By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 16, 2021 — Responding to my post on the death of Sir Charles Carter, his good friend from their high school years in New York, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leo Dash said he was stunned when I informed about the death of Sir Charles, adding that they “had just spoken two weeks ago without any hint that Charles was ailing.”
Mr. Dash, who is now a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a former reporter for the Washington Post and the author of Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, which grew out of the eight-part Washington Post series for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Here is the text of his response to my post:
“Sir Charles Carter and I were schoolmates at Manhattan’s Rhodes Prep high school from 1958 to 1961. We were friendly rivals on the Rhodes basketball team our senior year.
We reconnected in 2004 when I was teaching journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Charles was publisher of The Nassau Guardian. At his invitation, I joined the newspaper’s board of directors from 2004 to 2007.
I was stunned when Oswald Brown informed yesterday of his death. We had just spoken two weeks ago without any hint that Charles was ailing.”
Meanwhile, Social media has been inundated with comments and tributes triggered by the death of Sir Charles, a renowned broadcast journalist and politician, who died on Saturday, May 15.
Eldred “Ed” Bethel, who like Sir Charles had a long and distinguished career as a broadcast journalist at the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas, noted:
“It is with enormous and profound sadness that I heard of the passing of my friend Sir Charles Carter. He has been a household name in this country for six decades. Charles was an exceptional broadcaster and we will never see his like again.
“My deepest condolences to Murriel, Eddie and Mark.
“Broadcasting has lost a friend, a family has lost a father and a husband and the country has lost an icon.
“Rest in peace my friend.
Ed Bethel”
As reported in The Tribune on December 17, 2014, “The Edward Charles Carter Community Park was officially renamed at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and carol service at the park in honour of Mr Carter for his lifetime of public service in the areas of broadcasting, cultural development and governance.”
The park is located the Holy Cross constituency (now Sea Breeze) in New Providence, which Sir Charles once represented in the House of Assembly of The Bahamas.
“A career journalist, Bahamian historian, owner of Island FM Radio and Carter Marketing, Mr Carter served as the Minister of Health and Foreign Affairs in the Pindling government,” The Tribune’s article noted.
