Dear Editor,
Association of People of African Descent (APAD) was mentioned in Stabroek News of Sunday, August 6, as the ‘brainchild’ of remigrant Andrew Douglas. Hopefully the latter is aware of several elder ‘brainchildren’. I, myself, am the child of ‘Tinsmith’ Isaac John who remained President of the African Development Association (ADA) during the 1930s. My godfather, Ferdinand Archer, a tailor, was its Secretary/ Treasurer. It was at his tailor shop, situated at Middle and Carmichael Streets, that as a child, I was engaged by photos of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Jamaican Marcus Garvey who earned international recognition for his ‘African’ activism. The ADA was a small group of tradesmen and women who seemed to have earned the respect of the Colonial Administration of the day as to be granted a licence to operate a ‘Sweepstake’ (now known as Lottery) in the city of Georgetown. By 1942 the group was creative enough to fund the erection of a wooden two-storeyed building described as the ADA’s Auditorium – at 197 Charlotte Street (between Camp and Wellington Streets), where was established the Washington High School by Aubrey P. Alleyne, previously Vice-Principal of Central High School.
Private Secondary Schools were just beginning to be established during the latter years of World War II (1939 – 1945). As it turned out, by 1945, this writer was the third successive student of Washington High to win a ‘Middle School Scholarship’ to the highly rated Queen’s College. It is interesting that the preceding two became respectively, Dr. Brooms of Mathematics and Dr. Shury, a Veterinary Surgeon. Coincidentally, at the corner of Charlotte and Wellington Streets, there are still remains of the building owned and occupied during the same period by a more professional group named the Negro’s Progress Convention Centre. Drs. Denbow, Nicholson and several others come to mind. It was such a group, who, when in my young adulthood had transformed itself into the League of Coloured People who organised Craft and Cultural exhibitions annually at what was then known as the British Guiana Cricket Club Ground.
The BGCC had been earlier established as the local counter of the substantively expatriate membership of the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC). The location of the former was immediately east of Queen’s College Cricket Ground on Thomas Lands, where Mr. Douglas could now locate ACDA’s premises. But with reference to sports, it is worth noting that amongst the founders of the Malteenoes’ Sports Club (Cricket, Football, Hockey, including Women’s Hockey), was the aforementioned Ferdinand Archer of the African Development Association. He could not possible have anticipated his god-son representing the Club at first Class (Case Cup) Cricket in the 1950s. Nor did he necessarily anticipate that when ADA established one of the earliest (non-religious) Pensioners’ facility in British Guyana, that the ARCHER’S HOME (situated in Durban Street just West of Vlissengen Road, Lodge) would remain internationally acknowledged in the 21st century, as recognised as the more current IDPADA-G establishment. But in the end it is already known how ‘childished’ is this new pretender’s brain – rinsed as it is in this ONE NATION. The latter, by now, should seek a refund of cost for this brain-washing.
Sincerely,
E.B. John