By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 24, 2021 – I am a huge, huge fan of Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Representative for California’s 43rd congressional district and the current powerful Chairperson of U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. I am always tremendously impressed by how eruditely she responds to questions during live television interviews, and this morning Congresswoman Waters was a guest on The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC. She was absolutely brilliant.
Incidentally, MSNBC is to be commended for having found two excellent hosts for shows during the two-hour void left on Saturday and Sunday mornings when Joy Reid, whose AM Joy Show filled those two hours on both weekend days, was promoted. Joy Reid’s new show, The ReidOut With Joy Reid, now fills the early evening weekdays one-hour time slot left vacant after Chris Matthews “Hardball” show was cancelled.
Both The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross on Saturday mornings and The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart have continued the tradition of excellence established by AM Joy, which I seldom missed.
This morning while Capehart, who is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a member of The Washington Post editorial board, utilized the full measure of his journalistic skills in questioning Congresswoman Waters, the I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD slogan, popularized during the early years of the civil rights movement, continuously occupied space in my mind.
During my involvement in the struggle for majority rule in The Bahamas in the 1960s, I embraced this mantra with a passion, and my black pride exploded as I watched the exchange between Congresswoman Waters and Mr. Capehart as they discussed the current political developments in the United States.
I had the honour and pleasure of speaking with Congresswoman Waters on a number of occasions when her husband Sidney Williams was U.S. Ambassador to The Bahamas from 1994 to 1998 during the administration of President Bill Clinton. I was Editor of The Freeport News in Grand Bahama at the time and was a guest at the various official social functions held by the U.S. Embassy in Nassau.
Many Bahamians still insist that Ambassador Williams was one of the best U.S. Ambassadors to represent his country as its top diplomat in The Bahamas, which incidentally has not had a U.S. Ambassador since Nicole Avant, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and served in that capacity from October 22, 2009 to November 21, 2011. Since then, the U.S. Embassy in Nassau has been headed by a Charge d’Affaires.
Congresswoman Waters and former Ambassador Williams have been very close personal friends of two friends of mine — Sir Franklyn Wilson, Chairman of Sunshine Holdings Limited (SHL), and his wife Sharon Lady Wilson, former President of the Bahamas Senate — from Ambassador Williams’ tenure in The Bahamas and they have frequently spent Christmas holidays in Nassau as house guests of Sir Franklyn and Lady Sharon.
One Christmas in the mid-1990s, the Congresswoman and Ambassador Williams were guests of Sir Franklyn and Lady Sharon at The Banana Boat Reunion, which for many years was one of biggest social events in Nassau over the Christmas holidays. It was sponsored by a group of former regular patrons of the Banana Boat Nightclub that was extremely popular in the 1960s, many of whom had become very successful in their chosen careers.
When I was still living in The Bahamas, I looked forward to attending the Banana Boat Reunion, and I had the honour of dancing with Congresswoman Waters at the Reunion she attended in the mid-1990s, and believe me, the “sister can really dance.”
When I was Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas in Washington, D.C., for four-plus years before the change of government in The Bahamas in May of 2017, I accompanied the then Bahamas Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Dr. Eugene Newry, for an official meeting with the Congresswoman Waters on Capitol Hill, and I was tempted to remind her of that occasion, but diplomatic protocol dictated that I should not yield to my temptation.
During our meeting with the Congresswoman, the fact that she has a long-time friendship with Sir Franklyn and Lady Sharon was evidenced by a photograph of them prominently displayed among the photographs behind the desk in her office.
Of course, she is a huge fan of Junkanoo, the cultural parade staged annually on Bay Street in downtown Nassau on Boxing Day morning (December 26) and the morning of January 1, New Year’s Day.
“I’m always very, very happy to be here. I love the culture, I love the music, I love the people,” Congresswoman Waters told reporter Morgan Adderley of The Tribune when she was interviewed at the Boxing Day Junkanoo Parade on Wednesday morning, December 26, 2018.
During the interview with Jonathan Capehart, he congratulated Congresswoman Waters on celebrating 30 years in Congress. I would also like to congratulate the Congresswoman for her excellent representation of her constituents in the 43rd congressional district of California and for being such a “strong friend” of The Bahamas, the country of my birth.
