Deputy Premier Ewart Brown told delegates at an African heritage conference he hoped the event would help dispel the perception that empowering black people in Bermuda was "evil".

"Ours is a curious nation," said the Tourism and Transport Minister, in his opening address to the African Diaspora Heritage Trail conference yesterday.

"In 2006 we are still forced as a government to defend policies that are aimed at empowering a majority of the population and made to consult with representatives of the minority to reverse years of economic injustice against the majority."

He added, in what he later told was a reference to the PLP's Social Agenda: "Even the suggestion of a programme aimed at addressing the ills of a segment of this majority population is met by protest and accusations of undue favour.

"We will continue to wrestle with these issues, but my hope is that the deliberations of the next few days along with the exposure which that will bring will go some ways towards curing the perception that to empower black people in this country is some sort of evil ? and that is from without and within."

Dr. Brown ? whose student activist days at Howard University were mentioned by conference co-director Dr. Gaynelle Henderson-Bailey as she introduced him ? said that black Bermudians had historically suffered from a crisis of self-confidence.

"My people spent generations being convinced that Nobel Laureates, ambassadors and heads of state came in one colour only and from one region alone," he said.

"Many of my people still feel that there are some categories of work or some areas of expertise that are only for foreigners and more importantly for foreigners of Caucasian origin."

He told the audience at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess ? which included Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Wole Soyinka, as well as representatives from seven African countries, 12 American states, Canada, the Caribbean, France and Geneva ? that their presence served to dispel the myths about what black people could achieve.

"Still, in my country the detractors of progress for those of African descent cite the travails of Mother Africa as proof or warning against self determination," he added. "Regrettably, their jaded point of view takes hold in the minds of those who have never bothered to become versed in the history of the continent and who might find that even the most cursory examination would reveal the pattern of successive stumbling blocks created by the colonisers to prevent the success of transition.

"The aim of this conference and of your presence is to foster in the people of Bermuda and in those peoples of African descent in this western world a deeper consciousness about Africa."

Dr. Brown paid tribute to the late PLP Tourism Minister David Allen, who first launched the heritage trail in Bermuda in 2002.

He said Mr. Allen understood that to be an African was about a method of thinking, an outlook and a sense of history, despite the fact that he was a white Bermudian who had a privileged upbringing in an era of legal segregation.

"David Allen was a most unusual catalyst for something African, but his passion has served us well and without him and it, we would not have the firm foundation on which this conference is based."