians who found themselves in difficulty in the United States. As far as this gentleman was concerned, Sir Sidney never forgot his Bahamian roots.

No Bahamian could have started from more humble beginnings or gone further in carving a place for himself in the world than Sidney Poitier – at the same time breaking down racial prejudice against the black race. It was by accident of nature that he was born in Miami of Cat Island parents.

Sir Sidney was born prematurely when his parents had gone from Cat Island to Miami to sell a hundred boxes of tomatoes at the Produce Exchange. At birth he weighed three pounds. His father, said Sir Sidney in his book, “The Measure of a Man”, who had already lost several children to disease and stillbirth, was “somewhat stoical about the situation.” He went to a local undertaker “in the coloured section of Miami” to get something to bury the infant in. He came back with a shoebox.

His mother, more hopeful for the child’s survival, went to a “local palm reader and diviner of tea leaves.” On her return home she informed her husband that he could forget about the shoe box, their son, Sidney, would live.

“Don’t worry about your son,” the soothsayer had told the mother. “He will survive and he will not be a sickly child. He will grow up to be … he will travel to most of the corners of the earth. He will walk with kings. He will be rich and famous. Your name will be carried all over the world. You must not worry about that child.”

When he was strong enough, the parents took their baby back to Cat Island where they resumed their simple life as farmers. In those days modern conveniences were unheard of in Cat Island — no running water indoors, no electricity, no inside toilets, no communication – and yet the people lived a happy, simple life.

“I wasn’t a spoiled child,” Sir Sidney recalled. “As soon as I was big enough to lift a bucket, I carried water for my mother. I went into the woods to gather bramble to make our cooking fire. Even as a toddler I had my purpose, and I knew that I had to contribute to the thin margin of our survival. But I was a child bathed in love and attention.”

And at the end of each day the family sat on the porch together, “fanning the smoke from the pot of burning green leaves to shoo away the mosquitoes and the sandflies.”

Despite his birth in Coconut Grove, he was still a Bahamian citizen. However, his place of birth automatically gave him American citizenship, and so, like many Bahamians in the same situation, he has dual nationality — Bahamian and American.

At the age of 10 the family moved to Nassau, where Sir Sidney saw a motor car for the first time – also electric lights, running water inside houses and heard that the rich had flush toilets in their homes — he puzzled over that one.

At 15 he was sent to Miami to join his older brother and at 17 he was in New York, handicapped by his limited education and his Bahamian accent. He ended up as a dishwasher with great ambitions to succeed despite his tremendous handicaps. Every time he was knocked down, he got up even stronger and more determined. He refused to accept failure. He worked on his accent, and a Jewish waiter sat with him every night for several weeks helping him to learn to read a newspaper. He was determined to be an actor.

For a black man, the road ahead seemed impossible. At that time no black man could get a lead role in a movie production.

From the tomato fields of Cat Island, this black man, handsome, determined and articulate, was the first black person to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. By 1967 he was the most successful draw at the box office. Between 1958, starting with the British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor, he accumulated many awards, among them the Honorary Oscar in 2002 “for his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence.” In 2009 President Barack Obama fastened the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck. In 1974 Queen Elizabeth knighted him, and in 1997 the Bahamas government appointed him non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan.

Instead of questioning Sir Sidney’s nationality, Bahamian youth not only should be proud of their fellow Bahamian, but draw inspiration from how far he has travelled from the humblest of beginnings. It should inspire them to get off the wall, hand their guns into the police, and make every effort to follow in his footsteps. Each time they cross the Sir Sidney Poitier bridge they should remember that if he could do it, so can they.

“Yes, we can!” should the theme of their life’s song.