People are more resentful about race in Bermuda now than they were half a century ago when blacks were discriminated against in theatres, restaurants, hotels and schools.

That is the opinion of 90-year-old former civil rights activist Georgine Hill, who is calling for everyone to leave bitterness over the past behind and work hard to shape their own fortunes.

Mrs. Hill says she wishes the same level of anger from today's leaders and people who call talk shows had been shown six decades ago, when she found it so difficult to rally opposition to segregation.

"Some of these people wouldn't have dared speak out a few years ago," Mrs. Hill told The Royal Gazette.

"There seems to be more resentment now. When we were trying to get people all excited they didn't see what the point was.

"I think now all the ills are being blamed on colour and that's not necessarily true.

"Nobody in these days and times is going to make it without an education and their children better believe it: they are going to get nowhere.

"I tell my grandkids when they are sitting there staring out the window: somebody else is reading their books because one day they are going to be your boss. In the final analysis it's up to you."

Mrs. Hill was a main player in a rare picketing protest in 1951, forcing Bermudiana Theatre Club to drop its whites-only policy and paving the way for the Theatre Boycott of June 1959 which led to the end of segregation.

She has witnessed the effects of segregation on her own son and daughter, Hilton and June Hill, who have both had to overcome many hurdles to enjoy successful careers.

"I didn't realise what it was like to grow up in a place like that," said Mrs. Hill, who was born in desegregated Boston before moving to Bermuda with her husband Hilton Hill in 1941.

"It may seem strange for me to say, but I really didn't fully understand the indignation of my own two children," she continued. "I took them abroad every year so they could see that it wasn't like that everywhere and they could realise that it was just something that needed to be changed here.

"But going to school, passing a school which they knew they couldn't attend because they were different. Even as adults they still have that resentment.

"They are most polite to everybody and when they go about they have a wonderful time. But that childhood did something to them that didn't happen to me because I didn't grow up here. When June found out that's the way Sunday school was at the Cathedral, she said: 'If that's the way that is, God won't like it. I don't intend to go where God doesn't like it.'"

However, while understanding why many older people still bear the mental scars of segregation, Mrs. Hill says others jump on the bandwagon as an easy way to excuse their own failings.

"Most of the ones you are hearing on the radio are not the ones who were there 50 years ago," she said.

Mrs. Hill believes the way to address racial inequalities consistently highlighted in surveys is through education, where children in public schools trail their counterparts in private schools.

"It's creating a sort of class system, not only among the whites but among the blacks too," said Mrs. Hill.

"Whites and blacks are in the private schools, and blacks with a few whites in the public schools. They are trying to change it by making the public schools better.

"Whites go through education more. You have got to be better trained. I can guarantee that if they prepare properly and go to the right schools and pick the right subjects to be majored, blacks will be lapped up.

"I have seen people come from very ordinary circumstances who came from families who saw what their children needed to do and they came back and got good jobs. When it comes to Government jobs, particularly in the last eight or ten years, they are preferentially black, just as it was preferentially white before."

A former educator, Mrs. Hill says teaching standards also need to be improved: "There's a tremendous need for the kind of education that makes kids sit up and take notice.

"There's a tendency for some teachers to think: 'I've got my education and if you don't listen you won't have yours and that's not my problem'. Also, the biggest difference between private school and public school is the parents. When people are paying for private schools, they make sure they see what is being done and what needs to be done.

"For the most part, we can't blame it on the children. You have to blame it on the adults, parents and teachers. At this moment, there are enough opportunities and enough doors wide open and enough assistance for people to take their responsibilities to learn. There's nothing to be given to them. Nobody's entitled to a bed of roses. That's not the way life is."