Sidney Poitier’s contribution to Majority Rule 1964

Politically speaking, although 1962 began with much promise, by the end of the year, it had dealt a devastating blow to the progressive movement in the colony.

On 26 November 1962, women voted for the first time in Bahamian history. Despite the suffrage movement’s success being attributed to the progressive ideology of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), the governing United Bahamian Party (UBP), retained their parliamentary majority.

PLP leader Lynden Pindling and party stalwarts had to go back to the drawing board. The message of majority rule had not yet hit its target.

Those agitating for political change soon realised that something intrinsic was needed. Far from striking political blows in the House of Assembly, a psychosocial change, in the mindset of the negro majority, had to happen first. What this could or would be, no one at that time was really able to envision.

New laws, like universal suffrage, no matter how ground breaking, seemed to have only a marginal effect on the psyche of potential voters. More was needed. The Bahamian negro had to begin to see themselves, first, as capable, and then, as the architects of their own destiny.

By 1964, as the wheels of the Quiet Revolution were painstakingly turning, as the change makers were chipping away at the rock of long history, albeit ever so slowly, unprecedented pinnacles of achievement were being made, internationally—by one young, gifted and black—whose ‘navel string’ was buried irretrievably in The Bahamas.

Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking best actor win for Lillies of the Field undoubtedly had a psychological impact on the psyche of the American negro, who had come to claim him as their own.

But Poitier was a Cat Island boy. Whatever it may have meant to black America, it had a seismic effect on the Bahamian, and the Bahamian negro in particular.

18th April 1964 – Mr. Orville A. Turnquest leads tribute to Sidney Poitier in letter to the Speaker of the House

Sidney Poitier’s Contribution to Majority Rule and capitalising on the idea of ‘humble beginnings’ as a triumph not an impediment

Sidney Poitier was impossibly handsome. His demeanour was affirmative, yet endearing. His come hither mannerisms on the big screen drew white and black to the idea of Poitier’s brand of blackness as an hierarchical ideal. Black became suddenly beyond beautiful; black became compelling.

In terms of the self determination/civil rights movement of the time, all that was needed, was to somehow make black powerful.

Sidney was Bahamian. He was ours. He ran the same streets. He walked the same potholed streets. He had lived in the same clapboard house. His struggles could be identified with. Poitier came from humble beginnings. Unwittingly, this endemic socioeconomic characteristic of humble beginnings or humble backgrounds was to become, the most used political mantra of the self determination movement in The Bahamas. It is still used to this very day.

Bahamian history books have been woefully remiss in not highlighting, what the 1964 academy award win, and Poitier’s return to Nassau, in the weeks after, did for the psyche of negroes in the country. It made Bahamians dream of change in ways they had never considered before.

I say this because, today, many ill-informed Bahamians, still foolishly ask exactly what Sidney Poitier, Sir Sidney Poitier, did for The Bahamas and why do we continue to honour him. Some are aghast at the accolades given for him at home. Their ignorance in the modern day is astounding.

Sidney Poitier’s academy award win was like a bombshell levelled right into the heart of a racially segregated Bahamas.

Sidney Poitier, a native boy from Cat Island came home to bask in his career successes with the people who loved him as a most favoured native son.