By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C. –June 13, 2022 – I had planned to write a follow-up to my novel, “Woes of Life,” which was published in 2017, but I was immensely disappointed in its overall sales. Whether because of naivety or wishful thinking, I fully expected that “Woes of Life” would be an international bestseller and attract the attention of movie producers. In my view, it is an excellent novel with a gripping plot, based loosely on some actual events that took place in The Bahamas, but the story generally is fiction. Having invested a great deal of time writing it, I reluctantly came to the conclusion to abandon plans to invest so time in writing a follow-up.
Instead, I have decided to write a series of fact-based articles on the development and maturation of party politics in The Bahamas leading up to the historic January 10, 1967, general election and on the road to The Bahamas obtaining its independence from Great Britain July 10, 1973.
Before embarking on this challenging journalistic venture, it was only natural for me to contact my journalistic mentor, former Governor General Sir Arthur A. Foulkes, who facilitated my baptism as a political activist starting in the 1960s after I met him for the first time when I joined the staff of The Tribune in May of 1960 as a trainee reporter.
Now 94 years old, in his responses to my emails, Sir Arthur demonstrated that his mind is as agile as it was when he held sway in the newsroom of The Tribune as its News Editor, simultaneously “taking me under his wings” and personally supervising my journalistic training – along with Sir Etienne Dupuch, the late Publisher and Editor of The Tribune.
Sir Arthur’s sage recollection of politically historical events in The Bahamas quite naturally will be the foundation for several of the weekly articles I plan to write over the next several months.
Likewise, enlightening discussions I have had with Sir Franklyn Wilson over the past three years, most recently last week as I began my research for the series of articles I am about to do.
I have known Sir Franklyn from his youthful years growing up Over-The-Hill through Ross Corner. Although, I am several years older than he is, his late older brother, Stanley Wilson, was one of my very best friends, and growing up just several blocks away through Paul Meeres Corner – now Fleming Street — I often visited the Wilson family homestead through Ross Corner.
Currently, one of the richest and most successful businessmen in The Bahamas, Sir Franklyn generously provided me with financial support during what was the most critical period in my life financially after my tenure at Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas for four-plus years ended after the change of government in The Bahamas in May of 2017.
Despite the fact that the Free National Movement (FNM) government refused to implement a proposal that I submitted to continue doing what I did at the Embassy on a contractual basis — that I was told in 2018 by then Ambassador Sidney Collie had been approved — I was doing fairly well keeping “my head above water” financially before Hurricane Dorian’s devastating impact on Grand Bahama in September of 2019 and the world-wide economically crippling impact of COVID-19.
I was subsequently informed by sources I consider to reliable that former Prime Minster Dr. Hubert Minnis personally blocked the implementation of my proposal. Admittedly, as a founding member of the FNM and founding editor of its newspaper, The Torch of Freedom, in 1972, this level of victimization by the FNM was very painful. However, when Sir Franklyn found out about my financial difficulties, he responded with financial support on several occasions.
For the most part, however, my series of articles shall not regurgitate too many personal painful experiences such as this, but rather I shall address some of the ups-and-downs within the PLP over the years.
Some members of the younger generation may not be aware of the fact that before he used his business acumen en route to becoming a successful businessman, Sir Franklyn was one of the most promising young politicians in The Bahamas.
When the PLP won the historic January 10, 1967, Franklyn Wilson was a 21-year-old university student “doing an honours commerce programme at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,” according to an article in the Nassau Guardian on Thursday, September 7, 1967.
“Frank Wilson, along with his brother Stanley Wilson, Maddison (Maddy) McDonald, Hervis Bain, Kendolyn Cartwright, Sheila Taylor, George Bethel and Micheal Turner, formed an ideological group of aspiring young Bahamians. They named their new organisation – Unicoll,” The Guardian reported.
In 1972, Sir Franklyn was elected to Parliament, becoming one of the youngest persons to have ever been elected to the House of Assembly as the representative for the Grants Town constituency, where his Ross Corner homestead was located.
A condensed version of Sir Franklyn’s remarkable life story will be chronicled later in this series of articles, as this article primarily was aimed at introducing the series. Next week’s installment will address why the Citizens’ Committee was formed in 1950 and why its activism may have been the impetus for the establishment of the PLP, The Bahamas’ first organized political party several years later in 1953.
