Cyril Stevenson and the Political History of The Bahamas

by Larry Smith

"Cyril St John Stevenson was probably the most intelligent and determined of the (PLP's) founding troika, and probably for that reason was regarded by Bay Street as the most dangerous." -- Michael Craton

Cyril Stevenson's lifetime spanned the entire modern political history of the Bahamas - and he was intimately involved in a lot of that history. Born in another era, at the time of the First World War, he died last week at the age of 92.

Tough Call was not one of Stevenson's contemporaries, nor do we claim any special insight into his life. But we do recall some engaging moments spent with him in the 1970s when we were both part of the government's communications infrastructure - I was a junior hack at the Bahamas News Bureau, and he was a semi-retired flack at Bahamas Information Services.

A big, friendly man, Stevenson was a self-taught journalist, and closely related to the Farrington family - a well-known clan of printers. He wrote for the Nassau Guardian when it was run by the arch-conservative Mary Moseley, but found his metier as editor of the anti-establishment Nassau Herald.

The original Herald was founded in 1937 by Holbert Brown and Stanley Lowe. But a 1950 edition that we examined contains nothing harsher than a passing comment on the ugliness of the governor's official car. The 8-page tabloid also contains ads from many leading Bay Street businesses.

But in January of 1953 the Herald was acquired by William Cartwright, publisher of Bahamian Review magazine. At 39, Stevenson left the Guardian to work with Cartwright, becoming the paper's editor and, soon after, its owner.

At about the same time, Stevenson, Cartwright and Henry Taylor - the House of Assembly rep for Long Island - set up the Progressive Liberal Party. Other reformist political groupings had come and gone, but the PLP was the first and only organised party with a representative in parliament. And Stevenson was its founding secretary-general and chief propagandist.

"Under Stevenson the Herald became the unflinching scourge of the Bay Street regime and indispensable mouthpiece of the new political party," wrote Michael Craton in his 2002 biography of the late Sir Lynden Pindling. In the opinion of the British governor at the time, Stevenson wrote "the most awful stuff" - meaning that he gave vent to what a lot of ordinary people were thinking.

Stevenson was a big contributor to the PLP's first platform, which pledged to extend voting rights (including women's suffrage), seek independence from Britain (a radical idea at the time), and promote equality and a better deal for ordinary Bahamians (who were mostly black). This was a recipe for confrontation with the white merchant oligarchy, who ran the country as their private business and tolerated rank discrimination against the black majority.

As former colleague P. Anthony White recalled in a recent article, "the Herald became a powerful and effective communications tool of the PLP, especially through Cyril's no-holds-barred editorials and front-page exposes...people believed not only in the PLP, but especially in Cyril Stevenson who presented the issues in a down-to-earth, in-your-face fashion which captivated."

In his memoirs, Sir Henry Taylor wrote of the Herald's impact : "Never before was so much politics discussed. It aroused the majority of the people, more than any other single element had ever done before...and while the Herald was attacking, the (UBP) had little time to do anything else except remain silent or get on the defensive.

"It is to Mr Stevenson's credit," he added, "that the party was never called upon to assist in the production and/or expenses involved in publishing the Nassau Herald. The business was his, the policy was his; although his views coincided with the policies of the party."

Competing in the 1956 general election against Stevenson's Herald and the PLP were Sir Etienne Dupuch's Tribune and the rival - but more moderate - Bahamian Democratic League. At that time, the Bay Street Boys had not yet organised a formal party. Stevenson was elected by South Andros in 1956, becoming one of the six original PLP representatives who served as the vanguard of forces struggling to reform the system.

It was during this period that a group of 20-something activists joined the party, forming themselves into a caucus known as the National Committee for Positive Action. They included many of those who would soon become the core of the PLP's leadership - men like Arthur Foulkes, Jeffrey Thompson, Warren Levarity, Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Clement Maynard and Eugene Newry:

"Cyril and the other founders really wanted to reach a compromise with the power structure," Sir Arthur told Tough Call recently. "But we saw the PLP as an instrument to get rid of Bay Street once and for all and to accomplish that we supported Lynden Pindling for the leadership. Pindling had been a valuable catch for Cyril - he was black, educated, articulate and a barrister."

According to his biography Pindling did not join the PLP until the end of 1953, when he was picked as the party's legal advisor. And after party chairman Henry Taylor failed to win his seat in 1956, Pindling became parliamentary leader as well.

"By the late 50s I was already a PLP council member," Sir Arthur recalled. "But many leading black professionals like Paul Adderley, Livingstone Johnson and Orville Turnquest initially refused to join the party. They held out until 1960, when Warren Levarity won an unprecedented by-election on Grand Bahama against the UBP candidate, Harold deGregory. That was the turning point of the movement in my view."

After losing the 1962 general election - despite winning thousands more votes than the UBP - Pindling and the NCPA activists took over the party completely. Taylor and Stevenson were replaced at the 1963 convention. And the 1964 convention further entrenched the NCPA hardliners, paving the way for the first big split in the party a year or so later.

After being shoved aside, Stevenson became very close to Paul Adderley, who also wanted to lead the PLP. And it was the disaffection of the moderate 'black knights' like Adderley and Turnquest, along with support from the party's old guard, that led to the formation of the National Democratic Party.

"In 1965 we were very concerned about gerrymandering (of constituency boundaries) which could keep us out of power no matter how many votes we got," Sir Arthur recalled. "So we decided on a plan - a big march to Rawson Square, throwing the mace out of Parliament, a boycott of House meetings and an appeal to the United Nations to embarrass the British.

"In my view, Paul Adderley saw this as an opportunity to assert his leadership, and decided to stay in the House and become the opposition. This split the party, with Adderley and Turnquest (and Spurgeon Bethel) forming the NDP."

Stevenson, who was still popular in his South Andros constituency, resigned from the PLP in May, 1965 but never actually joined the NDP. He served as an independent until he was defeated by Pindling in the 1967 general election. After that, he retired from politics for good.

Although the NDP never gained any political traction, Adderley stayed out of the PLP until after the 1972 election, which was fought over independence. It was the first campaign following the second big split in PLP ranks - when Cecil Wallace-Whitfield and seven other senior MPs (including many of the original NCPA members) left to form the Free National Movement.

Adderley refused to join with the FNM (although other NDP members did), returning to the PLP as a top cabinet minister after the election, and taking the retired Cyril Stevenson with him. Pindling gave Stevenson a make-work post as manager of Bahamas Information Services, although most of the actual work was handled by Bill Kalis, the prime minister's American press secretary, who was also Tough Call's boss at the time.

We recall Stevenson defending Adderley's sudden return to the fold in response to a question we put at the time: "The conditions that caused him to leave don't exist anymore," Cyril explained patronizingly in his best BIS voice. We never could determine just what those conditions were and how they had changed...but obviously being a member of a ruling troika was better than acting as the maximum leader of a failed party.

It was also disappointing when Stevenson allowed his old Herald nameplate to be resurrected and used as a vicious propaganda sheet for the increasingly authoritarian Pindling regime during election campaigns. Some of the sycophants who worked on these later incarnations of the Herald included Fred Mitchell, Everette Bannister, Mark Beckford, Michael Symonette and foreigner Paul Drake.

In his day, Stevenson was one of the few who risked much to confront the racist and corrupt Bay Street power structure. It is unfortunate that later in life he allowed his newspaper legacy to be used to victimise and intimidate those who disagreed with the equally corrupt and venal Pindling regime.

Stevenson used the Herald to cleverly goose the power structure as a bold dissenter. The Herald that he allowed to be reconstituted during the PLP's heyday in office shamelessly attacked anyone who wasn't a government brownnoser. But perhaps we should overlook these retirement failings and focus more on his authentic contributions to Bahamian political history.

As Sir Arthur recalls, "Cyril was no radical but he had a very flamboyant style. He was always on the attack and black people wanted to see Bay Street attacked, so the Herald's brand of political tabloidism was very popular."

But the Bahamian Times, the mouthpiece of the NCPA which Sir Arthur edited after he left the Tribune in the early 1960s, was a much more radical newspaper: "We knew we not only had to fight the UBP but we also had to change the mentality of Bahamians who believed that only whites could govern the country. We did this with well-reasoned and well-written articles, and it worked."

Foulkes willingly acknowledges Stevenson's "very important" contribution to the democratic cause: "He did all the propganada in the early days and that was one of the main factors that led to the PLP gaining a foothold. There were other parties and groups before the PLP but none of them were able to gain a foothold."

Frankly, it is surprising how many white Bahamians of goodwill continue to deny responsibility for the conditions and attitudes that existed just a few decades ago. It is, however, equally remarkable how otherwise intelligent individuals seek to modulate their experiences to excuse the excesses and corruption of the Pindling regime.

If we could interview Cyril Stevenson today, no doubt he could put all of this into much clearer perspective.

Comments

[J Henry Bostwick]

Thank you so much for recognizing the yoeman service rendered by Mr. Stevenson to the building of our nation and the freeing of our minds.

As a teenager I read him avidly. He certainly triggered a sense of well-being and self assertion in me. His writings were the seed from which sprung my spirit of freedom and independence of thought and being.

He is truly A FATHER of our beloved homeland. And like many who have gone on before him he was much maligned, neglected, unrecognized and left relegated to the waste barrel of history by those who climbed upon his back and took the glory for which he laboured so hard and so long.

May his soul rest in peace.

[Stephen B (Chuck) Knowles]

You mean to tell me that the PLP was formed by three Long Island ‘conchy joe’ boys?

[EB Christen]

Thanks for the history lesson - very informative indeed. The Bahamas has a remarkable history. That parliamentary democracy (even though shaky at times) was the vehicle for such revolutionary change is truly remarkable and should be spoken of with pride throughout the country by all Bahamians. In a crazy world like ours, that is an achievement of the highest order.

[larry smith]

I take the liberty of posting this comment from a web site that could be written by Fred Mitchell, which takes authoritarianism to a new level by objecting to commentaries on the dead:

"The Tribune has a stock of nasty and despicable commentaries within its pages each week. Largely the commentaries are driven by an anti Black and anti PLP agenda. One such commentary is of Larry Smith whose column appears on Wednesdays. On Wednesday 15th November, he wrote about Cyril Stevenson and in the course of it spoke about the revival of The Herald in the 1970s under Fred Mitchell, the now Foreign Minister and others. He named several persons connected with the paper sycophants of the late Sir Lynden O. Pindling amongst them the now Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell, Everett Bannister, Paul Drake and Mark Beckford. Mr. Mitchell can defend himself but we think it is especially despicable for Larry Smith to attack three dead men who cannot defend themselves. Mr. Beckford was one of the finest political writers in the country who died at barely 40 while undergoing a heart operation. Paul Drake was a Jewish American writer who came to The Bahamas and worked with Cyril Stevenson on The Herald. Everett Bannister was a friend and confidant of the late Sir Lynden and in his lifetime was the subject of some political controversy but had a heart of gold. But all of the three are dead. Anything to attack the PLP! Disgraceful!

[Kimberly]

Excellent commentary. By any odd chance, did you work with Howell Rees over at the development board, before it became the Ministry of Tourism? Might have been a bit before your time, but a lot of the references in this story add up.

Keep up the good work --
Kimberly

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