Part Two

In our feature last week we gave background to the question as to why Dr E. F. Gordon, the father of the organised labour movement in Bermuda, changed his given name to that of Mazumbo. He charged the ruling oligarchy with tactics aimed at asserting white racial superiority while denigrating black leadership. And we detailed some of his personal resentment and reaction over the deliberate disrespect shown to him contrary to the rules of House parliamentary procedure by his detractors in the Assembly and media by referring to him by ways other than his professional or given name.

Here is Part 2 of that feature:

The first thing Dr Gordon did upon deciding to fix forever his detractors in the House of Assembly and the local press, was to notify the international media, with which he seemed to have good contact, that he no longer wanted to be called Dr Gordon. He was therefore taking out a deed poll legally changing his name. His announcement as anticipated made front-page news. It stated:

I, Edgar Fitzgerald Gordon, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery of Edinburgh University, President of the Bermuda Workers Association, President of the Bermuda Progressive League and Member of Parliament for St. George's declare that from henceforth I shall be known as Mazumbo.

The only enlargement on that was to say when he is called Mazumbo there would be no need for any prefix.

The news was both cryptic and most sensation. It went around the world. The doctor was kept busy receiving curious visitors and callsto 'Beulah, his home, inquiring as to the meaning of Mazumbo. But he wasn't talking. One reporter telephoned for an appointment. After identifying himself, he asked if he could speak to Dr Gordon or Mazumbo. The reporter was told the former was out but Mazumbo was in. Another called saying he was a 'Mr Lion' and asked facetiously if the doctor had left the jungle. Mazumbo was dead serious about what he was doing, but he also enjoyed observing the field day the correspondents were having speculating about the meaning of the new name, which some suggested had African mumbo-jumbo connotations.

In his own time, the doctor explained that he had traced his ancestry and found that he had sprung from Mazumbo and anyone who was interested could find out what it meant by reading English literature.

The name Gordon, which he had inherited, reminded him very painfully that some Scotsman in another age had compelled his great-grandmother to submit to his desires.

Venting his pent-up resentment over his decades of social ostracism and professional proscription since his arrival in Bermuda in 1924, Mazumbo explained that in Bermuda he was black and treated as Bermuda treats black people. That being the case, he wanted to be called by a name that belonged to his race.

He added sarcastically that he was no Scotsman. He was the offspring of an unfortunate African slave who was hunted down and driven into slavery.

He had received degrees from Edinburgh University, and strongly resented the impertinence of a casual visitor (that was an allusion to the Mid-Ocean News reporter he had barred from the House, who was an American), or any Bermudian for that matter (an allusion to the paper's publisher, Mr S.S. Toddings) insulting that great university.

"Now that I am Mazumbo, no one need prefix my name with mister or doctor. I am just plain Mazumbo!"

Members of the House of Assembly did not take lightly Dr Gordon's latest manoeuvre. They considered his name-change derogated more from the dignity of the House than the issue that had provoked it, the background of which I noted in the Part One in this column last week on the reason why Dr Gordon changed his name.

At the first opportunity they moved successfully to lift the ban on the Mid-Ocean News reporter. But the MCPs were left with no option but to hail Mazumbo, alias Dr Gordon.