Ethel Alice Kemp (1933-1973)
By The Bahamianologist
In the 1950s, The Bahamas was a Crown Colony. The Progressive Liberal Party had only recently been founded, and Bahamian women did not yet have the vote. Politics was largely the province of men, and the domestic sphere was largely the province of women. That was the world as it was arranged, and most people navigated it accordingly.
Women’s suffrage had arrived across the Caribbean at different moments — Jamaica in 1944, Barbados in 1950, Trinidad and Tobago in 1946. In the Bahamas, it had not yet come. Bahamian women ran households, raised children, managed small businesses, sustained churches and civic associations. Their political participation, where it existed, was generally channelled through their husbands and fathers.
Some women, however, were drawn into the new political movement taking shape around them.
The Progressive Liberal Party, founded in 1953, was building its membership and needed people willing to organise, canvass, and carry its message into communities across Nassau. Among those who answered that call were women — wives, in most cases, of men already active in the party, participating as the times expected them to: alongside their husbands, in support of a shared cause.
Women’s suffrage had arrived across the Caribbean at different moments — Jamaica in 1944, Barbados in 1950, Trinidad and Tobago in 1946. In the Bahamas, it had not yet come. Bahamian women ran households, raised children, managed small businesses, sustained churches and civic associations. Their political participation, where it existed, was generally channelled through their husbands and fathers.
Some women, however, were drawn into the new political movement taking shape around them.
The Progressive Liberal Party, founded in 1953, was building its membership and needed people willing to organise, canvass, and carry its message into communities across Nassau. Among those who answered that call were women — wives, in most cases, of men already active in the party, participating as the times expected them to: alongside their husbands, in support of a shared cause.
