The man who met resistance, changed the Bahamas and left the world far different than when he came into it…
Nassau, Bahamas — It is a painful story of the man named William Bill Cartwright, who sought to change the Bahamas for the better.
His was the vision, along with Cyril Stevenson and Henry Milton Taylor, to form the country’s first political party in order to ensure a better way of life for all.
The time was 1953 and he was a founding member of the Progressive Liberal Party.
There was an opposition to this movement. He spoke to the core evils of some in their time, those who collected the wealth of the masses into the corner of the few, and, boy! Did he and his colleagues suffer for it.
The “Establishment” during those days did all in their power to hush their voices, silence their conscience, break the wheels of their movement and crush their spirits to change the Bahamas forever.
They did suffer.
At least two of the founding members –Taylor and Cartwright – would later face criminal charges for their opposition to the “POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT”, but that is not a story for us at Bahamas Press to tell, other than to say, life becomes very difficult for persons who believe in Change.
Cartwright’s story is more painful than the others. He was threatened with jail if he continued his political fight against Bay Street. He ignored those threats and was jailed and then ostracized for something he had little knowledge about.
His was a story of three wives, one predeceased him, and children –at least 5 on record – who stood in the shadows of his life. What a painful thought on Father’s Day.
But no one then believed the tree he would plant would one day grow into such a huge Green Bay Tree, allowing generations of Bahamians to eat from its fruit, yet the farmer’s [the planter] singular gratification was to see it grow.
An attitude of unselfish labour!
He came from a time in history when people looked to the future and asked for little in return. Proud pilgrims some would describe them as. Giving was the hallmark of that era; to build, to make better, to see people prosper and to see the country thrive.
Such men and women of courage are few today.
William Bill Cartwright was cheated. He was left behind. Cruelly and painfully victimized. And in some circles bastardized because of his vision to change the Bahamas.
How painful! How sad.
He, later in life, was fired by the Ingraham government from his consultancy job in 2007 and left to wander and beg on the streets.
This is the painful side of the way we remember him.
He was further abused and paraded in shame by those same oligarchs through their clay feet messengers in the wutless media. Week after week at every opportunity like a master trading his slave they masqueraded his condition on television, while lending no assistance through their powerful microphones.
If one looks closely, you would notice how they limited the telling of his story of 1953, never writing a single paragraph on the threats on his life by Bay Street. They had no interest in that era.
How painful! How sad.
And following his death, they repeated the same masquerading exercise, all to strike a blow at the new government.
The UNGRATEFUL JACKASS HUBERT INGRAHAM fired William Bill Cartwright and left him for dead, that is what we remember.
That is the story not told, not spoken and cannot be written by those in the namby-pamby, lily-livered, chicken-hearted wutless media. They have a mandate, which the “hidden forces” have instructed. And from those chambers behind the iron curtain they continue to plot their own demise.
We will take it further. Men like Bill Cartwright suffered the same fate of the great Civil Right Leaders in the United States. He was sentenced to become extinct from the political landscape of the Bahamas; ostracized and blackballed in society.
How painful! How sad.
They made him a slave, a Bahamian slave, and today, although many are now eating from that tree he planted many years ago, we the Bahamian people refused to give him fruit.
How painful! How sad.
And so a grateful few remember William Bill Cartwright and all he fought for to make life better for Bahamians.
His life has taught us a valuable lesson, which is best captured in the writings of Ecclesiastes 3 which reads:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
May the angels meet him. May the saints receive him and may the Good Shepard grant him rest eternal.
