There's a television commercial where two young boys tape the base of a life size cardboard figure of Abraham Lincoln to a skateboard and release it down a ramp. The figure falls over in the uneventful game and the tag line says that there are better ways to have fun with history.

Ruth Thomas & Company validated the message of that ad on Thursday night as they ran through a bit of our black history paying particular emphasis to the lives of educator Dr. Kenneth Robinson, photojournalist Clive Saunders and artist Charles Lloyd Tucker in 'Mosaic 54'.

Ruth Thomas and Company have been performing together since 1984. Each mosaic is a compilation of various aspects of Bermuda's history, folkways, traditions, stories and even gossip; but the major objective of the mosaics is to disseminate historical information.

Ms Thomas, Grace Rawlins, Leo Mills and Gary Phillips began the evening programme at the National Gallery with a simple roll call of local names all associated with Bermudian blacks. They didn't get farther than the letter "C" before they called it quits on that line (after all they did not want to bore the audience,) and simply threw in a few more names from various parts of the alphabet.

They pointed out that some names are traditionally black, while some like Gorham, Barritt, Spurling and Gosling have never been associated with blacks.

Reading from a prepared text in a simple conversation style, the performance gave the audience an education on black Bermudian history in a an entertaining and personal way. Often in the dialogue the cast drew reference to actual people in the audience ? telling us at one point that Robert Horton has always felt that he is a Kenyan Masai and that when he visited the East African country, he told some Masai of his view but was not taken seriously.

Certainly the most touching part of the evening came with the personal memories John Barritt Sr. gave of his friendship with the late Charles Lloyd Tucker. Mr. Barritt said that Mr. Tucker, apart from being a great artist, had a great sense of humour and in his recollections that certainly came to light.

Charles Webbe spoke on the life of photojournalist Richard Clive Saunders who he met when he was in his 30s.

Robert Horton paid tribute to Dr. Kenneth Robinson a man he said he held in high esteem and he quoted the late Dame Marjorie Bean in a portion of the tribute she had made to the educator at his funeral in 1978.