Tension in the Air

To the casual tourist on an afternoon outing, Bermuda seemed the same old happy, fun place. Old folks milled through the gleaming pastel shops on Hamilton's Front Street; honeymooners buzzed about the island on rented motorbikes and lounged on beaches or around hotel pools. But after dark, Bermuda took on a new atmosphere. Everyone was ordered off the streets, and soldiers threw up barbed-wire barricades. Extra police patrolled the downtown area. Lights blinked late on the newly arrived British troop frigate, H.M.S. Leopard, which bobbed at anchor in a Front Street berth normally reserved for cruise ships. Thus last week Britain's oldest colony uneasily approached its May 22 elections, the first in the island's 284-year history in which everyone over 21--both Negro and white--will be allowed to vote.

Notable Strides. The reason for the tension was an attempt by the island's six-year-old, predominantly Negro Progressive Labor Party to turn the elections into a bitter racial contest with the ruling United Bermuda Party. The United Bermuda, though biracial, is controlled by the island's businessmen and white Establishment. Like their distant neighbors in the Bahamas, Bermuda's Negroes constitute a majority (63%) of the island's 50,000 people; yet, unlike the Bahamas, Bermuda under the United Bermudians has made notable strides in integrating the island's life.

Led by Sir Henry Tucker, a Hamilton banker, the United Bermudians took power in 1963, and since then have banned all segregation, expanded educational spending 250% and broadly integrated their own party. Last year they presided over a Constituent Assembly that drew up a new constitution, lowered the voting age from 25 to 21 and put far more power in the hands of the elected government. At the same time, they have also expanded the tourist industry and brought prosperity to black and white alike. There is now one telephone for every two persons. Some 90% of the island's 12,000 families have a car and a television set.

State of Emergency. The Progressive Laborites, however, claim that progress has not come fast enough. They charge that the whites get the best jobs in government and that there is still de facto social segregation, want to limit the number of white immigrant workers from Britain. "It is going to really get hot this summer," Parliamentary Candidate Austin Thomas warned a rally in Hamilton two weeks ago, "and it is going to be P.L.P. heat." A few hours later, a band of teen-age Negro hoodlums began throwing bottles and rocks at some police on Front Street. When more police reinforcements arrived, a full-scale riot erupted.

Over the next two days, rioting and looting spread over a ten-block area of Hamilton, causing $1,000,000 in damage and leaving seventeen persons injured. Bermuda's British Governor, Lord Martonmere, declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew and asked for--and received--365 additional troops from Britain. All seemed quiet again by last week, but, like the scent of hibiscus, tension hung heavy in Bermuda's balmy air.

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