By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20, 2024 – I am immensely proud of this young lady, Amber Turner, granddaughter of the late George A. Smith, who was a very close and dear friend and political colleague during the struggle for majority rule and beyond. Amber is the daughter of my goddaughter, Gina Smith Turner, who lives in Freeport, Grand Bahama. I absolutely had to share a collection of photos she posted on Facebook on her recent participation in the 2024 ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York along with her accompanying narrative with readers of my Washington, D.C. – based online publication, BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, which has a huge following among the Bahamian diaspora across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.
Amber posted the photos with the following narrative:
Representing The Bahamas in New York this past week at the 2024 ECOSOC Youth Forum was truly an honor, held under the theme “Youth shaping sustainable and innovative solutions: Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of crises.”
At the Caribbean Regional breakout session on SDG 13, I had the privilege to present an intervention, highlighting the challenges our region faces and proposing recommendations drawn from previous Caribbean youth dialogues.
I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to advocate for meaningful progress! 🇧🇸🌍🌱
BAHAMAS CHRONICLE EDITOR’S NOTE: As I noted in a column I wrote on the stalwart contributions of George A. Smith to Bahamian politics when he died, by Bahamian standards George was a white man. He easily could have been a prominent member of the United Bahamian Party (UBP) had he chosen to align himself with the Bay Street Boys, who only decided to establish themselves as a political party after the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) made such a strong showing in the 1956 general election by winning six seats.
George made tremendous contributions to the PLP, starting in the 1960s as a young member of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA). He was very smart and had a “good head for business.” It was in this capacity that he made notable contributions to the progressive struggle in the 1960s as a young member of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA), an activist group within the PLP that essentially was the “power base” of then PLP leader Lynden O. Pindling.
When Arthur A. Foulkes and a group of other NCPA members established The Bahamian Times in the early 1960s after Mr. Foulkes lost his bid for a seat in the House of Assembly in the 1962 general elections and resigned as News Editor of The Tribune, George subsequently joined the staff of Bahamian Times ostensibly as General Manager.
George and I became extremely close friends after I left The Tribune in 1965 and joined the staff of Bahamian Times, having received my early training in journalism under the tutelage of Mr. Foulkes, who was The Tribune’s News Editor, and the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the Tribune’s Publisher and Editor. I had joined the staff of The Tribune as a trainee reporter in May of 1960.
Following the historic January 10, 1967 general elections, in which both the then governing UBP and the opposition PLP won 18 seats, the PLP was able to convince the lone Labour Party winning candidate Randol Fawkes and Independent Alvin R. Braynen to support the PLP and subsequently formed The Bahamas’ first black-led majority-rule government.
One year later, however, members of the PLP were faced with making a crucial decision of holding a bye-election to fill the Shirlea seat left vacant following the death of Uriah McPhee, but it was decided instead to “go back to the people” in a general election on April 10, 1968. It turned out to be the right decision, with the PLP winning by a landslide, capturing 29 seats, while the UBP won just 7. Randol Fawkes was re-elected as a Labour candidate, as was Alvin R. Braynen as an Independent.
George Smith’s family roots are in Exuma, and naturally when he decided to embark on a political career, he chose to run as a PLP candidate for the Rolleville constituency in The Exumas and was among the winning candidates in the 1968 general election.
I was very much involved in George’s campaign, and every Saturday after Bahamian Times had been published, we would head to Exuma. It was during this time that I fell in love with the islands that comprise The Exumas, which the tourist brochure describes as “an archipelago of 365 cays and islands, beginning just 35 miles southeast of Nassau.” That “love affair” continues even to this day, although I have not visited The Exumas in more than two decades.
My friendship with George Smith remained “rock-solid” over the years as a result of the strong foundation on which it was established during our years as co-workers at Bahamian Times, even though we took “different sides,” so the speak, when there was a “political split” in the PLP in 1970. I was best man in George’s wedding at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral to his first wife Mavis McCartney and I am godfather to their daughter Gina Smith Turner, who is Amber Turner’s mother; hence, the main reason why I am so proud of Amber and absolutely had to share the collection of photos she posted on Facebook today.
As an addendum, I closely follow Amber Turner’s posts on Facebook, and I am totally convinced that she has inherited her grandfather’s political acumen and has a great future in Bahamian politics.
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