The island has observed 65 years since a key moment in the fight by activists to secure full voting rights.

Glenn Fubler, of the group Imagine Bermuda, said that the night of October 31, 1960, “marked the culmination of a tremendously successful campaign initiated by the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage” when an overflow crowd turned out to affirm support in the battle for universal franchise.

It began in September 1960, when the activist Roosevelt Brown, home from college studies in the United States, organised a series of public meetings on the topic.

Mr Brown, a National Hero also known as Pauulu Kamarakafego, organised the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage to champion the cause.

On the night of October 31, more than 1,000 attendees packed Hamilton Hall to affirm their overwhelming support.

Mr Fubler said: “After 350 years of a system limiting voting rights, and restricted only to owners of property at a certain value, only 7 per cent of the island’s population had ever experienced engaging in a General Election.

“Thus, this two-month campaign became a seminal community education opportunity, promoting an awareness that fostered agency for the many involved.”

Mr Fubler said that the movement faced opposition from the island’s entrenched power structure, including “a bizarre legal framework for the 1963 General Election — the voting age elevated from 21 up to 25, and property owners of a certain value enjoyed a plus vote, ie, two votes”.

He added: “In spite of this stacked deck, the positive momentum from the CUAS campaign led to the formation of Bermuda’s first political party, the Progressive Labour Party, and the logical response with the formation of the United Bermuda Party.

“This circumstance resonates with the quote of Frederick Douglass, that ‘power concedes nothing without a demand — it never has and it never will’.”

Mr Fubler said the campaign’s momentum led to a Constitutional Conference in London in November 1966, setting the stage for a democratic Bermuda in time for the General Election of 1968.

He highlighted the groups Bermuda is Love and Bermuda Youth Connect for their engagement with the community in the same spirit.