Black Power in Bermuda

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

   PDF

2. Introduction The Truth is an Offense: Black Power in a British Colony

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 1-10

3. Negroes Dressed in Insolence: Boycotts, Black Muslims, and Racial Uprisings

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 11-33

4. Another Unknown Soldier: Pauulu

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 35-51

5. A Bermuda Triangle of Imperialism

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 53-75

6. Blueprint for Freedom: Bermuda’s Black Power Conference of 1969

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 77-94

7. Wake the Town and Tell the People: The Black Beret Cadre Emerges

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 95-112

8. The Empire Strikes Back: The Government’s War against the Berets

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 113-136

9. We Don’t Need No Water: The Cadre Burns the Union Jack

   • Quito Swan

   Pages 137-161

10. Robin Hood was Black in My Hood: “Erskine” Buck Burrows and the Assassinations (1972–77)

    • Quito Swan

    Pages 163-182

11. Conclusion Babylon Give Them a Ride: Blackness in Contemporary Bermuda

    • Quito Swan

    Pages 183-195

12. Back Matter

    Pages 197-240

    PDF

This book examines the impact of Black Power on the British colony of Bermuda, where the 1972-73 assassinations of its British Police Commissioner and Governor reflected the Movement's denouncement of British imperialism and the island's racist and oligarchic society.

• colonization
• decolonization
• Empire
• imperialism
• liberty

"Black Power and Decolonization both have been profoundly pivotal movements but it is only with the publication of this marvelous and riveting book that these two potent trends have been linked so effectively. Persuasively argued and beautifully written, this book makes an effective case for the importance of Bermuda as a laboratory for political developments that reverberated significantly on the U.S. mainland." - Gerald Horne, Author of Mau Mau in Harlem?: The U.S. and the Liberation of Kenya

"Black Power in Bermuda is a concise and scholarly discussion of the struggle for civil rights, Black nationalism, and political independence evolving in Bermuda during the mid to late twentieth century. Dr. Swan grounds his analysis in the historical context for rights that was pursued by blacks in Bermuda before this period and he demonstrates the interconnectedness between these local political movements and the larger, global, anti-colonialism of the period. Bermuda, he demonstrates, was part them: as influential contributor, as receiver of influence. Dr. Swan s narrative, strongly reflective of classic historiographic method, adeptly utilizing considerable primary and secondary source material, provides an important and powerful voice to the discourse on Bermuda s political history, and is destined to become a classic in the field." - Clarence V.H. Maxwell, Assistant Professor, Latin American and Caribbean History, Millersville University

QUITO SWAN is an Assistant Professor of History at Howard University, USA.

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