OUR OLD FRIEND IS THE PRIME

MINISTER OF BERMUDA!

By Frederick A. Hurst

My old friend, Dennis Leon Terry, who now lives in the Bronx, mailed me three articles about Ewart Brown, Jr., a mutual friend from Howard University, who was recently elected Prime Minister of Bermuda. I remember him as though the mid sixties was yesterday: tall, fair skinned, easy-going with a smile that masked a determined toughness that surely guaranteed he would succeed somewhere. But, I must admit, his success has far surpassed my wildest imagination.

He is now the Honorable Dr. Ewart F. Brown, who, after spending years in the United States practicing medicine, moved to Bermuda and became even more active than he had been in civil rights activities at Howard University where the 3 of us were students. He has been honored for “grassroots service to medicine and for his genuine humanitarian concerns for the wider community.” He has twice been singled out by Howard University’s College of Medicine with an award for his distinguished service to the college. He received the Physicians Recognition Award in 1977 from the American Medical Association, the Grassroots Health Award from the Sons of Watts in California in 1979, the DuBois Academic Institutes Community Leadership Award in 1982, the Pacesetter Award from the NAACP in 1984, Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Marcus Garvey School in Los Angeles in 1991, and the Scroll Award from the Union of American Physicians and Dentists.

Dr. Brown moved to his 1946 birthplace, Bermuda, in 1993 and began an active political career and earned many more awards. He was the appointed Minister of Transport in 1998 when his Progressive Labor Party swept to power and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 2003. But it wasn’t long before he won the big one. On October 27, 2006, the Honorable Dr. Ewart Brown, Jr., our old friend from Howard, was elected by the ruling PLP Government to be the leader of the Party and the third Prime Minister of Bermuda.

We knew back then that we were in good company but never dreamed that Ewart Brown would accomplish so much and one day run the nation of his birth but he obviously had big dreams.

Congratulations, Ewart, from me and Dennis, and all the others who appreciate it so much when a good man prevails. n