The Tribune

MARVA Moxey, third child of Ed Moxey, creator of Jumbey Village, told those gathered to pay tribute to her 80-year-old father Friday night of the hardships the family suffered because they were Moxeys – particularly the children of the former PLP parliamentarian.

Ms Moxey, an Australian trained lawyer, told of the price that her father had to pay under the PLP “for being a bold, outspoken, independent thinker”. She recalls the announcement made from a public platform that “Edmund Moxey will never work another day in this country”. This was after he had left the party to which he had contributed so much.

Governor General Sir Arthur Foulkes, a former political colleague of Mr Moxey, was the main speaker at Friday night’s function, held at the Bahamas Harvest Church, Prince Charles Drive. Mario Moxey, Mr Moxey’s son, is pastor of the church. The function was organised by the College of the Bahamas to pay tribute to the aging former politician.

Following is the tribute paid to Mr Moxey by his daughter, Marva:

MARTIN Luther King Jr once said: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

After years of challenges and suffering, at 80 years old, it is official that Edmund Spencer Moxey measures up!

I stand proudly before you today as the third child of six of Edmund Moxey’s children to bring remarks on behalf of our family.

Prior to 1967, Daddy was an Electronics Engineer by trade having obtained a degree from Coyne Electrical School in Chicago, Illinois, where he studied Radio and Television. He was also a graduate of Berklee School of Music where he took up an Extension Course in Music that equipped him to carry out his cultural and social development plans in his constituency. Daddy is an accomplished musician and I always brag about how my Daddy can play any musical instrument. He was a great engineer and from 1959–1966 during the election campaigns in Nassau he was responsible for the setting up and taking down the electronic equipment, which he built, for the street meetings as they were called back then. Despite the existing limitations of the communications system, he was the man behind the scenes, the first to arrive and the last to leave. Daddy volunteered his services to his beloved PLP as well as purchased microphones, speakers and any necessary equipment to produce high quality sound for the speakers and spectators gathered.

Daddy worked as a wireless operator for telecommunications throughout the Family Islands and a radio engineer at BOAC and Bahamasair. He was the sole provider for his family until he and our Mother established a business called Moxey’s Electronics on Wulff Road. Daddy fixed electrical equipment like TVs and radios and our Mother managed the front end of the store selling records, TVs and sound systems. They also employed three persons.

They both grew up in church, Daddy was an Anglican at first and later joined our Mother at The Church of God where they were active members and Daddy served as the youth director.

Daddy was around the table when the original plans of the PLP were made because HM Taylor had secured his first job in 1952. He was the errand boy who delivered letters throughout Grants Town and Bain Town carrying the message about the formation of the Progressive Liberal Party. He joined the party in 1954 shortly after it was formed. Daddy loved people and politics and took an active interest in it eventually offering himself as a candidate in the 1967 General Elections.

Edmund Moxey was one of the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) Members of Parliament that ushered in majority rule on January 10, 1967. He was elected as the Representative for the Coconut Grove Constituency where he served for ten years. Daddy was a hands-on representative and his constituents loved him and supported him as he improved their lives and their environment which was his constituency.

Daddy’s legacy really started with the significant changes that he made in Coconut Grove, over-the-hill, changes that positively impacted the lives of so many, even persons outside of the boundaries of Coconut Grove. The lasting effects of his contribution are evident today. You see Daddy brought the Jumbey Village Cultural Centre, which included an area called The Big Yard, a Museum and Art Gallery and a Theatre for the Performing Arts with a seating capacity of 400 plus a Community Centre which was comprised of a community clinic, library and pre-school, over the hill to his constituency just steps away from the homes of his constituents. These were community based self help programmes built by funds raised by the people. What a legacy!

Daddy’s children toiled with him and his Constituents to raise funds on Coconut Grove Avenue for the creation of Jumbey Village. We seasoned fish and chicken and cut up lots of onions, sweet pepper and celery. I remember on one occasion after handling the pepper to season the fish my hand was burning like it was on fire and Daddy held it over the open fire to draw the pepper out. He quickly pointed out to me that this was the only time you should fight fire with fire. Our Mother and the other women from Coconut Grove worked tirelessly to ensure the food was prepared and the Coconut Grove Festivals and the Jumbey Festivals were successful. We attended every one and served in whatever capacity was needed. Residents of the Coconut Grove community became our extended family because we became a team with one common purpose to improve their community and become self-sufficient. We also participated in the clean up campaigns every Saturday throughout the Coconut Grove community. Even though Daddy was protective of us and ordinarily would not let us ride on the back of a truck on those occasions he let us do so because we worked very hard and it was all done on a voluntary basis. We are used to hard work because we were told that hard work never killed anyone. For Bahamians to witness and play an integral role in the construction and development of Jumbey Village in 1970 was a beauty to behold.

Daddy was a part of the Parliamentary group that ushered in the so-called majority rule. I say so-called because even today the majority does not rule much less in 1967. We accomplished one man-one vote which was commendable, but the economic power was never transferred to the people; it only changed hands from the few white boys to a few black boys.

It was not long after becoming the Government by the people and for the people that Daddy recognised that the People of the Bahamas had been betrayed by the Pindling Government. All of the plans and programmes that were to be implemented to ensure people empowerment, urban development and community building were soon abandoned by the Government. In particular was our cultural heritage which would have given us a strong sense of identity and independence to grow and develop ourselves in a meaningful way.

Daddy was and perhaps even today is one of the few politicians who never took for granted the commitments that he made to his constituents on the campaign trail and did everything in his power to bring them to fruition.

Daddy was an honest man and could not turn his head when he thought an injustice was being done. He would rather suffer the consequences than participate in fooling the Bahamian people. Some thought that he was too honest to be a politician and therefore he was excluded by some of his colleagues. He wasn’t interested in saving his own skin to the detriment of his constituents. He could have had the mansion in the East or West of New Providence, but he chose an honest and simple life, one that he could live with.

It was Daddy’s decision to speak out against the Government on behalf of the people that led to the unseemly result of him being ostracised, criticised and vilified. Daddy led demonstration after demonstration in protest of the manner in which the dreams, aspirations and hopes of the people were dashed, sometimes with a large group, sometimes with just my Mother and sometimes standing alone. He was eventually depicted as “Muscle and Guts” by popular cartoonist Eddie Minnis of Sideburns, and the name stuck with him throughout his political career.

After the PLP leadership deviated from its promises to the Bahamian people and gave orders to blow up our Jumbey Village Cultural Centre with dynamite, Daddy embarked on a course that would forever change his life and that of his immediate family.

It was easy enough because this was at a time when there was only one radio and one television station, both owned by the Government of The Bahamas. News items were censored as Prime Minister Pindling would have no dissenting voices and anyone who dared to criticise him or the PLP would be chopped down. Daddy was made an example of the price to pay for being a bold, outspoken, independent thinker. After he resigned from the PLP, he joined the BDP and then the FNM and would not be silenced. It was said from a public platform that “Edmund Moxey will never work another day in this country.”

As promised, every time Daddy got a job playing music in one of the hotels or elsewhere, someone would call and threaten the establishment with the cancelling of work permits for their foreign workers so having to choose between their top executives and Daddy, Daddy would be released and sent home broken hearted and discouraged – this happened job after job in spite of the fact that he was qualified and a Bahamian. On one occasion, Daddy and his band auditioned for a gig at a hotel out West and were by far the best band and was scheduled to start at 7pm that Friday evening. Around 3pm that Friday, Daddy got a call from the hotel telling him not to come to work because the room was not ready and they would call him when it was. Sensing that there was more to the story than he was told, Daddy decided to drive by the hotel out west to check it out. I can’t say that he was totally shocked to find another band on the set, but I can tell you that he was pretty disappointed that people could be so cruel.

The food and beverage manager was totally disappointed and equally upset to the extent that he shared with Daddy that a politician had called to say do not give Mr Moxey the job. Perhaps some of you in this audience may not be aware of the ill treatment that Mr Moxey received, but it was real. By now, Moxey’s Electronics was closed. As a family, we experienced many difficult times, including having our electricity disconnected for non-payment and do you know when it would be disconnected? You guessed it, on a Friday evening! So we spent the weekend in darkness, and when our refrigerator went bad we could not afford to buy one so we had to use an ice box to keep the water and the cream cool. It was at that point that our Mother started another business. She was a trooper and it was difficult for her to watch her husband and best friend victimised and punished for caring and being an honest and decent human being.

Our Mother was determined to provide for and keep her family together. Daddy became a farmer extraordinaire and grew food in his backyard. Today he boasts of cultivating many fruit and vegetable trees. We were able to eat everything he grew. The truth is we were poor but we never knew it. Psalm 37:25 says “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”

God provided for The Moxey Family and is still doing so today. As a matter of fact for the last 25 years our Mother has been feeding the sick and shut-ins throughout New Providence.

During high school, my two older sisters, Sharon, and Debbie and I took summer jobs at the then Resorts Hotel on Paradise Island. Daddy used to drive us to and from Stapledon Gardens to Paradise Island five days a week where among other duties we set the tables and folded the napkins into Candles, Bishop’s Hat, etc, in preparation for dinner. We never missed a day and we were never late, only to find out at the end of the summer that all of the other children were paid by the hotel, but they were not allowed to pay the Moxey girls. When Daddy learned about this, he approached them and was told we fed them lunch every day to which we responded you fed every one lunch every day, what’s the point? Whenever we talk about that experience, our Mother would console us with the fact that we learned how to set the table and fold napkins elegantly, a chore she designated to us every Sunday in preparation for dinner and she told us that they may have taken our pay but they couldn’t take the skills that we learned away from us.

After graduating from school, we tried to find jobs only to face the realisation that our application files at the Labour Exchange were destroyed each time we left the office. After going back on several occasions to check for job availability, we were told that the file was lost. Eventually we gave up. Debbie managed to get a job in 1977 as a BahamasAir agent and was told to return the following day in order to take the photo for an ID card. When she returned the following morning while at the HR Manager’s desk, the general manager called for the name of the person who was hired. When he was told, he asked: “Moxey? Does she live on Mckinney Ave?” the answer was “yes”. The General Manager then replied: “That’s Edmund Moxey daughter, you can’t hire her!” Debbie was then told that she no longer had the job.

When it was time for us to go to college in spite of our excellent grades none of us was able to secure a Government scholarship, but thanks to Mr Carlton Francis, former Cabinet Minister, who introduced Daddy to the manager of Winn Dixie in the United States, Sharon and I received scholarships from The Bahamas Supermarket Foundation. Sharon returned home from Prairie View University with a Bachelors degree in Food Nutrition in 1983 and after being unable to secure a job moved to The United States of America. She is employed as a nutritionist at a major hospital.

In spite of our negative experiences, there were people who helped the Moxey family in the face of hardship, and we are forever appreciative just as Daddy is ever grateful to those who supported him through his trials. God has been good to him and has blessed his life tremendously. God sees the heart and Daddy has a heart of gold. Today, Daddy is still playing music for the Lutheran Church where he has played for the last 35 years and 20 years for Holy Trinity Church where he is a member.

I remember, just as if it were yesterday, the day Daddy told us that he was resigning from the PLP. It was a Sunday afternoon and we were seated at the dinner table. He told us that there comes a time in every man’s life when he must make a decision and that day he had made one. He said he was resigning from the PLP. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but at the tender age of 12 I got that sinking feeling that something bad was going to happen to us and it did.

When I learned that the Government had made a decision to change the name of Jumbey Village Complex to the Sir Clifford Darling Complex, I had the opportunity to speak to Prime Minister Christie at a function in Freeport. I asked him if he was trying to kill my Daddy by naming Jumbey Village after Sir Clifford. He responded that he didn’t know the history of Jumbey Village because he was away in university when that happened. I told him that he should have asked someone because that just wasn’t right and if we don’t learn from our past we are doomed to repeat it. Since the building was named the Sir Clifford Darling Complex anyway, you will recognise that I didn’t have any influence there. It is amazing how the contempt for my father has lived on after all these years and by association passed onto his next generation by certain members of a particular group for no apparent reason. I often wonder what it will take to bring about a positive and transparent change. Even today, when we would have furthered our education, paying our own way, in most cases, we are still being victimised and unable to secure jobs in spite of our qualifications.

Despite our personal biases and party commitment, it should be underscored that this whole matter of hurting others who do not subscribe to our political philosophy is unwarranted and indeed inhumane. After all, none of us is born with a regalia or certificate stating that I am a born PLP, I am a born FNM or I am a born DNA.

I thank God that despite the pangs of the vitriol that Daddy endured over his political life, it is heartwarming to observe that he has lived long enough to hear his constituents boast about him being the best Member of Parliament to date and to see a generation rise up and want more, thirsty for their cultural heritage only to be told that Edmund Moxey had a vision years ago that was not appreciated by his colleagues because they thought he cared too much for the small man and was doing too much to empower them.

Daddy doesn’t like it when you say he was ahead of his time, but I believe that it is safe to say that with all of the chaos in this society today he can feel vindicated and resign himself to the fact that he did the right thing and he did what he was elected to do.

We have learned as his children to stand up for what we believe, even if we stand alone. We’ve learned to persevere and not become bitter because of adversity in life. Notwithstanding all of the heartaches that we endured and the possibility that we would face rejection there was never a time when we were not proud to say that we are Edmund Moxey’s children and grandchildren.

For us, his legacy lives in our brave hearts and the hearts of his grandchildren. We love you, Papa!