NOVEMBER 20, 1944 was nomination day for the first-ever elections held under universal adult suffrage in Jamaica. That election was held on December 14, 1944. This meant that all adults had the right to vote. Prior to 1944, one had to pay at least ten shillings tax per year or have property to be able to vote.

There was a radio tax which, at 10 shillings per year, meant that by owning a radio, one had a vote. There was a bicycle tax, which was eight shillings per year. So by merely owning a bicycle one could not vote. Incidentally, the bicycle tax remained until 1955 when the PNP government headed by Norman Manley removed it.

From 1944 to 1961, November 20 was a public holiday in Jamaica, known as Constitution Day. While Constitution Day was hailed by some as a great step towards self-determination, it would take another 17 years and eight months before Jamaica would be entrusted with political independence on August 6, 1962.

The struggle for universal adult suffrage and self-government really began 149 years ago, in 1865, the year of the Morant Bay Rebellion. This was in the much-heralded ‘Underhill meetings’, so organised by Dr Edward Underhill. In the 20th century, Marcus Garvey also called for universal suffrage. It got into a higher gear by way of the National Reform Association in 1935 headed by the journalist Ken Hill.

Riots broke out in Frome, Westmoreland, in 1938. It spread to the wharves of Kingston, where the bananas were being placed on the boats of the United Fruit Company. In the middle of all this, the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union was founded by Alexander Bustamante.

Calls were made simultaneously by some Jamaicans for a political party to articulate the needs of the masses. Out of this came the People’s National Party (PNP) with its first aim to press for universal adult suffrage and self-government.

In the opinion of some, the founder of the PNP was Osmond Fairclough, while others opined that Ken Hill was the founder because the National Reform Movement was the forerunner. But the National Reform Movement did not evolve into the PNP.

The National Reform Association consisted mainly of intellectuals, but the PNP consisted of the National Reform Association; the BITU, including Bustamante himself; the Jamaica Union of Teachers; and the Jamaica Agricultural Society.

The PNP chose Norman Manley as its president. Alexander Bustamante was arrested and detained under war regulations in 1940. He split with the PNP when he was released in 1942. Bustamante formed the Jamaica Labour Party in 1943.

In the post-slavery culture, many of Jamaica’s black suffering masses were more wary of the brown middle class than they were of the white estate owners. During slavery, the brown slaves who were the children born of slave women and the estate owners as the products of extramarital affairs were usually the favoured house slaves.

Although slavery had been abolished for 100 years in 1938, these attitudes still abound. In such a context, many among the masses were against self-government because they said it would mean “brown man rule”.

In 1944, the rate of literacy was very high as desired by the sugar estate owners during slavery. This was far different in Barbados where there were progressive colonial governors who saw to the education of the slaves.

In the Jamaica of 1944, the planter class wondered what Jamaica would come to if the country was turned over to the masses, they being the descendants of the slave-owners notwithstanding. Indeed, many of them panicked.

Bustamante was regarded as the champion of higher wages for the peasant workers on both the sugar and banana estates islandwide. He was seen by the masses as a white man who was very charismatic and far more convincing than his brown cousin Norman Manley.

On December 14, 1944, where there were 32 seats in the House of Representatives; the JLP, which contested 31 seats, won 23 and the PNP which contested 19 seats, won four, with one of five independent winners joining the PNP to make their number five. Norman Manley himself failed to win a seat in 1944.

Many members of the gentry ran for the House of Representatives in 1944 but lost their deposits. Instead, many peasants were elected. The JLP’s Isaac Barrant, a sideman on a cane truck, was elected to represent Eastern St Thomas, defeating his estate owner who ran as an independent candidate. There was no PNP candidate in East St Thomas in 1944.

Barrant became Jamaica’s second minister of agriculture, succeeding ERD Evans. It was Isaac Barrant who said: “Di palicy of my guvament is simple: ABC; A fi arda, B fi bedience and C fi sense.” On one occasion, Barrant, having heard that something was already documented, said that “pencil mek wid rubber fi wipe out mistake”.

Barrant died in 1956. The newspapers at the time reported that Barrant, who was a chronic asthmatic, walked out of St Joseph’s Hospital in Kingston to go home to Port Morant, St Thomas, while stating that he had no faith in conventional medicine. But, despite all this, it was still important for the ordinary people to know that all people are equal, even if there were mistakes.

While Norman Manley was disappointed that the PNP lost in 1944, and that he himself did not gain a seat, he was nevertheless proud of the JLP’s Isaac Barrant and told the PNP members in the House never to make fun of him. Manley spoke well of Barrant when he died.

The PNP had Alan George St Claver Coombs, known as Father Coombs in Montego Bay, who was as colourful as the JLP’s Isaac Barrant. Coombs had been president of the Northern Industrial Trade Union, but he ceded leadership to Bustamante.

In 1944, Coombs ran as an independent candidate and lost to the JLP’s Iris Collins (later Williams), Jamaica’s first female legislator.

However, Coombs served for more than 12 years in the House of Representatives from December 1949 to April 1962.

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