Tuesday, 9th June 2020 (Anguilla) — We say in the Caribbean that when America sneezes, we catch a cold. Whatever impacts this northern country adversely, or inversely, affects us here in this small developing nation. Look at how COVID-19 first arrived on Anguilla. If my information source is accurate, the first two cases that tested positive came from persons who had been in the USA and journeyed to the island.
So, imagine what might happen with the current conditions surrounding protests for the inhumane deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and other Americans of African heritage in US communities. It’s also happening with First Nations descendants. In news reports, I’ve read people of all ethnic backgrounds are protesting police brutality, which caused these individuals’ lives to end. Masses of citizens are fed up with the status quo of covering up racial terrorism. They want the perpetrators to be appropriately charged for crimes committed against humans.
My mother who is American born, of many generations, told me years ago, “What goes up must come down.” She was referring to the state of affairs in the country of her birth. Mum predicted America’s falling – and her spoken words have become reality in 2020 during Trump’s presidency. Maybe her foresight came from knowing our family’s story – what her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and the ancestors before them endured. For I realise that she grew up in the nation’s capital when segregation existed.
During the 1920’s and 30’s when my maternal grandparents purchased a house in Washington, DC’s Bloomingdale neighbourhood, which is still owned by my cousins, the deeds for housing contracts had covenants preventing white owners from selling their homes to black buyers. These restrictions were imposed based on people’s skin colour in spite of the fact that Blacks and Whites lived close together in this area of the city and demographics were changing. Many law suits were filed for black residents purchasing properties. Most judges and courts upheld these covenants, but a few uncommon cases were exempted and invalidated.
Coming from a heritage of relatives who stood for what was our God-given, human rights, I must voice what needs to be said about race matters. Black Lives Matter! Every person’s life matters. I know from the stories my parents, aunts and uncles told me that the blood of revolutionaries runs through my veins. My great-grandmother stood up to two white men in Columbia, South Carolina. One time, a white man came to my great-grandparents’ house collecting money owed on an insurance policy and asked for my great-grandfather by his first name. Mama, as my mother called her grandmother, informed the man that her husband was to be called, “Mr or Professor Garrett”. My great-grandfather taught at Benedict College, and that was the proper way to address him. On another occasion, she took a shotgun and pointed it at a white man who came on their property and tried to molest the two young black women students lodging with them. She boldly told him to get off their land. In those days, my great-grandmother, Anna Maria (pronounced Mariah) Garrett, could’ve been lynched for standing up to and speaking in such a manner to any white person. There is also my great-grandfather who was an African taken in chains from his homeland, brought across the Atlantic and enslaved working in America’s fields. He eventually re-purchased freedom for himself, his wife and daughters, but not the sons.
This same spirit of fighting for equality and justice is evident in Anguillians. There are the men, women and youths who fought for and supported Anguilla’s separation from the colony of St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. Yet, many of us have forgotten or don’t know their stories. We have become complacent and not remembered from whence we came. If we don’t pay attention and hold ourselves, as well as the Government, accountable for good governance that benefits all of the people in the Anguilla community, and not the elite few as seems to be the present-day practice, then we will have lost the vision of the Anguilla Revolution’s visionaries.
A global revolution is occurring because of what is happening in America. Will we join in solidarity, taking heed to learn lessons for ourselves, or will we ignore the change that is gonna come?
Kay M Ferguson is a conscious writer, who writes under the nom de plume Empress Extraordinaire, composing words to enlighten and uplift humanity. Connect with her on social media – Facebook and LinkedIn or email anguillawriter@gmail.com.
