The Tribune

By Rupert Missick

THIS cartoon was taken from a pre-majority rule edition of The Herald, a newspaper that would become a mouthpiece for the governing PLP. This cartoon was part of the party’s strategy to encourage the black electorate to vote out the white oligarchs of the UBP.

However, the cartoon was also made to send a signal of another kind. Former parliamentarian Ed Moxey, who would go on to be one of the MPs to form the first black governing body of the country, told The Tribune that specifically the monstrous white man depicted in the cartoon was supposed to be Sir Stafford Sands.

Mr Moxey said that the PLP targeted Sir Stafford because they knew that it he, Sir Stafford – not the country’s first Premier Sir Roland Symonette – “really ran the country”.

“Those other guys were too busy being merchants. They didn’t know anything. They didn’t care as much about running the day-to-day business of the country as they did about their businesses.

“Symonette had his real estate business and his financial business going. He was hard, rough and didn’t finish school. Sir Stafford was the prince, the power behind the throne. He ran tourism and finance.“

He could tell you more about how the country maintained itself and brought in its money more than Symonette ever could,” Moxey said.