466081
SACXXX10.1177/1206331212466081Space and CultureMartin and Storr
Bay Street as Contested Space
Space and Culture
15(4) 283­–297
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1206331212466081
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Nona P. Martin1 and Virgil Henry Storr2
Abstract
Bay Street, the main thoroughfare in Nassau, The Bahamas’ capital city, is a storehouse for much
of that country’s social memory. It has been the stage for some of the most significant events
in The Bahamas’ history and continues to be at the center of Bahamian cultural, economic, and
political life. Understandably, Bay Street has also been a contested space. This article discusses
the contested nature of Bay Street using the 1942 riot, a key event in Bahamian political history
that occurred on Bay Street, and Junkanoo, an important cultural festival in The Bahamas.
Keywords
contested space, riots, festivals, Bahamas, Bay Street
Introduction
Nestled between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, to the northwest of Cuba and
the southeast of Florida, the archipelago of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas’ approximately
700 islands and 2,000 cays cover more than 150,000 square miles of ocean. Nassau, the capital
city of The Bahamas, is located on the island of New Providence. Although New Providence is
only the 11th largest island, it is home to approximately 70% of the Bahamian population;
according to recent calculations more than 200,000 souls live there. Similarly, much of the
country’s economic life is concentrated in Nassau. Most of the 5 million people who visit
The Bahamas every year pass through Nassau. And, the financial institutions that buoy The
Bahamas’ economy are all headquartered in The Bahamas’ capital city. Nassau is also the seat
of the national government. As such, Nassau is also the demographic, economic, and political
center of the country.
For much of The Bahamas’ history, Bay Street, Nassau’s chief thoroughfare, has been to
Nassau what Nassau has been to the rest of The Bahamas: It is the center of activity in the city.
It is the site of all major festivals in The Bahamas and a space at the center of everyday life in the
country. Bay Street runs along the northern end of New Providence stretching from the current
site of the British Colonial Hotel in the west to the Eastern Parade. It is the home of The Bahamas’
Houses of Parliament, the Cabinet Office, the main branches of several prominent banks, law
firms and other professional services, as well as stores selling stationery, books, jewelry, perfume, linen, liquor, foodstuffs, clothing, and every other category of goods. Additionally, the
1
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA
2
Corresponding Author:
Virgil Henry Storr, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, 3301 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 450, Arlington,
VA 22201, USA
Email: [email protected]
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Space and Culture 15(4)
Anglican Cathedral, the Central Bank of The Bahamas, and the Supreme Court, each a significant site in The Bahamas, are all situated just off Bay Street on the numerous side streets that
flow out from the main thoroughfare, connecting it to the rest of the island. Also Prince George’s
Wharf, just north of Bay Street, is the entry point of the millions of cruise-ship passengers who
visit Nassau every year. Bay Street is, thus, at the axis of political, economic, and social life in
the city and so the country.
Bay Street, then, is Nassau’s Main Street, with much to link it to the Main Streets found in
small- and medium-sized towns and cities across the globe. Indeed, like Main Street, United
States and High Street, United Kingdom, Nassau’s Bay Street is simultaneously commercial,
political, and cultural space. It is the space for celebration and dissent, the space for work and
leisure, the space for seeking power and from where state and economic power can and has been
used to silence the subaltern and to disenfranchise the powerless.
Like other city centers, then, Nassau’s Bay Street is and has always been a contested space; a
place where different groups vied for recognition, redress, and control.1 Racial groups in The
Bahamas, for instance, “negotiated” this place since the earliest days of the colonies. Whites
used the law and their socioeconomic power to limit where and when Blacks could be on the
street. Similarly, Blacks worked within and around those laws and sometimes in direct resistance
to the socioeconomic hegemony of White elites to carve out a place for themselves on the street.
These practices produced a social space that is simultaneously but peacefully occupied by various groups who have come to perceive, experience, and conceive of Bay Street in very different
ways and, at other times is hotly contested by various groups who see the same possibility for
political and socioeconomic power by claiming Bay Street.
Understandably, Bay Street has been the focal point of numerous political protests and is the
site of many of the important cultural festivals in The Bahamas. The June 1, 1942 labor action,
for instance, began outside the city center but turned into a riot on Bay Street. An important event
in The Bahamas’ history, this riot spoke to the growing dissatisfaction of The Bahamas’ Black
majority with being hemmed in politically, economically, and socially (Martin & Storr, 2007).2
It demonstrated the willingness of the hitherto silent Black majority to stand up to their colonial
masters and the local White oligarchy. It was the first sign of a political awakening among
Bahamian Blacks (Martin & Storr, 2007, p. 74). As such, this riot continues to occupy a unique
place in the Bahamian imagination and, important for our purposes here, has helped to cement
Bay Street as the most important center in the country.3
Bay Street, however, is not only a contested space. It is also a unifying space that is both a
stage for and a product of Bahamian self-expression and collective action. Long before the riot,
the semiannual Junkanoo parades had established Bay Street as the space where Bahamians go
to express themselves. Although Junkanoo celebrations occur all over The Bahamas, since the
19th century Bay Street has been the key site for these parades. Junkanoo is a colorful spectacle
that occurs twice a year on Bay Street. Although it began as an event for Blacks only, it is arguably become the quintessential Bahamian cultural experience and is the essence of what it means
to be a Bahamian for many Bahamian Blacks and Whites. Indeed, Junkanoo has variously been
described as the heartbeat, the pulse, the spirit, and the soul of the Bahamian people (e.g., Craton
& Saunders, 2000; Nash-Ferguson, 2000). Not surprisingly, then, through Junkanoo, Bay Street
has become a site where Bahamians come to celebrate and lament with each other.
As such, Bay Street is both a unifying and disintegrating space; unifying in that it serves as a
center or a point of orientation for Bahamians and visitors to The Bahamas; disintegrating in that
it is also a space that is inhabited everyday by haves and have-nots, owners and workers, tourists
and natives.4 It would be a mistake, however, to assume that in describing the space as unifying
and disintegrating that we are intending to anthropomorphize social space. Social space for us is
the site of social action and, since social space is socially constructed, the product of social
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practices. Bay Street, as we have stated, has been both the stage for and the product of some of
the most significant events in The Bahamas’ history. Both social union and social disruption
have taken place on Bay Street and so both have shaped the way that Bahamians have come to
conceive of and experience Bay Street.5
Focusing primarily on the 1942 riot and the semiannual Junkanoo festivals, this article argues
that Bay Street, a social space that is a stage for, player in, and a product of the major social
dramas that happen in The Bahamas, is both a space where Bahamians come together and are
split apart.6 Taken together, we argue, a careful reading of the riot and Junkanoo demonstrate that
Bay Street is both unifying and disintegrating. As such, this article contributes to the analysis of
contested spaces by emphasizing that they need not only be sites of conflict but can also be unifying spaces. It also contributes to the literature on the spatial significance of riots and festivals.7
Additionally, it adds to the literature on the spatial practices that occur within and so shape city
centers.8
Going Down Burma Road9: Bay Street
as a Space of Power and Protest10
On June 1, 1942, disgruntled workers from an American project to build military bases in The
Bahamas accompanied by women and children from the poorer neighborhoods in Nassau spilled
onto Bay Street. The 2,000+ laborers on the “Project” had learned a few days earlier that the
contractors were paying imported American workers 10 times as much as they were paying local
workers. They were also discovering that the meager wages that they did receive were not high
enough to meet their living expenses. By that Monday morning, the Bahamian workers were
thoroughly frustrated with the inability or unwillingness of the government and the contractors
to resolve the wage dispute. They went to Bay Street to seek redress, like so many Bahamians
have in the years following the riots.
In 1942, 25 years before Black rule came to The Bahamas and 30 years before independence,
Bay Street was largely a “white” space.11 Although The Bahamas was a predominantly Black
country at that time, and indeed had been since the 18th century, Whites, headquartered on Bay
Street, ruled the colony and controlled its economy. The House of Assembly, which sits on Bay
Street between Parliament Street and Bank Lane, for instance, was composed of mostly White
members until the latter half of the 20th century. The few Blacks who did sit in the House before
the 1960s had to overcome considerable odds to win and then maintain their seats, let alone to
shape policy. Milo Butler, who would go on to be the first Governor-General of an independent
Bahamas, is a perfect example. Butler, in the 1930s, was a shopkeeper, considerably poorer and
less educated than the White elite who typically sat in the Assembly. Still, Butler challenged the
millionaire Harry Oakes to the seat left vacant by A. F. Adderley, a Black lawyer, when Adderley
ascended to the Legislative Council in 1938. The election between Butler and Oakes was hotly
contested but it was not a fair campaign. The ruling elite pressured the Royal Bank of Canada to
stop Butler’s credit and openly bribed voters as they came to the polls to cast their ballots (Craton
& Saunders, 2000). Butler won the race but he did not significantly change the makeup of the
House (or likely the legislation it devised).
Similarly, in 1942, most of the stores on Bay Street were White owned. Indeed, Bay Street
was so associated with the White ruling class in The Bahamas that they were simply referred to
as “Bay Street” or the “Bay Street Boys.” As Klaw (1959) described, the “Bay Street Boys” are
a dozen or so Nassau merchants, lawyers, and real-estate brokers who are . . . [named
after] the street where they have their shops and offices . . . [and are] in firm control of
The Bahamas government, running it with a free hand. (p. 92)
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Space and Culture 15(4)
Similarly, Themistocleous (2000) has called the Bay Street Boys “the merchant princes of
Nassau” with 100+ years of “hegemony . . . over non-white groups” (p. 6). Along the same lines,
the Russell Commission (1942) convened to investigate the riot, has likewise described them as
“elected representatives, who are collectively known as ‘Bay Street’ (in which street or its immediate neighbourhood all the twenty-nine members of the House of Assembly except two have
their places of business)” (p. 40).
During the first half of the 20th century, Blacks, particularly those in service industries and
street and market vendors, could find spaces on Bay Street to put up their shingles, as it were, but
with a few exceptions Black merchants tended to locate their stores outside the city center. As
Craton and Saunders (2000, p. 211) said of Black Bahamian merchants of an earlier epoch,
“white petty businessmen similarly had to look for interstices in the Bay Street edifice . . . as
tailors, carpenters, undertakers, contractors, tortoiseshell craftsmen, or hirers of small boats or
carriages.” Similarly, though Blacks who could afford to pay were certainly welcomed in even
the White-owned Bay Street businesses, these stores marketed to and catered to local and visiting
Whites.12 “The Bay Street shops, with their poor-White clerks,” Craton and Saunders (2000,
p. 211) explained, “catered to whoever could pay–though the Black populace was expected to
wait politely behind white customers.”
Although there were certainly cracks in the “Bay Street Boys’” control over Bay Street and
thus in White control over social, political, and economic life in the majority Black Bahamas, the
riots would firmly establish Bay Street as not only the space of White power but also of Black
protest. When the crowd, composed of workers from the “Project,” as well as women and children, arrived on Bay Street, they gathered outside the government buildings at Public Square and
demanded satisfaction. They were angry but by all accounts were prepared to listen. Attorney
General Eric Hallinan addressed the workers from the steps of the Colonial Secretary’s office
hoping to mollify them. Instead, he seems to have agitated them even further. He asked that they
send a representative to the Colonial Secretary or to the Acting Governor. He promised that their
concerns would receive immediate attention. He also told the workers that the company had
originally planned to bring in Americans to work on the bases but had decided against it since the
Bahamians had proven to be “good workers” (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 17). He warned
them to be careful to “not spoil the good impression that they had made” (Russell Commission,
1942, p. 17). This last statement did not sit well with the workers. Not only were they not receiving what they thought they should be paid, he also seemed to be telling them that their jobs were
now in danger of going to foreign workers. Although there were reports that some of the laborers
threw their sticks in a heap and went home when they heard this news, for the most part the
crowd became even more incensed. Mr. Christie, a labor leader, Captain Sears, a police officer,
and a number of others tried to convince the mob to go home but to no avail. Eventually, a group
of men broke off from the main assemblage, tired of listening to what they must have thought
was cheap talk, and headed down Bay Street, “smashing as they went” (Green, Russell
Commission, 1942, p. 184).
“The window of Moseley’s Book Store was smashed and what had begun as a labour demonstration now turned into an unqualified riot” (Select Committee, 1942, p. 11). There was a truck
with full bottles of soft drinks (Coca-Cola) parked on the corner of Parliament Street and Bay
Street that provided convenient ammunition to the rioters. They threw full bottles at nearby store
windows and some, being more economical, drank the beverage first and then threw the empty
bottles. The police remained in the square without moving to intervene for three quarters of an
hour after the first window was broken. Once sufficiently provoked, however, the authorities
used force to restore order. Though they were slow to use violence to protect the Bay Street
Boys’ commercial interests they did ultimately act to assert the colonial administrators’ social
control. By the time the police acted, however, Bay Street was in shambles.13 The New York
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Times (1942, p. 7) noted that for days after the riot, “scenes in the Bay Street business section
were reminiscent of a tropical hurricane, with storm shutters covering gaping holes in windows
and doors.”14
In addition to being the first sign of political awakening in The Bahamas’ Black community,
the 1942 riot in The Bahamas was also a rebellion against Bay Street’s hegemony. Or, at the
least, the riot was a very real attempt to (re)capture, (re)appropriate and, once capture and appropriation proved impossible, to lash out at Bay Street. As we argued elsewhere, “the 1942 riot
demonstrated to both Bahamian Blacks and the oligarchs—who were known collectively as the
‘Bay Street Boys’—that Bay Street was vulnerable.” Indeed, the riot showed quite clearly that
“the hold the merchant princes had on The Bahamas was far from complete and unassailable.
The majority black population in The Bahamas could literally dismantle the edifices of minority
white rule, if sufficiently provoked” (Martin & Storr, 2007, p. 74).
Several salient features of this riot need to be emphasized if we are to understand the significance of Bay Street as a stage for and a product of this event. First, the riot targeted space and not
people. There are reports of police officers being assaulted with stones and bottles (Pinder,
Russell Commission, 1942, p. 99).15 But this was the exception rather than the rule. For the most
part, the rioters departed peacefully when pushed to leave Bay Street by the police. As the
Commissioner of Police, Lt. Col. Reginald Alexander Erskine-Lindop (Russell Commission,
1942, p. 43) testified, extreme force was not necessary to control the crowd, when “we started to
drive the people down Bay Street. They went sullenly, but they went.” The rioters were much
more interested in property than violence. Indeed, there were no reports of civilians being
attacked during the riot. Roland Symonette (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 490), one of the Bay
Street Boys, for instance, walked down Bay Street during the height of the riot and was not
harmed. Additionally, Bruce Johnstone (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 167) recalls a man succeeding in “stopping the people who were pillaging Mr. Yanowitz’ store.” Similarly, Roscoe W.
Thompson (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 230) was able to convince the crowd not to further
destroy his store. Not only was he not harmed but his store sustained no further damage after he
made the request. Widespread looting, however, did occur. To Roland Symonette (Russell
Commission, 1942, p. 490), it seemed that “the police just stood easy and let the looters take what
they wanted.” Sir Clifford Darling (2002) tells the story of a little girl who, following the example of her elders, wandered into a fabric store to choose a bolt of fabric. The bolt, of course, was
too heavy for her to carry. Determined, she rested the bolt on the ground, grabbed the edges of
the material and dragged it slowly but resolutely toward her house.
Second, that the rioters targeted specific spaces also suggests that the riot was an attack on
Bay Street qua a space of White power and Black subordination. By all accounts, most of the
liquor stores, clothing stores, and perfume stores lining Bay Street were completely sacked
before the police restored order to the city center. As Craton and Saunders (2000) report,
however,
the damage was not indiscriminate; such shops as those owned by the Speaker of the
Assembly and the wife of one of the white Project supervisors were almost gutted, but the
shoe store owned by Percy Christie, the white would-be labor organizer, was left
untouched. (p. 288)
Moreover, as Christie reports, “when I arrived in front of my shop I found that a dozen people
were holding arms and protecting the shop” (Christie, Russell Commission, 1942, p. 26). In
contrast, the windows of Bay Street Boy Asa Pritchard’s store, the upscale John Bull, were
shattered and the stores looted. (Nash-Ferguson, 2000; Saunders, 1987).
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Third, the 1942 riot shows Bay Street to be a contested space that is the site of racial and
class conflict as well as a space that Bahamians regardless of race and class conceived of in
similar ways. The Black laborers saw Bay Street as an obstacle preventing them from earning a
living wage. The White merchants considered Bay Street as their own exclusive province.16
Both groups, however, recognized Bay Street as a space for seeking power and from where
power could be wielded. As a space is not just a physical place but also a social construction,
the agreement of both Blacks and Whites on the significance and meaning of Bay Street is quite
telling.17
Interestingly, prior to 1942 and even for some time after 1942, many White and Black
Bahamians saw the Bay Street Boys’ control over Bay Street as being impenetrable and so were
surprised by the riot. It simply did not dawn on many of the White merchants that, a century after
emancipation, the still poor, still quite dependent Bahamian Blacks might rise up and attack Bay
Street. As J. P. Sands (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 293) testified, “I thought that everybody in
the island was quite happy until about 8 o’clock on June 1st.” Even Etienne Dupuch, a journalist,
politician, and activist who recognized the economic, political, and social inequalities in the
colony, was not prepared for what occurred. “The riot came as a complete surprise to me,”
Dupuch (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 301) testified shortly after the riot: “I never thought that
our people could be agitated to the point of rioting because they have always enjoyed the enviable reputation of being patient, docile and law-abiding.” Similarly, Mrs. Morton Turtle (Russell
Commission, 1942, p. 98), who owned a ladies apparel store on Bay Street called Suzy’s, could
not understand “why [her] husband should have been apprehensive of the workmen. For years he
had employed hundreds of workmen and he was of the opinion that they were very fond of him
in fact.” And, as Mr. Turtle (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 127) confirmed, “I was amazed to find
the crowd felt hostile towards me . . . I have always . . . given them good wages.” Commissioner
of Police, Lt. Col. Erskine-Lindop (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 42) also admits to being surprised by the rioting. Although he and 40 of his men were on Bay Street before the rioting began,
he took no steps to protect the stores from being damaged or looted.
Although the 1942 riot was undoubtedly a significant sociopolitical event, it was not until
Black Tuesday in April 1965, however, that Bahamian Blacks began to believe that they could
control Bay Street (Martin & Storr, 2009b). If the riot was the first sign of a political awakening
in The Bahamas, “Black Tuesday” was proof that Blacks were prepared and able to stand up to
the White minority. Indeed, Bahamian Blacks had begun chipping away at Bay Street’s façade
since the 1942 riot. Black Tuesday, however, played a critical role in demonstrating to Bahamian
Blacks that Bay Street could be resisted and defied. Black Tuesday was evidence that Bahamian
Blacks were no longer afraid of Bay Street.
Five years before majority rule in The Bahamas, the United Bahamian Party, led by the “Bay
Street Boys,” had soundly defeated the Black-led Progressive Liberal Party in the 1962 election.
A few years later on Tuesday, April 27, 1965, now known as Black Tuesday, a large crowd of
Progressive Liberty Party (PLP) supporters gathered outside the House of Assembly on Bay
Street. Inside the Assembly, the House, who could clearly hear the din of the crowd below, was
debating and would subsequently defeat the PLP’s motion to have the boundaries of the electoral
constituencies redrawn under the direction of the United Nations. In protest, Lynden Pindling,
then Leader of the Opposition, denounced the Bay Street Boys who controlled the majority of the
seats within the Assembly, took hold of the speaker’s ceremonial mace, and threw it out of the
window to the waiting crowd below. Milo Butler, a leading figure in the PLP, grabbed and tossed
out the quarter-hourglasses that the speaker of the house used to keep time during debates. The
PLP members of the House then stormed out. As we argued elsewhere, this was “a defiant act by
the PLP and ultimately a defining one for the Bahamian people” (Martin & Storr, 2009b, p. 38).
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Black Tuesday “was definitive proof that blacks in The Bahamas were prepared and able to stand
up to the white ruling minority” (Martin & Storr, 2009b, p. 38). They had been warned by the
government to stay away from Bay Street but large numbers had gathered there anyway.
Bay Street as the space of White sociopolitical power and wealth, and so Black lowliness, was
a conception of Bay Street that was held by both Bahamian Blacks and Whites, at least until
Black Tuesday. Indeed, as discussed above, it was a perception of Bay Street that would survive
for years after the riot. The riot thus speaks to the fissures and unifying forces in Bahamian society that have been given expression on Bay Street and that Bay Street has come to represent for
Bahamians of all races and classes. The rioters marched into the space of Bay Street frustrated
with their economic circumstances, fed up with the merchant oligarchs and hoping for redress.
When their concerns fell on deaf ears, they began venting their frustrations on parked cars and
storefronts. Arguably, the rioters were somewhat naïve to think that (marching to) Bay Street
would solve their problems. But if not to the space of Bay Street, then where else should they,
could they, have gone? As we shall see when we look more closely at Junkanoo, the space of Bay
Street had long since been established as the space where Bahamians went (and still go) to
express themselves, to voice their hopes, fears, dreams, fantasies, and frustrations.
Rushin’ Through da Town: Bay Street as a Space of Expression
Junkanoo is a semiannual cultural celebration in The Bahamas. Costumed revelers dance down
Bay Street before sunrise on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day shaking cowbells and beating
goatskin drums. The present-day parades feature new instruments, arranged music, choreographed dance routines, organized groups, and increasingly colorful and complex costumes
consisting of headpieces, shoulder pieces, and skirts covered with crepe paper and made of
cardboard, Styrofoam, wood, wire mesh, and plastic tubing. Revelers in earlier parades were
similarly divided into gangs (usually representing different neighborhoods) but used much simpler instrumentation and wore much simpler costumes than they do now. Although by the 1920s
masqueraders were covering their costumes with colorful tissue paper instead of newspaper and
sponges as they had in earlier periods, the costumes during that era were still quite basic consisting of “fringed” clothing and headpieces (with no cardboard skirts or shoulder pieces). Junkanoo
has changed in other ways since it developed as “slave entertainment” in the 1800s. In addition
to the instrumentation and the costumes, the route has changed, the number of participants and
spectators has grown, it has developed into a semiannual spectacle which attracts tourists from
around the globe, and it has become a fierce competition that participants begin preparing for
almost a year in advance.
In spite of these changes, or perhaps because of them, Junkanoo continues to be the definitive
Bahamian cultural experience.18 Indeed, as N. Bethel (2003b) notes,
Junkanoo, for Bahamians, is the ultimate national symbol. A street festival of West
African origin held at Christmastime, it represents poverty and wealth, discipline and
rebellion, competition and co-operation, creative genius and physical prowess. It is simultaneously viewed as the quintessential Bahamian self-conception and the best face turned
to the visitor . . . Junkanoo may be regarded as the culmination of the tales of identification
told to the self (Bahamians) and to the other (tourists and other foreigners) . . . Bahamian
Junkanoo tells the following tales of the self: it is simultaneously the central symbol of
black Bahamians’ development, a metaphor for national progress, an affirmation of
Bahamian creativity, an arena for social commentary and a ready tool for the education
of the young. (pp. 118-120)
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Junkanoo rhythms speak directly to the Bahamian soul.19 As Munnings (2003, p. 109) writes,
“Junkanoo is a celebration of Bahamian life.” And, we should add, Junkanoo was also a lamenting of social decline and the inevitability of death. Junkanoo costumes often express the joys and
pains of Bahamians as well as positive and negative events in The Bahamas’ history. N. Bethel
(2003b) is quite right that “for the Bahamian . . . Junkanoo is . . . the embodiment of a history
constructed by and for the African-Bahamian population” (p. 123).
The space of Bay Street has been Junkanoo space since the 19th century. There were reports
of “grotesquely dressed” Junkanooers parading down Bay Street in 1879 (Wisdom, 1985, p. 44).
By 1942, the year of the riot, Bay Street was firmly ensconced as the focal point of these festivities. Today, Junkanoo parades at Christmastime are a fixture on Bay Street. As N. Bethel (2003a,
p. 53) writes, “Bay Street is central to the performance of Junkanoo, as it is the site of all the
resistance, disorder and satire of past parades.” Nash-Ferguson (2000) has written poetically
about the link between Junkanoo and Bay Street: “For two mornings a year,” she states, “historic
Bay Street becomes the stage whereon we demonstrate our sovereignty of spirit, and celebrate
the triumph of a proud heritage” (p. 16).
Nash-Ferguson (2000) also speaks for many Junkanoos when she writes that
Junkanoo was the place to keep our souls. The real “me” would emerge in our costumes,
the colours of our character, the design of our personalities, the patterns of our tastes, our
pride, and our signature. On Bay [Street], in our costumes, we would feel complete. (p. 30)
That the space of Bay Street is also commercial and political space imparts economic and political significance to these festivals. Because Junkanoo takes place on Bay Street, a space where
Bahamian Blacks could shop and work but nonetheless a space that they were never meant to
control, Junkanoo was and continues to be an opportunity for Bahamian Blacks to “reverse the
trend of history” and to “joyously proclaim the triumph of the Bahamian spirit: parade it in the
intricate steps of the dance, thunder it from the bounding of our drums, shout it in the sound of
our cowbells” (Nash-Fergurson, 2000, p. 30).
For much of The Bahamas’ history, certainly until the 1942 riot, Bahamian Blacks’ dissatisfaction with their socioeconomic circumstances and the enduring hegemony of Bay Street, were
expressed symbolically, through songs, folktales, and festivals. That many of the Bay Street
Boys were surprised by the riot, for instance, speaks to the ruling elites’ success in pushing protest into more symbolic forms such as Junkanoo.
Junkanoo on Bay Street is, thus, not simply a celebration of Bahamian originality and
resourcefulness. It has often contained (sometimes quite overt) statements of protest. For the
masqueraders, E. C. Bethel (1991) notes, “Junkanoo was . . . a celebration; but as times grew
harder, and they had fewer things to celebrate, it also provided them with an annual forum for
airing grievances” (p. 67). When Bahamians grow dissatisfied with the prevailing social and
economic order, Junkanoo becomes an opportunity for them to express their discontent. “An
example of this,” as Wisdom (1985) notes, “would be the sponge costumes, with painted protest
signs attached, seen in the 1941 Junkanoo parades, which were worn in silent protest of the high
interest rental rates White outfitters were charging Black sponge fishermen” (p. 91). The parades
also gave Bahamians an opportunity to express their hopes and dreams. As Wisdom argued, “the
Junkanoo parades of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s were not symbolic representations of the
desire for socio-political transformations in The Bahamas leading up to independence, so much
as iconic, direct embodiments of these same desires” (p. 91).
Bay Street, then, is not just a stage for these parades, equal to all other possible venues.
Something significant takes place during Junkanoo on Bay Street. As noted above, many of the
significant events in The Bahamas’ history have occurred on Bay Street and for centuries Bay
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Street has been an important space in the political, social, and economic lives of many Bahamians.
As a result, Bay Street is also the focal point for these parades. As E. C. Bethel (1991, p. 73)
suggests, “the temporary occupation of Bay Street was a custom popularised by the Junkanoos.”
As Junkanoo proved twice yearly, though the space of Bay Street was the province of the White
merchant oligarchs and a symbol of political and economic oppression for many Bahamian
Blacks, White hegemony was not so complete. Junkanoo demonstrated (albeit symbolically and
temporarily) that Bahamian Blacks could possess and control the city center. As N. Bethel
(2003b, p. 122), writes “Junkanoo has the quality of an occupation, an invasion of the centres of
authority; it occurs at the heart of the commercial power of the white Bahamian elite.”
For many Bahamians, the link between Bay Street and Junkanoo is an indelible one. As Wood
(1996) writes,
Bay Street and Junkanoo are synonymous with each other. When Junkanooers talk about
“goin [sic] to Bay Street” they are talking about rushing in the Junkanoo parade. There are
subliminal and emotional ties to Bay Street that continue to exist. (p. 73)
Since the 1980s, however, some prominent Junkanooers and government officials have advocated moving Junkanoo off of Bay Street and developing a special Junkanoo space elsewhere on
the island (Francis, 2003, p. 61). Their argument is that Junkanoo has outgrown Bay Street, that
the size of the groups, costumes, and spectators are too large for the current venue. Summarizing
their position, former government minister responsible for Junkanoo, Peter Bethel argued that
“the route . . . [is] congested, too short, too narrow, blocked up, constipated, does not lend itself
to crowd control nor does it provide comfort for the spectators” (Wood, 1996, p. 67).
Attempts to move Junkanoo under Peter Bethel’s watch, however, were mightily resisted.
There was “an uproar,” for instance, when officials informed the public that the 1989 Boxing
Day would occur in the Queen Elizabeth Sports Center. “Junkanooers,” Wood (1996) informs,
“staged a spontaneous demonstration that included a rush from the over-the-hill to Bay Street
and back” (p. 68). As she writes, their rejection of the planned relocation of Junkanoo in 1989
suggests that Junkanooers
saw Bay Street as the only possible venue, since it continued to represent a power reversal
(White merchants versus the Black masses), and indeed the atmosphere on Bay Street with
its closely set buildings which provide excellent acoustics, the Christmas lights that add a
sense of mystery to the setting, and the jostling of the spectators, are essential to having a
true Junkanoo experience. (Wood, 1996, p. 68)20
Competition also seems to be an important part of the Junkanoo experience. Until quite
recently, in fact, Junkanoo parades would (actually) transform Bay Street into a (very real) battleground. As Wood (1996) informs,
until [the 1960s] Junkanoo was a time when many individuals sought vengeance for
wrongs they had suffered at the hands of others during the past year. Bay Street became
the battlefield, and cowbells became the weapons . . . [they] also used as weapons whips
to the ends of which they had attached dried testicles of bulls. (p. 111)21
Today, Junkanoo is a different kind of battle. Groups now compete against one another for bragging rights and prize money.22 “Like the scrap gangs before them,” N. Bethel (2003a, p. 51)
writes, “the primary intention of these young men was not to fight on Bay Street, but to compete
for prizes.” The hostility between members and supporters of the different groups, however, is
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every bit as real (at least during the run up to the parades) as it was in years past. “Groups,” as
Wood (1996) explains,
boast of their skills and demean those of other groups, fuelling the tension between the
groups. This “enmity” increases as Boxing Day draws closer. . . . In order to foster unity
within the group and to establish a competitive frame of mind, members of one group
develop a hostile attitude toward members of other groups. (pp. 113-114)
But, like the temporary occupation of Bay Street that occurs during Junkanoo, the hostility
between members of the different groups typically dissipates once the parades are done. “Once
the parades are over,” Wood (1996, p. 115) writes, “the enmity subsides and members of ‘warring’ groups participate in rush-outs and local and international performances. The sense of unity
at these times is amazing.”
Junkanoo, perhaps even more than the riot, highlights (and engenders the view) that Bay
Street is a site for and a product of both social union and social disruption. Junkanoo, this key
Bahamian experience which brings together Bahamians of all stripes, also transforms Bay Street
into a hotly contested space where Blacks attempt to challenge White economic hegemony;
where spectators and Junkanoos remain separated by barricades; where groups struggle to confine their creativity and spontaneity within the rules governing the parades and the limits of its
current venue; where Bahamians fight to retain Junkanoo’s authenticity while government officials, hoteliers, and others try to profit from the parades (commodifying and marketing it); and
strikingly where groups (originally groups from different neighborhoods) battle one another.
Conclusion
Bay Street continues to be a space that is at the center of political, economic, and social life in
The Bahamas. It continues to be both a field for many of the important events that occur in The
Bahamas and the basis, the impetus, for many of those events. The semiannual Junkanoo festivals and the 1942 riot are just a few examples. “Black Tuesday,” which occurred 25 years after
the riot, is another.
Bay Street has remained the space of power and protest in The Bahamas. Recently, for
instance, the College of The Bahamas Union of Students marched to Bay Street from their campus in Oakes Field to insist that the government be given a voice in the selection of the college’s
next president. Bay Street also continues to be Junkanoo space and so a space where Bahamian
identity work occurs. A number of important Bahamian festivals and ceremonies occur on Bay
Street besides Junkanoo (i.e., state funerals, religious parades, Christmas concerts).
Additionally, so much of the “everyday life” of the Bahamian people has taken place on Bay
Street. Over the years, Bay Street has hosted a diverse and complex cast of characters: the Bay
Street Boys; throngs of Bahamian consumers and salespeople; the politicians, judges, police
officers, and other government officials who are all headquartered there; millions of cruise ship
passengers on their too brief sojourns in paradise; straw market and street vendors hawking their
wares; colorfully costumed Bahamians parading down the street during their semiannual celebration of Junkanoo; thousands of Bahamian workers rushing from their homes at the east end of
the island to their offices in the west; campaigners, demonstrators, strikers, and rioters who typically descend on Bay Street to demand redress when they feel aggrieved; and the angry ghosts of
too many Africans sold into slavery in the auction house, now a museum, that marks the beginning of downtown Bay Street.
Bay Street is surely a site for and a product of both social union and social disruption. The
1942 riot, Junkanoo, Black Tuesday, and the range of other political and social events that have
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occurred on Bay Street coupled with its role as an economic space and a tourist space (which we
only hinted at in this piece) have turned Bay Street into a space of power, of protest, of expression, and have produced a space where Bahamians are both connected and separated. As such, it
reminds us that contested space need not just be sites of conflict but can also be sites which bring
people together.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Ben Carton, Lois Horton, Nicola Virgill-Rolle, Tai Gerhart Edwards, T. Kurt
Knoerl, Meagan Hess, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
We would also like to thank Patrice Williams at The Bahamas Archives.
Authors’ Note
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies
Association (United States), Arlington, VA; April 19-22, 2006.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. See Low (2000, pp. 127-153), Brown (2006), Morrissey and Gaffikin (2006) and Estrada and Weber
(2008) for interesting discussions of the concept of contested space and particular contested spaces.
2. The overwhelming majority of The Bahamas’ population (more than 90%) is Black. This had been the
case since before slavery ended in The Bahamas (W. B. Johnson, 2006, p. 2). See Saunders (1985) for
an alternate perspective on the riot.
3. Bahamians celebrate Labour Day on the first Monday of June every year, commemorating the riot.
Similarly, Bahamian politicians have frequently invoked the memory of the riot in hopes of linking
their policies and efforts with that event. See, for instance, Pindling (2000), Fawkes (1988) and
D. Johnson (1972). Many have described the riot as the first in a series of increasingly vocal sociopolitical responses by the Black Bahamian masses to the system of apartheid which prevailed in The
Bahamas at the time. And, so see it as the beginning of the political movement that eventually led to
Black majority rule and independence.
4. See Martin and Storr (2009a) for a discussion of the relationship between tourists and Bay Street.
5. Lefebvre (1991) has, similarly, conceived of social space as both the basis for all social activity and
the result of spatial practice. He has also tried to express how spaces can simultaneously be the stage
for and the result of spatial practices which connect and separate people. For instance, he described
“capitalist space” as “whole and broken, global and fractured, at one and the same time” (Lefebvre,
1991, pp. 355-356). Unfortunately, Lefebvre’s usage might be described as essentialist and historically
contingent. And, Lefebvre (to his discredit) is easy to misunderstand. As Shields (1999, p. 144) summarizes, Lefebvre’s The Production of Space “is both a significant failure and an intellectual triumph
as it succeeds in interrelating most aspects of spatiality while not succeeding in clarifying key points
about his three-part dialectics of space.” As such, we do not adopt the “whole and broken” phrasing to
make the point that spaces can be sites for and products of both social union and social disruption.
6. It makes sense to focus on the riot and Junkanoo because of the sociohistorical significance of these
events in the country. The 1942 riot on Bay Street, as stated before, was the first sign of political awakening
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7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
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among Bahamian Blacks. And, the first time that they openly attacked Bay Street. Similarly, Junkanoo,
which occurs on Bay Street, is the most important cultural event in The Bahamas.
See Batuman (2003) and McCann (1999) for intriguing applications of Lefebvre’s concept of social
space to explain riots as efforts to (re)claim space.
See Isenberg (2004) and Ryan (2006) for discussions of city centers as contested spaces.
“Going Down Burma Road” is the title of a popular Bahamian song about the riot.
The details of the riot and events leading to the riots are recreated mostly from the Report of the Select
Committee of the House of Assembly and Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into Disturbances in The Bahamas which took place in June 1942, Nassau Public Records Offices. The Commission
is also referred to as the Russell Commission and is hereafter cited as such. The members of the Select
Committee and the Russell Commission interviewed over 200 eye witnesses of the riots.
As Craton and Saunders (2000, p. 101) wrote, for much of The Bahamas’ postemancipation history,
the ridge that separated “white” Nassau from the exclusively black settlements adjacent to the
south and in the rest of New Providence was as marked a social divide as that formed by the sea
between Nassau and the Out Islands.
12. Advertisements in the local papers throughout the early 1940s, for instance, were clearly targeted to
the wealthy Bahamians (who were typically White) as well as tourists (e.g., Nassau Guardian, June
1942-June 1943). While stores like Charley’s Meat Market (Market Street) and the Laundry and Dry
Cleaning establishment (Marlborough Street) were on the streets that intersected with Bay Street,
stores like the Perfume Shop, which sold high-end perfumes, and the Men’s Shop that specialized in
Sharkskin and Palm Beach suits were situated prominently on Bay Street.
13.The Report of the Select Committee criticized the police for standing by while Bay Street was destroyed.
The Duke of Windsor, however, painted a more complimentary picture of the government’s response
to both the labor dispute and the ensuing riot (Governor, H. R. H. the Duke of Windsor, to Secretary of
State for the Colonies, June 6, 1942, Colonial Office Records, CO 23/731).
14. Although the rioters were eventually forced to leave Bay Street, over the next 2 days, they looted and
destroyed businesses and public buildings in and around the city (Martin & Storr, 2007).
15. Pinder, one of the officers who arrested one of the most vocal rioters Leonard Storr Green, reports that
he had to hide under G. W. Sweeting’s store.
16. Roland Symonette (Russell Commission, 1942, p. 490), for instance, argued that the police and military should have used heavy artillery and opened fire on the crowd. For him, Bay Street should have
been protected at all cost.
17. See Lefebvre (1991) for a discussion of social space as a social construction. See also Warf and
Arias (2008).
18. Wisdom (1985) has profitably used Goffman’s theories of to interpret Junkanoo. “Goffman’s theories
on social encounters and ‘regions,’” Wisdom (1985, p. 3) writes, “are particularly helpful in describing
the function and use of the spaces, the performance settings, in which ‘acting out’ occurs in contemporary face-to-face social interactions.” Unfortunately, his focus is not on festivals but on the drama of
everyday life where “teams” of individuals like actors in a play perform certain roles, follow scripts,
wear costumes, and act on stages as they engage in a joint effort to convince each other and the audience of the truth of their performances. Lefebvre, however, took a particular interest in festivals like
Junkanoo. He saw festivals as a way for people to combat their disaffection with everyday life. As
Merrifield (2006, p. 14) explains, Lefebvre saw (rural) festivals as “the veritable nemesis of insurgent
form of modern alienation” and “paradigms of an authentic everyday life, a realm where the shackles
of enslavement had been loosened.” Festivals strengthen social relationships, give voice to “pent up”
desires, and allow individuals to step out of the drudgery of everyday life, to take off their masks, to
become themselves. For Lefebvre, “festivals were like everyday life, only more intense, more graphic,
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more raw. During festivals, people dropped their veils and stopped performing, ignored authority and
let rip” (Merrifield, 2006, p. 14).
19. Of course this is not true for all Bahamians and is not even true for all Nassuvians. Some eschew the
crowds preferring to watch it on television. Some are unhappy with recent developments in the style
of costumes or music, the parade route, and the size of the event and so no longer attend Junkanoo
festivals, seeing them as events that they attended when they were younger or that are now meant for
tourists. Some never had that connection to Junkanoo in the first place. Still, no other event in The
Bahamas could make the kinds of claims to centrality in Bahamian life as can Junkanoo.
20. The government scrapped their plans to move Junkanoo off of Bay Street in 1989 and every major
Junkanoo parade since then has taken place on Bay Street. The smaller and now annual Junior Junkanoo
parades, however, have occurred in the Queen Elizabeth Sports Center.
21. Now, the parades follow a circular route, down Bay Street, then Elizabeth Avenue and Shirley Street,
returning to Bay Street via Frederick Street. In the past, however, the parade went up one side of Bay
Street and then down the other. As groups passed one another they not only tried to outperform opposing groups but would often tussle.
22.Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance (1998) offers a similar description of how poor and disadvantaged Trinidadians participate in and compete against one another in the annual Carnival celebrations
as a way of gaining status and respect by creating magnificent costumes and dancing beautifully. The
revelers in Lovelace’s novel, however, worry about the commercialization of Carnival that is occurring in Trinidad to make it an event more oriented toward tourists. Scholars have expressed a similar
concern. Aching (2002), for instance, describes how post-Independence states in the Caribbean have
captured and transformed carnival into a commodity robbing it of its ability to combat the alienation
of everyday life. Many Bahamians have, similarly, worried about the commercialization of Junkanoo.
See also Martin and Storr (2009a).
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Bios
Nona P. Martin has a Ph.D. in History from George Mason University, where she studied with Lois
Horton. She is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center, George Mason University. Additionally,
she holds a M.A. in Public History from Loyola University Chicago where she studied with Lewis
Erenberg. She is also a trained librarian with an M.L.I.S. from the University of South Florida. Her training
and research has focused on US History, Caribbean History, Urban History and Oral History.
Virgil Henry Storr is a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of Graduate Student Programs at the
Mercatus Center, George Mason University. He is also a Research Associate Professor of Economics in the
Department of Economics and the Don C. Lavoie Research Fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program in
Philosophy, Politics and Economics at George Mason University.
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