Hugh Lawson Shearer

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Letter from Prime Minister Hugh Shearer to MLK | The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent So

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"Black ambition, black equality of opportunity, black dignity, economic strength and self-respect. That's black power! ... when Sir Alexander Bustamante made Isaac Barrant a minister, a man who started his working life as a side man on a truck, and the middle class opposed the appointment, that was black power in operation! And when Edwin Allen, minister of education, prescribed that 70 per cent of the places in secondary schools should be reserved for Primary School children who passed the Common Entrance Examination, and 30 per cent for preparatory school children, that was black power! And when Sir Clifford Campbell was appointed governor general, that was a move in furtherance of black power! And don't forget the strong and vulgar criticism about the appointment of this black man to the highest post in the land. And when we decided to send for the body of Marcus Garvey to give him eminence in his own country, that was black power!"

Under-appreciated Jamaican Statesman.

"I can talk to you in one of two ways. I can tell you what you would like
to hear or I can tell you the things that you should be told. I claim that
I am able to talk to you, members of the working class of this country, as one of you. And particularly because I am one of you, I am
confident that you will, from time to time, accept and understand
that, in the exercise of the authority vested in me as Prime Minister of
Jamaica, from time to time when I make decisions they will be decisions
in the interest of the nation."

-Recalling what would have been the  90th Birthday of Hugh Lawson Shearer, born 18 May 1923.