As we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Theatre Boycott which started a domino effect of social change including desegregation of theatres, restaurants and hotels, The Royal Gazette spoke to Georgine Hill about her role in the protest of 1951.

"Admission will be restricted to persons of unmixed European descent."

That was Bermudiana Theatre Club's way of clearing things up, in the most roundabout of ways, the day after Georgine Hill and her fellow picketers brought the venue's ban on blacks into the spotlight on February 23, 1951.

Theatre boss Gerry Wilmot's statement to the media was apologetic, polite and tried its best to play down any racial connotations which might have risked inflaming an already sticky situation for his club.

But the message was still clear. The placard Mrs. Hill carried on Front Street had hit the nail on the head: 'Be bigoted in biased Bermuda. Culture — not for coloured Bermudians.'

In his press release on February 24, Mr. Wilmot announced: "The committee of management of the Bermudiana Theatre Club observe that some misunderstanding has arisen on their policy of admission to the club.

"They sincerely regret any embarrassment which may have been caused by reason of this and in order to clarify the position for the future, they wish to state that:

"(1) The Bermudiana Theatre Club is a bona fide club, admission to which is open only to those persons approved by the committee of management as temporary or permanent members.

"(2) Admission will be restricted to persons of unmixed European descent."

Mrs. Hill, now aged 90 and one of Bermuda's oldest surviving civil rights activists, says she still isn't quite sure what 'unmixed European descent' means, other than being a nice way of rephrasing the wording on one of the protesters' other banners: 'No Negroes admitted.'

Born in Boston, she arrived in Bermuda with husband Hilton Hill in 1941 and, while impressed with the beauty of the Island, she was stunned by the stark reminder of its slavery past.

"I had no idea of things like Bermuda. I had never been segregated. I knew it wasn't easy to get jobs in white firms in Boston, but there was no problem going to school," said Mrs. Hill. "When I came here and I couldn't go to this restaurant, and I couldn't go to some of the theatres. I had a lot of white friends; I mixed with them. The whole thing was ridiculous.

"We were determined to do something about it. And that's what we did. So I started writing letters, informing groups from abroad, joined the Gordon movement."

Initially, Mrs. Hill and other activists targeted blacks who paid to go to the movies only to be told they were only allowed to sit at the front or the side.

"We saw people allowing themselves to pay for segregation, which we thought was a little ridiculous," she said. "We produced leaflets appealing to their dignity and their need to receive proper treatment. We would go out and hand them out. There wasn't much co-operation. They just wanted to see the picture. They didn't think it was important enough to make sacrifice for."

Mrs. Hill's annoyance was stepped up in 1951 when she and her friend Cecil Dismont, the future Hamilton Mayor, tried to get tickets for a Bermudiana show but were turned away empty-handed because of their skin colour. "So we decided to go down and picket them," said Mrs. Hill, who led the group along with her sister-in-law Carol Hill. "We walked up and down with placards. The tourists were shocked."

As news of the protest spread across the world, the UK ordered the Governor not to attend the opening night. The theatre owners attempted to placate protesters by offering to put Mrs. Hill's black friends on an approval list.

This invitation was declined because, according to Mrs. Hill: "They were trying to divide the 'nice' blacks from the rest."

Picketing continued for the next few days until eventually the club was forced to end its restrictive admissions policy under pressure from the American producer, backed by the Actors Equity Guild. "They opened it up to everybody. We opened that theatre," said Mrs. Hill.

Segregation had gone on relatively unopposed for such a long time because both blacks and whites were afraid to challenge the status quo, Mrs. Hill believes.

She and her husband had the courage to stand up partly because of their family background: Mrs. Hill's great grandfather, John Jay Smith, was active in the Underground Railway, a secret organisation for the protection and movement of slaves to freedom during the 1850s in the US; her father Alfred Russell was also a civil rights activist.

Spurred on by their success in opening up the Bermudiana Theatre Club, the protesters put together a secret document titled: 'An Analysis of Bermuda's Social Problems.'

It was printed in Canada by white Bermudian David Critchley and was circulated quietly in barber shops and other gathering places across Bermuda.

One such copy found its way into the hands of street activist Kingsley Tweed, who used it to inspire crowds congregating around theatres in the Theatre Boycott of 1959.

Mrs. Hill may not have been at the forefront of the 1959 boycott, but without her trailblazing efforts eight years earlier the monumental changes forced by the Progressive Group would have been even more difficult.