Remembering Dr BallMarch 28, 2011Dear Sir,CURB wishes to acknowledge the life and death of Dr Barbara Ball, someone who successfully lived the kind of life which represented the kind of ideal for which CURB is striving for all of us to live. She lived that kind of life at a great personal sacrifice to herself at a time when Bermuda was still rigidly and officially segregated.As a young person she graduated from the Bermuda High School for Girls. She was a brilliant student who was able to graduate from university as a physician. As a devout Roman Catholic she dedicated her service to them as an organist. In brief, her life’s journey placed her in a position where she could become comfortably wealthy and move in the highest professional circle of the privileged white world.But that was not the life that she chose. She brought on herself the wrath of the conservative white society when she spoke out in support of Universal Franchise. When she joined the black working class trade union, the Bermuda Industrial Union, many in the white world felt that she had committed the worst kind of betrayal.In 1962 she became the General Secretary of the Union and, according to her colleagues, she led from the front. The extent of her commitment and sacrifice is underscored when one understands that, at that time there were black professionals who would not have associated so closely with that working class union. Her support of the union’s protests led to her being barred from her hospital practice, until very strong representation was made on her behalf. She was ostracised by the white world in every way possible and her commitment to the black and poor meant that she never grew wealthy. For her it was never a consideration. She represented the PLP as a member of Parliament in 1968 and 1972.She was undoubtedly a special and amazing woman that we cannot expect many others to follow the sacrificial path that she chose, but she does represent what is humanly possible, just as she set an example for all politicians as she chose principle and right over wealth and influence in a wider society.CITIZENS UPROOTING RACISM IN BERMUDA