“…I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes. But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table when company comes. Nobody’ll dare say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am, And be ashamed—…” Langston Hughes (1926).
There are many reasons why short-statured Lynden Pindling stands tall in the annals of modern Bahamian history. He was, quite literally, the darker brother, in whose veins, a mix of Caribbean —Bahamian and Jamaican—roots flowed. Pindling became, whether conscious of it or not, an embodiment of a racial and origin hierarchy, which had divided the Caribbean negro for more than three hundred years.
Lineage, in Bahamian society, for forever and certainly to the mid 20th century was incredibly important. A kink or a knot could easily extinguish a promising political career. The choice of Lynden Pindling angered quite a number of people in the 1950s and 60s. Some never got over it, even those who joined the PLP political wave, harboured misgivings about Pindling.
So why did founding Progressive Liberal Party members, Henry Milton Taylor, Cyril Stevenson and William Cartwright ask the son of a Jamaican policeman to join them? For unless a child was an orphan for some reason or who only had their mother, a Caribbean child’s lineage, especially a son, and an only son at that, ran along patrilineal lines.
We can dispense with minor details such as Pindling was educated and a lawyer. Surprisingly, given the times 1953/54, and certainly by 1967, this was not particularly unique in that respect. Taylor, Stevenson and Cartwright were each educated professionals, two of which sat in the House of Assembly in 1953.
Pindling had attributes. First, he was dark skinned, whereas as Taylor, Stevenson and Cartwright were near white and light skinned men. Darker skin appealed to a Bahamian majority who were likewise. As more blacks joined the PLP, an irretrievable gravitational type pull towards Pindling began.
Second, Pindling had to have been helped by his Jamaican ancestry, thanks in part to British immigration laws, at that time, which gave belonger status to Caribbean British and West Indians. Non-Bahamians apparently could vote.
“West Indies people, whatever islan’ you bring them from, them want to prove something… when them win… them win to prove something.”
Third, Pindling’s Jamaican father, by all accounts, was a shop keeper. He had income, and was able to send his son to law school in England. Money and political ambitions went hand in hand.
According to the Nassau Guardian of 15th September 1967, ‘PLP gains were made in certain districts by non-Bahamian voters who believed themselves discriminated against by UBP immigration policies.’ These groups would have undoubtedly been black West Indian and Caribbean nationals.
Majority Rule called a “social upheaval” by UBP Eugene Dupuch
If we may be allowed a certain frankness, Majority Rule was not an economic victory. I do not say this myself; those who were there in 1967, the change makers, said so.
Majority Rule was unequivocally a victory for the darker brother. A vindication, if you will. A new salutation. An extra place set at the dinner table. As Langston Hughes wrote in 1926, Nobody’ll dare say to me, “Eat in the kitchen…”
Social politeness in the present day wants to add poor white poverty to that historical mix, but in 1967, that was neither here nor there. Where even the poorest whites could go, even in shoes without soles, the negro dressed in finery, purchased with legal tender, gained by honest labour, could not.
In late January 1967, after the United Bahamian Party’s shocking defeat, the Hon. Eugene Dupuch (UBP) spoke to a white audience at the Nassau Kiwanis luncheon group. Dupuch told them “that the big social upheaval which came with the general election was based on racial issues.”
Dupuch went on further to nonsensically liken the loss of the UBP to Winston Churchill’s election defeat after World War II.
UBP PLANS TO FIGHT AND WIN AGAIN 1967
UBP names Shadow Cabinet 1967
Dark skin negro and Light skin negro
Negro, as a multifaceted graduation of hues and shades, is more diverse than a rainbow.
Negro ranges from a black that is darker than coal to pale iridescent hoary. This is not my definition. This was a carefully crafted legal definition of exclusion and acceptance, for hundreds of years, after the transatlantic slavery began in the early 1500s. Pretty and light skinned worked in massa’s big house. Dark skinned and wide nosed toiled in the fields. Light skinned had to commit heinous acts before being punished. Dark skinned was but one cotton bud away from lashings or worse. Disparities in treatment This began a legacy of psychosocial of rivalry and self loathing in negrolands across the globe.
The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.
Franz Franon
Black only became beautiful in the 1960s/70s after the fear of black nationalism was rebranded as a freedom call and not an imagined post-historical schizophrenic phenomenon to ghettoised exclusion.
As inevitable Majority Rule waves began across former European colonies, negroes were allowed to have their moment, as long as it aligned with western interests. One need only look to Africa and the fates of personalities like Patrice Lumumba to remember there were battles within the struggle.
For The Bahamas, a conjured fear of a communist style negro led dictatorship government took a few years to quell.
The rest, as they say, is history!
Opening of the House of Assembly February 1967
The Hon. Clarence Bain and Premier, the Hon. Lynden Pindling in Andros – March 1967
Sir Harold G. Christie at opening of Central Garage, Oakesfield 1967
