Dear Sir,

The Progressive Labour Party’s tenure has not represented a fairer Bermuda for us. Lyndon B. Johnson, as President of the United States of America in his 1965 commencement speech at Howard University — Ewart Brown’s alma mater — stated:

“In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation; deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope.”

“The American Negro, acting with impressive restraint, has peacefully protested and marched, entered the courtrooms and the seats of government, demanding a justice that has long been denied. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society — to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school.

“It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying, ‘Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.’

“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

“We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability; not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

“Ability is stretched or stunted by the family with whom you live, and the neighbourhood in which you live — by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child and, finally, the man.

“For Negro poverty is not White poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences — deep, corrosive, obstinate differences — radiating painful roots into the community, and into the family and the nature of the individual.

“Men are shaped by their world. When it is a world of decay, ringed by an invisible wall, when escape is arduous and uncertain, and the saving pressures of a more hopeful society are unknown, it can cripple the youth and it can desolate the men.

“Unemployment strikes most swiftly and broadly at the Negro, and this burden erodes hope. Blighted hope breeds despair. Despair brings indifference to the learning, which offers a way out. And despair, coupled with indifferences, is often the source of destructive rebellion against the fabric of society.

“Perhaps most important — its influence radiating to every part of life — is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. For this, most of all, White America must accept responsibility. It flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his family.

“The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force, it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions and the values of the child. And when the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled.

“For what is justice? It is to fulfil the fair expectations of man.“

The entire speech is a good and disturbing read — now as it was then. Unfortunately, the speech could be America and Bermuda today.

Bermudians voted for the PLP and David Burt in hope that the conditions of 1965 would not still prevail in 2025.

Bentley Mutual Insurance, formed in 2013, has been deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope. We were denied due process of law by the One Bermuda Alliance and the PLP has refused to right this wrong. The Transport Control Department has been instructed to refuse to accept our insurance documents relative to third-party auto insurance. This is a gross injustice. Our organisation is simply attempting to retain a portion of our statutory insurance dollars, a right granted to us in the Bermuda Constitution Order 1968.

The PLP claims it is for a fairer Bermuda. Freedom is the right to be treated as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others. We seek not just freedom but opportunity.

Our community has been harmed by centuries of institutionalised, economic racism and denial of opportunity. It is not a fairer Bermuda under the PLP as long as this injustice is allowed to stand. It is a continuation of denial of opportunity and economic progress.

This election is a referendum on the fairness of the PLP. A vote for the PLP is a vote for the continuation of policies that have harmed our community. Your pension increase is being financed by $5 billion in debt.

CRAIG WALLS

St George’s

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