To the casual tourist on an afternoon
outing, Bermuda seemed the same old happy, fun place. Old folks milled
through the gleaming pastel shops on Hamilton's Front Street;
honeymooners buzzed about the island on rented motorbikes and lounged
on beaches or around hotel pools. But after dark, Bermuda took on a new
atmosphere. Everyone was ordered off the streets, and soldiers threw up
barbed-wire barricades. Extra police patrolled the downtown area.
Lights blinked late on the newly arrived British troop frigate, H.M.S.
Leopard, which bobbed at anchor in a Front Street berth normally
reserved for cruise ships. Thus last week Britain's oldest colony
uneasily approached its May 22 elections, the first in the island's
284-year history in which everyone over 21—both Negro and white—will
be allowed to vote.Notable Strides. The reason for the tension was an attempt by the
island's six-year-old, predominantly Negro Progressive Labor Party to
turn the elections into a bitter racial contest with the ruling United
Bermuda Party. The United Bermuda, though biracial, is controlled by
the island's businessmen and white Establishment. Like their distant
neighbors in the Bahamas, Bermuda's Negroes constitute a majority
of the island's 50,000 people; yet, unlike the Bahamas, Bermuda under
the United Bermudians has made notable strides in integrating the
island's life.Led by Sir Henry Tucker, a Hamilton banker, the United Bermudians took
power in 1963, and since then have banned all segregation, expanded
educational spending 250% and broadly integrated their own party. Last
year they presided over a Constituent Assembly that drew up a new
constitution, lowered the voting age from 25 to 21 and put far more
power in the hands of the elected government. At the same time, they
have also expanded the tourist industry and brought prosperity to black
and white alike. There is now one telephone for every two persons. Some
90% of the island's 12,000 families have a car and a television set.State of Emergency. The Progressive Laborites, however, claim that
progress has not come fast enough. They charge that the whites get the
best jobs in government and that there is still de facto social
segregation, want to limit the number of white immigrant workers from
Britain. “It is going to really get hot this summer,” Parliamentary
Candidate Austin Thomas warned a rally in Hamilton two weeks ago, “and
it is going to be P.L.P. heat.” A few hours later, a band of teen-age
Negro hoodlums began throwing bottles and rocks at some police on Front
Street. When more police reinforcements arrived, a full-scale riot
erupted.Over the next two days, rioting and looting spread over a ten-block area
of Hamilton, causing $1,000,000 in damage and leaving seventeen persons
injured. Bermuda's British Governor, Lord Martonmere, declared a state
of emergency, imposed a curfew and asked for—and received—365
additional troops from Britain. All seemed quiet again by last week,
but, like the scent of hibiscus, tension hung heavy in Bermuda's balmy
air.
