Celebration of Annual Men's Day at Allen Temple AME Church in Somerset on Sunday had the connotations of a homecoming for a son of the soil, Presiding Elder Goodwin Douglas. He was the keynote speaker at the celebrations.

Dr. Douglas has been wielding out-of-the-ordinary influence in the Episcopal affairs of his denomination. He is the Presiding Elder of the Capitol District of the Washington, DC Conference, which is larger that most Episcopal Districts of the far flung AME Church, and is considered the best of all districts in the Church.

At the time of the appointment of the Bermuda-born Elder, there were only 25 churches in the Capitol District. At present, there are 40 churches which have a membership of more than 20,000.

Significantly, it was at the very altar of Allen Temple 48 years ago that Goodwin Douglas, a young plumber apprenticed by his father, was converted under the pastorate of the Rev. A.S. Jones. In 1960 he left Bermuda to complete his education at Kittrell High School in North Carolina.

He graduated from there as well as from Kittrell College and Virginia Union University. At the University of West Virginia he earned a certificate in Labour Relations and has since received many honorary doctorates from various seminaries and universities as far away at the University of Monrovia, capital of Liberia.

At Kittrell, young Douglas received his call to the ministry, and two years later was ordained. He became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement while at the college, and along with fellow students worked with textile workers who were on strike.

It was there that he first challenged the actions of the Ku Klux Klan. While at Virginia Union University, he led many protests in a city that was rife with racism. Black people were not allowed to eat at lunch counters or to use department store dressing rooms. That was a period when Bermuda was going through its own momentous changes that culminated in the Theatre Boycott.

Rev. Douglas led a massive protest which crippled the economy of the county. And in 1963 he took more than 120 people to the "March on Washington", at which the late Martin Luther King made his "I Have a Dream Speech". Subsequently, he served on municipal commissions, worked with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

During his hectic week-end stay in Bermuda Dr. Douglas reminisced about his growing up at Allen Temple, having no difficulty calling the names of the stalwarts in the church. Theme of his morning sermon was about having the courage to remember, and the courage to be consistent in the faith.

"Some people think when they have it made, that they made it on their own. They forget the bridges they crossed over," said Dr. Douglas, adding they should thank God for those who fought the fight and went through the storm.

Dr. Douglas is the son of the late Elder Charles and Rosa Lee Douglas of Somerset. His sister Mrs. Theresa Grant and niece, Dr. Teresa Grant, were among the several close relatives attending the celebrations.

Men's Day services are customarily marked by the spirited singing of male choirs from Allen Temple and other churches. A major highlight on Sunday was the debut appearance of the Westgate Corrections Facility Choir.

Pictures: Presiding Elder Goodwin Douglas is seen with Pastor Betty Furbert-Woolridge at the morning service at Allen Temple AME Church. Left front is Sandys South Central MP Walter Lister, MP, who chaired the Men's Day Celebration Committee. Below: Dr. Douglas was happy to greet Mrs. Vera Commissiong, who happened more than two decades earlier to have been the first Bermudian to attend Kittrell College in North Carolina. He had reminisced in his sermon about his first stark encounter with old southern racism. When he alighted from the train from Washington to North Carolina, he hailed the first taxi in line to take him to Kittrell. He was told point blank: "We don't drive niggers." Mrs. Commissiong recalled that similarly was her shock when she arrived fresh out of Northlands School in Bermuda en route to Kittrell.