A nursery school was forced to remove a Facebook photograph of a three-year-old white boy dressed in a Gombey cloak after he became a target for “racial bullying”.

McCartney Hart, the owner of Perform to Learn, removed the post on Monday after it attracted a barrage of comments that claimed it was an insult to black history.

Ms Hart said: “There were so many horrendous racial comments — they were extremely derogatory and some were even directed at the three-year-old boy.”

But the performing arts school, based in North Street, Hamilton, has since reposted the picture after a flood of messages of support from the public.

Ms Hart said that some commenters wrote that a white child should not wear a costume that diluted black history and that slavery was still alive if they had to see a white child in a Gombey costume.

She added: “We were in tears. Gombey history is his history as well.”

But Ms Hart said: “We have had such an outpouring of love it eventually outweighed the negative.

“We have a class that every child gets to experience.”

The Gombey tradition is rooted in the African and Native American cultures of enslaved Bermudians.

Children at Perform had the opportunity to wear the cloak as part of a class called “culture celebrating diversity and cultures from around the world”.

Photos were posted of several children, but the first one in the album was of the white child.

Staff blocked several offensive comments and tried to delete them as they came in.

But they could not keep up and the post was removed.

Ms Hart wrote on the post: “It makes me extremely saddened and sorrowful for our island that our preschool had to delete a picture of a student today because of racial bullying of a three-year-old child.

“We do not segregate, we do not teach prejudice, we do not provoke hate or exclusion. To celebrate culture is to see life from the eyes of those we want to learn about.

“We allowed all students to wear the costume to celebrate what the Gombeys mean to all Bermudians.

“Hate and racial divide has no place here. We teach love and respect for all people.”