Dear Sir,

For 40 years from 1936 to 1976, Bermuda, a then deeply divided and segregated island community, had been participating in the Olympics. Heretofore our Olympic participants have been, to use a phrase, mainly lily white, and performing so-called “White sports”. To cite just two at the time — sailing and equestrianism.

During those 40 years, life in Bermuda was revolutionised by the bold 1959 Theatre Boycott, which slowly began dismantling racial discrimination and segregation.

It took Bermuda 40 years to win its first Olympic medal, a bronze medal by its native “Bronze Boy”, Clarence Hill. This momentous event occurred during the 1976 Olympics in Canada.

I happened to be on duty that eventfully exciting evening on ZBM-1 Radio, and my boss, the late managing director of Bermuda Broadcasting Company, Walt Staskow, was in Canada at the time, at the Olympics and at ringside where he did the radio commentary — blow by blow, punch by punch — for all of us in Bermuda to hear and witness via that marvel of technology ... radio.

Then, 45 years later, 2021, at the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, a White Bermudian, Flora Duffy, obtained the island’s first gold medal, thus dubbing her Bermuda’s “Golden Girl”. Since that breathtaking feat, our Golden Girl has been feted in myriad ways — the National Stadium named in her honour, a hill named after her, and she has been appointed a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by the dearly beloved Queen Elizabeth II. Dame Flora appeared at the US Open in Flushing Meadows, New York, the Bermuda Government declared Monday, 18 October 2021 a one-off public holiday, Flora Duffy Day.

What an accomplishment from an island population of about 60,000 by two Bermudians, a Black man and a White woman — our Bronze Boy and our Golden Girl!

To date, alas, there is no physical or tangible manifestation in Bermuda in honour of our Bronze Boy. His name alone, Clarence Hill, beckons to be in black and white at some spot in Bermuda acknowledging, proclaiming his 1976 triumph as Bermuda's first Olympic medal-winner.

Our island home is poised at a critical juncture in its development. The number of Bermudians who have been killed — by violent acts and on our roads — is staggering for such a tiny place. Let us collectively seize this moment, this opportunity to encourage and galvanise each other in our collective quest to be a shining example to the world of how peoples of multiple diversity can live together in concord, harmony and unity.

LEIGHTON ROCHESTER

Hamilton Parish