By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 13, 2019 – I woke up this morning in a very reflective mood that resulted in a mental reexamination of some of the decisions I made in my life that were considered “good” decisions at the time I made them, but turned out to be really bad decisions. One of the drawbacks of this trend of thought is that it induces a state of melancholy that ushers in semi-depression.
My immediate antidote for this encroaching mood swing is to watch Lenny Kravitz’s “The Islands of The Bahamas Fly Away” video, the Ministry of Tourism’s recently launched creative marketing campaign advertisement. Viewing it almost instantly blocks negative thoughts from entering my mind by transporting my thought process back to the idyllic life I enjoyed growing up at Stanyard Creek, Andros, the largest of The Bahama Islands.
Indeed, during my boyhood years, Stanyard Creek – with two ridges, West and East, separated by the crystal-clear waters of a tranquil creek – was generally know as the Garden of Andros, and as a boy I could walk through a winding track road from our family homestead to the creek and catch various species of fish.
I remained in a reflective mood for most of the morning, daydreaming about possibilities that could have resulted from missed opportunities. My pleasant thoughts eventually focused on how fortunate I have been to have worked as a journalist for more than 12 years as a member of the Black Press in the United States, at a time when the mainstream media either ignored or simply did not consider the accomplishments of blacks in America to be newsworthy.
When I previously lived in the United States for 21 years, I worked as News Editor of the Washington Informer, which essentially was a “new kid on the block,” relatively speaking, as a member of the Black Press when it was founded by Dr. Calvin W. Rolark on October 16, 1964. Although his major contributions to the civil rights movement were not nationally heralded, Dr. Rolark was well known within the Washington metropolitan area as a civic leader, civil rights activist and entrepreneur.
When he established The Washington Informer in 1964, his primary goals were to produce a publication that would “highlight positive images of African Americans” and positively impact and give a voice to the District’s disenfranchised and predominately-Black community that was deeply engaged in a battle for Home Rule and self-determination.
According to a tribute paid to him on the 50th anniversary of The Washington Informer, “In 1974, he fulfilled an idea initiated by members of the Black United Front following the 1968 riots, to incorporate a Black philanthropic organization called the United Black Fund [UBF]. Its mission, To Serve Unmet Needs, addressed the myriad of social and economic needs served by mostly small and struggling Black and Latino non-profits shut out by the established United Givers’ Fund (later United Way). Following a legal battle led by Rolark’s wife and attorney Wilhelmina J. Rolark, UBF became the first Black non-profit organization to participate in the federal government’s Combined Federal Campaign. It was a historic victory.”
To be sure, there were a number of well-established black newspapers throughout United States at the time the Washington Informer was established – the New York Amsterdam News, the Chicago Defender and, closer to D.C., the Baltimore Afro-American, immediately come to mind — but on a weekly basis The Informer continues to “highlight positive images of African-Americans” and has established itself as a respected publication in the Washington Metropolitan area.
Under its current publisher, Denise Rolark-Barnes, who literally “grew up” with the newspaper as the daughter of Dr. Rolark, The Informer has expanded its presence and influence in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and is the sponsor of the Prince George’s County Spelling Bee. This year’s spelling champion, Alyssa Burgos, an eighth-grader at the Holy Redeemer School, will represent the county in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, .D.C., from May 27–30, 2019.
The Informer also has been the sponsor of the D.C. City Wide Spelling Bee since the 1982, and this year’s D.C. Champion, Teddy Palmore, will represent D.C. in the Scripps Bee.
Symbiotically, there is a sort of relationship between the D.C. Spelling Bee and The Bahamas National Spelling Bee, given the fact that when I previously lived in Washington, D.C. before returning to The Bahamas “permanently” in 1996, I was News Editor of The Washington Informer when it took over the sponsorship of the D.C. City-Wide Spelling Bee in 1982.
I attended my first Scripps Bee in 1983 and I was so impressed by its potential to have a tremendous impact on the educational system of The Bahamas that I promised myself back then that whenever I returned to The Bahamas I would make a concerted effort to convince those responsible for the administration of education in the country to support my idea to annually select a spelling champion to participate in the Scripps Bee.
At the time, newspapers were the primary sponsors of Scripps National Spelling Bee participants, and I successfully submitted an application for a spelling champion from The Bahamas to be a participant when I was Editor of the Nassau Guardian in 1998.
Coincidentally, Mrs. Rolark Barnes was Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) when I was Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas in Washington, D.C. from 2013—2017. When the NNPA decided to hold its mid-winter meeting in Nassau in 2015, I arranged for Mrs. Rolark-Barnes to pay a courtesy call on His Ecellency Dr. Eugene Newry, the then Bahamas Ambassador to the United States, to apprise him of the scheduled meeting of the Publishers and Editors of all the Black-owned newspapers in the United States, which was held at the British Colonial Hilton in Nassau from Wednesday, January 28 to Saturday, January 31.
Also participating in that courtesy call with Mrs. Rolark-Barnes was the President of the NNPA, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., the noted civil rights leader and a former President of the NAACP.
The then Deputy Prime Minister, Philip “Brave” Davis, and the then Minister of Tourism, Obie Wilchcombe, were among the speakers at a gala dinner held one of the evenings during the NNPA meeting, and when Mrs. Rolark-Barnes returned to D.C. she was highly optimistic that their lobbying efforts to secure some advertisements for black newspapers from Ministry of Tourism would soon produce some positive results.
That optimism was apparently based on “solemn promises” made by Mr. Wilchcombe. Unfortunately , Mr. Wilchcombe did not keep those promises, a fact that I was reminded about when I attended several functions held by the NNPA during its annual convention at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in Maryland in June of 2017 when I had discussions with delegates who knew that I was from The Bahamas.
I still think that it makes a whole lot of sense for the Ministry of Tourism to advertise in a publication like the Washington Informer, which is widely circulated in the D.C. metropolitan area, given the fact that many African-American professionals live in the D.C. area – either as employees of the federal government or working in the private sector – who can afford to “set aside” a sizable portion of their disposable income for travel.
