Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego, better known to many Bermudians as Roosevelt Browne, is rightly being described as a legendary figure in Bermuda's civil rights movement.

It is always difficult to try to figure out where to place figures in an historic pecking order, but if Dr. E.F. Gordon, Dr. Eustace Cann and W. L. Tucker deserve to be at the top of Bermuda's civil rights pantheon, then Dr. Kamarakafego is not far below them.

Dr. Gordon's influence covered many spheres, while Dr. Cann and Mr. Tucker fought within Parliament to expand the Island's property-based (and by definition then, largely white) franchise, it was Dr. Kamarakafego and his colleagues on the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage — and its predecessor committee during the theatre boycott — who took the struggle to the public through meetings and speeches.

It is worth noting too that the change which then began in 1963 and took full effect in 1968 was largely peaceful, and that is much to the credit of both the movement's organisers and to the then-Government, which saw that the force of public opinion was unstoppable.

Dr. Kamarakafego deserves much of the credit for this. It is hard to see how it could have happened so quickly if it was not for his courage and energy.

Although in Bermuda it is inevitable that he will be best remembered for his role in the CUA, his life did not end there.

Having been elected to the House of Assembly in 1968 where he made his mark as a fiery MP, he then made the ultimate political sacrifice in 1972 when he gave up his Pembroke East seat so that then-party leader the late Walter Robinson could return to the House of Assembly.

Since then, Dr. Kamarakafego's periods of residence in Bermuda were somewhat sporadic as he travelled the world as an ecological engineer, teaching and helping developing countries to start self-help schemes and to protect their environment.

He was always available to Bermuda, both through the PLP and through the labour movement, to advise and spent some time as an organiser for the PLP as well.

After the 1998 General Election when his party came to power, he became a consultant to the Environment Ministry and was more recently a member of the Sustainable Development Round Table.

Indeed, one of his last public appearances came last summer during a public meeting on sustainable development where he found himself at the same table as free market advocate Robert Stewart.

The positions of Dr. Kamarakafego and Mr. Stewart probably represented the extremes of Bermuda's moderate political discourse. But they were able to debate peacefully, and that is one of the hallmarks of the democracy that Dr. Kamarakafego helped to bring about.

Increasingly, those who dominated the great Bermudian era of political transition of the 1960s and 1970s are now leaving us. There is a never-ending historical debate over whether "great men (and women)" are thrown up by events or if individuals shape their times.

What seems to be indisputable, as was noted with the passing of Gloria McPhee just a few weeks ago, is that the generation that came of age in Bermuda in the 1960s was an extraordinarily gifted one for this small island, and Dr. Kamarakafego was at their forefront.