Jay Butler, son of Community and Cultural Affairs Minister Dale Butler, is the 2006 Rhodes Scholar.

Oxford-bound Jay is currently finishing his Harvard history thesis which concentrates on race relations in Bermuda.

Before attending Harvard, he achieved top International Baccalaureate marks at the United World College in Wales and the highest GCSE marks of his graduating class at Warwick Academy.

The Rhodes Scholarship was established in 1902 by Cecil John Rhodes for the purpose of bringing the most promising students from around the world to study at Oxford.

Jay is an avid musician as well as an academic. He is a member of the Harvard Baroque Orchestra, which plays seventeenth and eighteenth century music on instruments from the period. He is also a member of the Kuumba Singers, a choir that sings Negro spirituals, black folk songs and some gospel. While in Bermuda Jay also played with a variety of orchestras on the Island.

Jay is currently in his final year at Harvard and in the midst of finals and thesis preparation. His 100-page thesis is due in late March and focuses on two prominent families on the Island, the Hill and the Robinson families. He chose to look at these families as a "microcosm to study the meaning of freedom and race relations in Bermuda during the 19th century".

The 22-year-old Bermudian has been extensively researching the families in Bermuda and in London. Last summer he spent weeks trawling through England's National Archives looking at correspondence from the Colonial Office, in particular letters from Bermuda's Governors. More time was spent in Bermuda's Archives. The research was gruelling but interesting. Because he was researching black families, he said there were no clear-cut places to look for details.

"These families weren't the ones making the records or ruling the country," he said. "This thesis is like piecing a puzzle together. I looked at court records, personal letters, church records and spoke with many family members."

In particular he said his mother Dr. June Hill, who is a paediatrician on the Island, was extremely helpful and useful throughout his research.

Jay was particularly interested in how the families went about obtaining freedom, beyond legal emancipation.

"I wanted to look at how freedom was a process of negotiation," he said. "I wanted to know how legal rights were defined and made tangible. It's interesting to see how they obtained social and educational freedom."

Throughout his research Jay found a few surprising things that made him realise the strength and determination the black community in the 19th Century had. For example, he was amazed that two black libraries were opened in the 1840s.

"They had only been free for a decade yet they were challenging society and asking for a better life for their children," he said. "They were saying 'we want to change the way you have set up society and we will change it by starting our own organisations."

Another surprising find for Jay was the fact that the two races regularly interacted in the 19th century.

"Bermudian history has been written, for a long time, with false racial division," he said. "On an island so small the two races weren't completely separate. They did interact in terms of commerce and there was a large degree of black/white interaction on a daily basis. They did drink together in pubs in the 19th Century."

Jay also chose to focus on a group that is largely overlooked in traditional writing about the Island's race relations, poor whites. In terms of the white response to blacks obtaining freedom history books have concentrated on the reactions of elite whites but Jay found it useful to examine the reactions of poor whites as well. He found that many of them were less than enthusiastic and scared of the freedoms granted because they saw it as job competition.

With two months left to finish his thesis, Jay said he hoped it would challenge existing perceptions.

"I have found that it is incorrect to view the recently freed blacks solely as victims," he said. "It is better to treat them as agents, people doing things, looking to change and improve their station."

Once the thesis is finished and bound Jay will have his finals and graduation to look forward to. After that he plans to return to the Island for the summer before he heads off to Exeter College, at Oxford, to pursue a BA in Jurisprudence.

When asked about his plans for life after Oxford, in particular his interest in following in his father's footsteps as a politician, Jay laughed and simply replied: "I don't know what the future holds".

At the moment he is interested in international human rights law, a passion that was spurred by his time working at a Homeless shelter in Boston and time spent with the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre in India.

Minister of Sports and Recreation, Dale Butler, said he was extremely proud of his son.

"His entire family is very proud," he said "His past teachers always felt he was a very bright boy, he is focused and has a bright future. His church, St. Paul AME, gave him a standing ovation."