Progressive Labour Party activist Rolfe Commissiong blasted Shadow Home Affairs Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin as an "apologist for racism" yesterday.

His comments came after Ms Gordon-Pamplin told former civil rights activist Rev. Kingsley Steed to stop "exploiting" the name of her father, the late Dr. E. F. Gordon, and called Rev. Tweed's role in the 1959 theatre boycotts "peripheral".

But Mr. Commissiong said: "Only in Bermuda will you find African-Bermudians serving as apologists for racism. Ms Gordon-Pamplin would do well to stop insulting the legacy of her father and go back and study real history."

He said Dr. Gordon had become an "icon of opposition to white supremacy in Bermuda" and added that he thought Rev. Tweed deserved to be recognised as a hero just as much as members of the Progressive Group, who organised the theatre boycotts that resulted in their desegregation, because he was a "builder".

"It is very accurate I think, to call him a Gordonite," he said. "I don't think there should be unnecessary divisions dividing those who were architects of the theatre boycotts - who included my parents - and those who were the builders, who were people like Rev. Tweed, Robert Smith and Coe Sharpe. Both components were necessary parts of the movement."

Rev. Tweed said in a speech this week that he had been forced to leave the Island after he had planned to kidnap people in key positions in Bermuda during the late 1950s in order to end racial segregation.

Asked whether he thought such a bloodless coup d'etat would have been justified at the time, Mr. Commissiong said: "It was justified at the time, there is no doubt in my mind. If you really look at what was happening at the time, the history of which Ms Gordon-Pamplin appears to be not aware of, from Africa to the streets of Los Angeles, is that frustration among black men was palpable to the extent that that was the only way to begin to deconstruct the whole edifice of white racism."

He said: "We can look back at that era and recognise that many of the tactics that were employed - no matter how painful - did contribute ultimately in the long run to bringing about the Bermuda we know today. We were facing a system in which black men were second class citizens."