The Democrat Newspaper, now the mouthpiece of the newly formed 1965 pro-oligarchic Peoples Political Party (PAM), fumed, ranted, raved and screamed from its pages, and I quote correctly and directly, “Just imagine! The sons and daughters of fishermen, lightermen, cane-cutters, cane-weeders, drain- sweepers, domestic- servants, pedlars, sitting in class beside decent and respectable people’s children?” End of Quote! This did not take place in Apartheid South Africa 1948-1991 dear reader, where Black people were forced to walk with passes in their own land, it happened right here in St. Kitts in the year 1966, just a bare 51 years ago.
This history must be taught to our children to teach them how much they should value their access to Secondary Education, and that they must make use of the opportunities now available to them! It is to be seen as crystal clear as the sun in the mid day sky, that, were the 1967 attempted coup in which PAM was fully involved was successful, that the children of the ordinary folks would have been demoted back to PRIMARY SCHOOL ONLY Education! Yes! It would have happened because, those same persons who rebelled against the entry of ordinary folks children to enter the halls of the Secondary Schools would have been in charge of running the affairs of the country!
There is an urgent need to revamp our Education System and to introduce one which will be beneficial to the future development of our country and its people. Those who are good with their hands must be trained to use those skilful hands from an early age, for we cannot build an overall prosperous society from office oriented jobs alone. Our students at an early age must be able to identify with their Heroes of the land who must be posted in all schools and Public Buildings. They and NOT Christopher Columbus, Drakes, Hawkins, Thomas Warner and Walter Raleigh, should be our REAL HEROES.
Our children MUST be taught from an early age, that those who work in the interest of the down trodden, the oppressed, the exploited, the degraded, WILL always be frowned upon, will always be vilified and that all manner of obnoxious things will be spread about them by the oligarchs of the land who do not wish our leaders to struggle for us to enjoy the fruits of the land; they detest the children of the working class rising to become the professionals of the land. Look around in any Doctor’s office and see how many oligarchs you observe sitting in there, waiting for attention? The sons and daughters of the working class are too lowly to attend to them, so they travel abroad for treatment. Observe keenly and then condemn me to the ground!
Our students MUST be taught that at one time, some private schools which were run by white people for white children only, ventured so far as to test the hair to see if the child was really white before admitting them. Many of them with Portuguese names who believed that they were true, true white were shamefully refused admission! This is the type of history which MUST be taught in our schools so that our Black Children could be fortified with Love and Appreciation for themselves. Black People will NEVER be free unless and until they know about their REAL history and the struggles waged on their behalf to bring them to where they are today.
Although the history of the struggles in St. Kitts is of VITAL IMPORTANCE to us a Black race of people, re-enforcing pride and dignity within our breasts, that history must not begin there. Research has to be undertaken to educate us about ourselves before the white man uprooted us forcibly from Mother Africa to brought us here in chains to enrich him, his family and his friends from our sweat, toil and loss of lives. The whole true story of the history of the Black man must be told. Our children should know that the PHAROAHS in the Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible which was first printed in 1611 (406 years ago), were Black. They have astounded the world up to this day with the technology they used to build those PYRAMIDS in Egypt and how they were able to move and lift those humongous (extremely large) stones and fit them so precisely, without the aid of mechanical equipment! Our children MUST know that Egypt and the rest of the Middle East now known as North Africa were an integral part of the whole of Mother Africa before it was split up by the white settlers! TO BE CONTINUED!