Race and Class in the Colonial Bahamas, 1880-1960

Bibliographic Data

ID19969015
AuthorsGail Saunders (corresponding author)
Year2016
Pages400
Publication date2016-06-14
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRace and Class in the Colonial Bahamas, 1880-1960 (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity Press of Florida (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5744/florida/9780813062549.001.0001
OpenAlexW4230743820
Open LibraryOL27707615M
ISBN9780813062549
LanguageEN
Citations received9

Race Relations in the Colonial Bahamas, 1880-1960, describes Bahamian society through key phases in race and class interactions over an eight-decade span that took the nation from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The author first examines how the Bahamas’ geographical features contributed to race and class divisions within the population. The form these divisions took and efforts to combat them over time are the subject of the rest of the book, beginning with nonwhites’ organization of a Black Nationalist Movement identified with Pan Africanism. Some Bahamians, fleeing oppressive conditions, migrated to Florida in search of economic opportunities, while Chinese, Greek and Lebanese immigrants, fleeing persecution, entered the Bahamas, exacerbating racial tensions. Discriminatory policies discouraged Bahamians from joining the World War I effort. In the post-war years, Bahamians seeking better livelihoods moved between Nassau and Miami, until the 1924 John Reed Act barred them from Florida. Learning of Garvey’s ideas of racial pride, many joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Labor unrest occurred in Nassau and Inagua during the 1930s, and tourism, while boosting the economy, worsened race relations. Between 1940 and 1941, Nassau was a training base for mainly white Allied air crews. Segregation worsened, and the collapse of the tourist industry along with increased unemployment contributed to the 1942 Riot. Following the riot, the Duke of Windsor, governor of the Bahamas from 1940 to 1945, negotiated a labor program with the United States. An economic boon for many Bahamians, the program further exposed black Bahamian workers to legalized racism in the American south. In response, many laborers worked to restructure Bahamian society through political action. By the 1950s white elite Bahamians disproportionately benefited from the tourism and financial services industries, and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and Taxi-Cab Union were loudly critical of such racial inequities. Etienne Dupuch, Tribune editor and member of the Assembly, moved an antidiscrimination resolution in the House in 1956, the year the PLP, including Lynden Pindling and Randol Fawkes, first won seats. In 1958, they supported the General Strike that eventually led to important electoral reforms. Even so, an analysis of all of these events over eighty years shows that up to the 1960s, racially discriminatory attitudes in the Bahamas did not fundamentally change

Archaeology · Colonialism · Epistemology · Genealogy · Sociology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Philosophy · Bahamas · race relations · Social classes · Social conditions

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