By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 14, 2022 — During my first diplomatic tenure at the Embassy of The Bahamas for four-plus years before my diplomatic status was revoked after the Free National Movement (FNM) became the government of The Bahamas following its victory in the May 10, 2017 general election, I did a regular series of articles on Bahamians living in the diaspora across the United States, Canada and Great Britain.
Quite naturally, I chose to publish those articles under the general heading BAHAMIANS IN THE DIASPORA, and one of the first persons I featured was Chris C. Gardiner, with whom I subsequently developed a very strong friendship over the years.
As I noted In a previous article, Chris was born in the Turks and Caicos Islands, but his family moved to Grand Bahama when he was five years old and he grew up in the Pine Ridge area of Grand Bahama. Given this fact, having lived in Freeport for 10 years immediately prior to then Prime Minister Perry Christie appointing me as Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas in D.C. in 2013, Chris and I knew a lot of the same people and our discussions in D.C. often centered round our experiences living in Grand Bahama.
In the BAHAMIANS IN THE DIASPORA feature I wrote on him back in 2014, I chronicled his educational accomplishments from he was a young boy attending school in Pine Ridge, then later being one of the first students to graduate from Mary Star of the Sea High School in Freeport in 1964 after it was established by the Roman Catholic Church in Freeport.
The fact that Chris ended up in Washington, D.C., where he is the principal in a successful CPA firm, is the result of true grit and laser focused determination to succeed in his chosen career as an accountant. In the process, as I noted in a previous article, Chris has established a coterie important business and political connections in the Washington area over the years and he has used those connections to promote The Bahamas whenever an appropriate occasion arises.
I tried to contact Chris on Monday seeking his input for an article I was writing for the Washington Informer, but by the time he responded to my “inbox” message late Monday night, it was too late to meet The Informer’s deadline for this week’s edition. Chris mentioned that he only saw my message after he returned from a private dinner with the incoming Republican Chairman of the Banking Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As The Bahamas prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence from Great Britain in “grand style” with a series of events leading up to July 10, 2023 – the date that the Flag of the Independent Nation of The Bahamas was first raised at Clifford Park at midnight on July 9, 1973 — important connections like those that have been cultivated by Chris Gardiner since he relocated from The Bahamas to D.C. most certainly can be helpful in making this historically epochal occasion indeed memorable.
The government has placed such a high degree of importance on the country’s 50th anniversary of independence celebrations that Prime Minister Philip E. Davis has appointed former Cabinet Minister George A. Smith “as special advisor on the preparation for the appropriate events leading to and after July 10, 2023.”
In making the announcement in a press statement on December 5, the Prime Minister noted that Mr Smith’s “vast experience makes him ably suited to advise on such matters,” adding that the “nationwide events surrounding the period must focus on the struggles and achievements of the Bahamian people, past and present, and celebrate them.”
Given the promotional emphasis that is being placed on the 50th anniversary of The Bahamas’ attainment of Independence, this provides me with an excellent opportunity to renew a campaign I have conducted over the years to encourage the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to advertise in the Black Press of America.
I was News Editor of The Washington Informer, an award-winning Black-owned newspaper, for 12 years when I previously lived in D.C. for 21 years before initially returning to The Bahamas in 1992. Now that I am living back in D.C., having decided to remain here after my diplomatic status was revoked by the FNM in 2017, I make regular contributions to The Informer, thanks to Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes, whom I refer to as my “sister.”
Denise is a graduated of Howard University Law School, and when she was studying for her Bar Exam, her father, the late Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, who established the Washington Informer in 1964, hired me as News Editor in 1982 to allow Denise to concentrate on studying for her Bar Exam.
Even way back then, it made perfect sense for the powers-that-be with responsibility for promoting tourism to The Bahamas to advertise in the Black Press. Most of The Bahamas’ advertisements back then specifically targeting African-Americans were placed in national magazines like Ebony and Black Enterprise, notwithstanding the fact that African-Americans have always strongly supported their community-based newspapers.
What’s more, while many mainstream white newspapers continue to experience a drastic decline in readership as a result of technological advances that have changed how news is disseminated, Africans-Americans still strongly support Black newspapers.
This has been the core selling point of my lobbying efforts to convince the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to advertise in the Black Press. Because of my ties to the Washington Informer, I have made more than one formal proposal to the Ministry of Tourism over the years to consider advertising in publications like The Washington Informer, which is widely circulated in the Washington metropolitan area.
Indeed, The Informer has a strong presence in Prince George’s County, Maryland, which has been enhanced by the fact that the newspaper is the sponsor of the Prince George’s County Spelling Bee, through which a spelling champion from P.G. County is selected to participate in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. As I noted in several previous articles on this subject, it was because of my ties to the Washington Informer, which also sponsors the District of Columbia Spelling Bee, that The Bahamas became a participant in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Another “selling point” I have advanced in my lobbying efforts to convince the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to advertise in The Washington Informer is that there are many well-educated professional African-Americans living in the Washington metropolitan area who are either employed by the federal government or in the private sector with disposable income to be able to afford an annual vacation to a foreign country.
I stressed this point unsuccessfully on more than one occasion to then Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe in the former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government. What’s more, Mr. Wilchcombe was one of the featured speakers when the NNPA held its mid-winter meetings in Nassau in 2015, and he made a solemn promise to the publishers when he addressed them that advertising in African-American newspapers would be included in the next tourism budget. Of course, Mr. Wilchcombe did not keep that promise.
Since PLP returned as the Government of The Bahamas following a landslide victory in the September 16, 2021 general election, Prime Minister Philip E. Davis – in slightly more than a year — has restored good governance to The Bahamas after four-plus years of disastrous governance under the Free National Movement (FNM), led by Dr. Hubert Minnis, who was unquestionably the worst of the four Prime Minister The Bahamas has had since it became an independent nation.
Moreover, current Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper, who is also Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation, is doing a fantastic job in all of his ministerial portfolios. Indeed, his leadership of the Ministry of Tourism is the main reason why after Hurricane Dorian in September of 2019 followed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic dealt crippling blows to The Bahamas’ tourism industry, there are encouraging developments across the board – mainly as a result of recent Bahamas tourism promotion campaign trips to cities in North America and Canada — that 2023 will be an excellent year for The Bahamas tourism industry.
Consequently, I am renewing my campaign to encourage the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to give consideration to initiating an ongoing advertising campaign in the Black Press of America to assist in spreading the word among Blacks across the United States that when selecting their vacation destination IT’S BETTER IN THE BAHAMAS.
