Members of Beyond Barriers yesterday launched plans to commemorate the 44th anniversary of the theatre boycott.

Glenn Fubler, coordinator of the organisation, opened the ceremony at City Hall by reminding people about the legacy left by the "giants" who participated in the boycott.

Mr. Fubler asked residents to pause for two minutes on Wednesday, July 2 at 2 p.m., the same day that black patrons were permitted in 1959 to sit in the formerly restricted areas of theatres as a result of the success of the boycott organised by the Progressive Group.

Mr. Fubler also asked the public to continue the work of building a united community.

Dr. Sydney Gibbons, executive secretary for the Bermuda Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, said residents had a "moral obligation to build a community" in which every member shares and participates in fellowships.

Chamber of Commerce president Charles Gosling, speaking on behalf of the business community, captured the essence of the boycott.

"What started as a quiet group striving for a basic right to be treated as an equal in gaining access to a cinema has been the catalyst for achieving equal rights throughout the community. True adult suffrage and is the inspiration for ensuring we all have equal opportunity today and in the future," he said.

Honorary chairman Canon Thomas Nisbett read the declaration.

"We... express our appreciation of the many on whose shoulders we stand. We resolve to actively build a greater sense of community in the spirit of those who laid our foundation and acted to transcend all barriers. In observance of the UN decade to promote peace and tolerance, we undertake to work with any and all our fellow residents to formulate a shared vision of a Bermuda that by 2009 will nurture the potential of each and every one in our Island."

Invited guests signed their names on an engraving by artist Vernon Clarke, including Sheelagh Cooper, Gil Tucker, Bishops Ewen Ratteray and Robert Kurtz, Izola Harvey and Gerald A. Harvey, representatives from Appleby, Spurling and Kempe, Ernst and Young and Schroders (Bermuda) Ltd.