The Tribune

SPEAKING at a PLP town hall meeting last Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis warned his listeners that the return of former deputy prime minister Brent Symonette to frontline politics was proof that the FNM was now representing the interests of the “Bay Street Boys” – not that of the people. Mr Davis had returned to the old PLP game of divide and conquer — “them and us!” It’s a wonder we didn’t hear the cranking up of the production cameras to replay “Roots”, which in the days of Pindling was the background theme for almost every election.

“To me,” bellowed Mr Davis, “I see the Bay Street boys, that’s what I see.” That’s what Mr Davis claims he saw last Monday in an hysterical moment of historical falsehood. For us it was a flashback to infancy when children of our era were warned that if we didn’t go to bed quietly and fall asleep quickly, the “boogeyman” man would get us. Many children were frightened to sleep by that non-existent “boogeyman.” It would seem there is an attempt to make the “Bay Street Boys” the “boogeyman” of this election.

We hope that Bahamians today are more intelligent than to be frightened off by Mr Davis’ misrepresentation of history. It’s bad enough that our schools are graduating D- students, but it is unforgiveable when their leaders feed them falsehoods from a public platform – crushing them further down into the valley of ignorance.

We would defy Mr Davis to walk the length and breadth of Bay Street today and point out what was known back then as “the Bay Street” boys. When we walk, all we see are “our people”.

In the days when the term was used it referred to a white oligarchy of Bahamian merchants who controlled trade on Bay Street. Many older Bahamians today will remember the JP Sands store, where black Bahamians would be served on one side of the store while white Bahamians would scoop their rice out of a barrel on the opposite side. There are few Bahamians left today who remember that era. We question whether Mr Davis, who was born and lived most of his youth at Cat Island, or even Mr Symonette, the son of Sir Roland Symonette, the first premier of the Bahamas, would have personal knowledge of that period of our history.

“Brave” Davis was born in Cat Island in 1951, 66 years ago. Mr Symonette, three years his junior was born in Nassau in 1954. At the time of their births, Mr Davis, if he were older, could not have gone freely to certain public places - certain restaurants, none of the hotels and certainly not the Savoy Theatre on Bay Street, while Mr Symonette would have been able to enter any one of them.

Mr Davis was five years old, and Mr Symonette just two when the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, The Tribune’s editor and publisher, stood on the floor of the House to move a resolution asking members to go on record as deploring “discrimination in hotels, theatres and other places in the Colony against persons on account of their race or colour.” Such discrimination, said the Resolution, was “not in the public interest.”

At that time and in that social climate it was an unpopular move. It was a fight that was to cost The Tribune editor serious financial loss. On the night of his Resolution he knew that he faced possible arrest with which he was threatened by the Speaker. But he also knew that a principle was involved… a principle far bigger and more important than himself, his business loss, or his personal security.

It was a night of tense drama with shouting crowds encircling the House below. We were The Tribune’s reporter on duty that night — in those days the House met at 8pm. At least two House members of what would have been known then as belonging to the “Bay Street” crowd supported Sir Etienne’s motion. They were the late Dr Raymond Sawyer, and the late Donald McKinney of McKinney Bancroft & Hughes. Mr McKinney was the uncle of today’s FNM member for Montagu, lawyer Richard Lightbourn. And who can forget Mr Lightbourn’s wonderful mother, the late Mallie Lightbourn, who refused to tolerate discrimination in any form. She lived in London and her welcome mat was always out, especially for Bahamians of whatever colour or background - she seemed to feel a proprietary right over them as though it was her duty to take care of them while in her city of London. This is how she raised her three sons — discrimination in any guise was not tolerated in Mallie’s house.

Sir Etienne’s Resolution was sent to committee — this was the burial ground for such pesky resolutions. But it was not lost. Three days later — January 23, 1956 – the majority of Nassau’s exclusive hotels announced that they were open to everyone, regardless of race, the only standard being good behaviour and proper dress. By Saturday, January 28, the British Colonial owners, the last to make the announcement, said that there was no discrimination at their establishment.

It was a tremendous victory - discrimination in public places was at an end. But what was interesting was that it is the only date scrubbed from the PLP calendar as never having taken place. They seem to forget that they are smugly where they are today because of the tremendous personal sacrifices made at that time.

However, to get back to Mr Davis and Mr Brent Symonette. Although, Mr Symonette was born into the fading era of the “Bay Street” boys, he was not of it. He belonged to a different generation. He was only 13 years old when the PLP came to power in 1967 and 17 when the UBP (known as the Bay Street Boys’ party) was disbanded. Much of the time he was abroad at school. So in fact Brent Symonette was not a part of that scene - a young, impressionable observer, but not a participant. It was the generation before him that held the burial service for the UBP – Sir Geoffrey Johnstone, Peter Graham, Godfrey Kelly, and the late Basil Kelly, to name but a few.

By 1971 the young so-called UBP members after quietly giving their party a decent burial merged with the Free Progressive Liberal Party, which is now the FNM. Today the UBP exists only in history books, and so, if Mr Davis is suddenly seeing Brent Symonette as a part of the Bay Street Boys — a group to which he never belonged and which no longer exists– then the “boogeyman” who frightened a bygone age to sleep, must indeed be after Mr Davis.

We hope he soon wakens to reality before he is classified with Donald Trump as lost in a Land of Lies and is no longer relevant.