By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 21, 2019 — Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, the legendary Bahamian politician who died on May 9, 1990, at the relatively young age of 60, would have celebrated his 89th birthday on Wednesday, March 20, 2019.
In recognition of the anniversary of Sir Cecil’s birthday, my good friend Monte A. Pratt, an architect by profession who has established himself on Facebook as a well-informed Bahamian historian, reposted an excellent essay on Sir Cecil, under the heading: A GREAT BAHAMIAN LEGEND – SIR CECIL WALLACE-WHITIELD: A POLITICAL GIANT, THE POLITICIAN’S POLITICIAN … ‘THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS.’ If you are not a Facebook
Sir Cecil was one of the eight elected members of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) who left the PLP in 1970 following a failed vote of no confidence in the leadership of Lynden O. Pindling. Known as the DISSIDENT EIGHT, they subsequently joined forces with moderate members of the disbanded former United Bahamian Party (UBP) to form the Free National Movement in late 1971 after a series of meetings held at the Fox Hill estate of the late Jimmy Shepherd, who was also a member of the Dissident Eight. Other members of the DISSIDENT EIGHT were Arthur A. Foulkes, Warren Levarity, Maurice Moore, Dr. Curtis McMillan, Dr. Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson.
Having been a member of the PLP from 1960 during the struggle for Majority Rule, it was a foregone conclusion that I would also leave the party along with the Dissident Eight after my journalistic mentor Arthur A. Foulkes decided to become a member of the Dissident Eight.
I have told the story on numerous occasions about how I met Arthur A. Foulkes for the first time when I joined the staff of The Tribune in May of 1960 and he was the newspaper’s News Editor. Mr. Foulkes took a special interest in my development as a journalist from day one, and along with the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the then Publisher and Editor of The Tribune, they established a solid foundation for whatever journalistic skills I possess today.
Beyond my professional development, however, Arthur A. Foulkes also gave me some very beneficial and sage advice during my involvement in the Black Power Movement in the 1960s that in retrospect I am convinced stopped me from making some life-changing mistakes that could have quite possibly resulted in me having a prison record as part of my personal-life resume.
This was especially true after I left The Tribune in 1965 and joined Mr. Foulkes at Bahamian Times, the PLP’s newspaper that he and other members of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA) — an activist group within the PLP — had established after Mr. Foulkes ran unsuccessfully as a PLP candidate in the November 1962 general election.
Of course, when Mr. Foulkes made the decision to run along with Arthur “Midge” Hanna as the two PLP candidates in a constituency in the Far East that included Fox Hill, he was fully aware that his was essentially submitting his resignation as News Editor of The Tribune to Sir Etienne, given the fact that the two UBP candidates he and Mr. Hanna were running against were the late Geoffrey Johnstone and Pierre Dupuch, the youngest son of Sir Etienne.
One of the curious aspects of that particular election that has always bothered me is that with voters being able to vote for two individuals on the ballot or cast both votes for the same individual – under a voting procedure called “plumper” – Mr. Hanna was elected as the senior member for that constituency with more than 100 “plumper votes” and Mr. Johnstone became the junior member, winning over Mr. Foulkes by considerably fewer than the 100 “plumper votes” received by Mr. Hanna.
However, losing that election resulted in the establishment of the Bahamian Times, and I don’t think that anyone involved in the struggle for Majority Rule would dispute the fact that the Bahamian Times played a monumental role in the PLP’s victory in the historic January 10, 1967 general election.
It was at Bahamian Times that my activism in the Black Power Movement increased as a result of vexing and openly racist occurrences, to which I was exposed personally under the UBP government or were brought to my attention by persons who were aware of my “by any means necessary” approach to dealing with overt and covert acts or racism. At one point after I was involved in a situation that potentially could have had serious legal consequences, Mr. Foulkes eruditely advised me that rather than get physically involved, I should use my skills as a writer to deal with racist behaviour that made me angry. It was this sound advice, I am sure, that prevented me from possibly ending up in Fox Hill Prison.
Memories of these bygone years flooded my mind while reading Monte Pratt’s excellent essay on Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, which included the photo that accompanies this article of me on the campaign trail with Sir Cecil in the early 1970s when he was leader of the FNM. As the founding Editor of the Torch of Freedom, I accompanied Sir Cecil quite often on campaign trips around the Family Islands
Although I was a protege of Arthur A. Foulkes, I was also one of the army of young men under the supervision of Wallace-Whitfield when he was Chairman of the PLP during the campaign leading up to the January 1967 general election, with headquarters upstairs in Dr. Claudius Walker’s Reinhard Hotel on Baillou Road in Nassau.
As Monte Pratt notes in this excerpt from his essay: “One of the unique qualities of Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, ‘the Politician’ was the fact he always surrounded himself with young Bahamian professionals and potential politicians. And he was a ‘personal mentor’ to each one as an individual. Some of these persons were Chuck Virgill, Chest Woodside, Oswald Brown and Boxer Minnis (PM Dr. Minnis’ brother) to name a few. If one went to his Queen Street Law Chambers, Sir Cecil was never too busy to see you.” (NOTE: I’m sure Monte Pratt does not mind me making this correction: The “Chest Woodside” he mentions is actually Kenneth “Chess” Woods, who was one of Sir Cecil’s leading supporters.)
