SPEAKING NOTES

BY

SEN. THE HON. ALLYSON MAYNARD GIBSON

ATTORNEY GENERAL AND MINISTER OF LEGAL AFFAIRS

ON

SIR RANDOL FAWKES LABOUR DAY BILL

2 MAY, 2013

The Bahamas was built by people who WORKED HARD and SACRIFICED so that we could govern ourselves and manage our own affairs. Every one of us in this place will find our roots in the workers – whose nation building contributions we acknowledge by setting aside a day in their honour.  My grandmother Georgiana K. Symonette, was a so called “uneducated” woman from Eleuthera.

I thank the Prime Minister for his vision and courage in making the decision to rename Labour Day to Randol Fawkes Labour Day.

This is one of the important 40th anniversary milestones. I believe that history will see it as a “legacy” decision. It is the dawn of a new era of patriotism. When we look back 40 years later people will ask what took them so long?

READ THE LIST OF “ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF A BAHAMIAN HERO” IN “THE FAITH THAT MOVED THE MOUNTAIN” – EXPLAIN SIGNIFICANT EVENTS SURROUNDING EACH.

It is critically important to set these accomplishments in the context of The Bahamas at that time. In his book he speaks about the Governor who at the time of Empire Day [May 24, 1930] encouraged the boys and girls, the then segregated, Queens College to work hard to STUDY hard “to show themselves worthy of becoming rulers of the land” and later told the girls and boys at Eastern Preparatory School to “WORK hard for only in this way you can become good maids and labourers in the future Bahamas”.

His family, thank God, did not allow him to drink for that well of thought.

In his book Sir Randol speaks of the time when his sister, Coral, came home from GHS crying because A. Woods, then the Headmaster of GHS, told her, “Fawkes, you are a duffer. You cannot learn. It is typical of you and your breed.” He describes the effect that this hard on his hard working Father and how his father and a cousin Leon Walton Young [after whom a school is named] together composed a letter to the Headmaster. READ THE LETTER. And he sets out the response to the letter. READ THE RESPONSE.

This section of the book is very important in today’s Bahamas. We see children encouraged by their parents to LEARN. We see parents committed to EDUCATION [“the way out”], aware of what is happening with their children in school, showing us how to support their children and uphold and encourage the dignity of educators.

Sir Randol says of the incident, [READ P.7]. He wanted to become a lawyer and fight for a just society. Not to make money- to fight for a just society.

The book also speaks of the “Sedition Trial”. He had been fighting against the “truck and tommy system” utilized by Bahamian Lumber Company. EXPLAIN P. 150. He was charged with trespassing and disorderly behavior and received a suspended sentence. He says that even his right of appeal was denied. On 8 August 1958, the night after his conviction, he called a “monster mass meeting” at Windsor Park.  At the meeting he says, “I delivered a blistering broadside against the minority government. No one escaped the wrath of my brimstone and fire. This done, I focused my attention on the Magistrate: ‘he spoke with the voice of Esau but the lips of Jacob’.”  The following day he was arrested and subsequently charged with sedition. Vivian Blake of Jamaica [later Chief Justice of The Bahamas], a brilliant Caribbean legal mind, defended him and Edward St. George, the Solicitor General [later Chairman of the GBPA], prosecuted. He was acquitted.

I single this out because it highlights the role played by Lady Fawkes in his life. She was always by his side. Can you imagine a young couple back then, with a young family, fighting a powerful oligarchy, and husband now arrested and charged with a criminal offence? Lady Fawkes was called upon to speak for him at Windsor Park and she did. LISTEN TO HER WORDS. These words and the words and sacrifices of many other quiet heroes and heroines led us to achieve so many things that we take for granted today. We must never forget their sacrifices. THANK YOU LADY FAWKES.

 READ FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK.

As one looks at his life, words such as courageous, fighter, justice, sacrifice, work ethic, come to mind.

I knew Sir Randol through the friendship of Sir Randol and Lady Fawkes with my parents (Sir Clement and Lady Maynard) and from my own friendship with Rosalie and Francis. I believe that both were students of my Grandmother, Meta Davis Cumberbatch and my Aunt Gloria Lockhart.  Sir Randol’s sister Mrs. Burnside, the first female Bahamian chemist, worked with my Father, who was the Chief Laboratory Technician, in the hospital. Dr. Jackson Burnside was the first black Bahamian dentist. My Father also worked with Sir Randol as the he was the founding President of the Bahamas Civil Service Union [now BPSU] and in their efforts in the People’s Penny Savings Bank. Sir Randol was a Family Man. He deeply loved Lady Fawkes, children, his nephews and nieces, his entire family.

The Bahamas owes them and so many others a debt of gratitude.

It is my prayer that every Randol Fawkes Labour Day we remember the qualities of this Bahamian man whom the world respected from the 1950s. We must repeat our stories to our children so they can know that a noble heritage runs through their veins and their RESPONSIBILITY to live like sons and daughters of THE KING OF KINGS.  And that we take the opportunity to recall the dignity of hard work.  The best little country in the world was built by people who worked hard, had a VISION for their children and grandchildren and SACRIFICED greatly to achieve that vision.

It is my prayer that this Randol Fawkes Labour Day and every Randol Fawkes Labour Day labour unions will march united every year to Proclaim to the world that in The Bahamas “…no Man, Woman or Child shall ever be Slave or Bondsman to anyone or their Labour exploited or their Lives frustrated by deprivation…” and in honour of the people on whose shoulders we stand.