Page 42 - BLACK HISTORY IN BERMUDA red

Ottiwell Simmons • (b. 1933)

Ottiwell Simmons was a trade union leader who played a major role in the rise
of the organised labour movement in Bermuda.
In 1962 he became the first full-time organiser of the Bermuda Industrial Union
and later served as the organisation’s president for 34 years. Simmons played a
key role in the BIU/BELCO dispute and in the 1981 national strike.

He also became a prominent politician for the PLP and sat in the House of Assembly courtesy bermuda government, dept of communications
for 30 years until he retired from politics in 2007.

In retirement, he became a community organiser focused on youth issues.

Dame Marjorie Bean • (1909-2001)

Dame Marjorie Bean was a pioneering educator and public servant who influenced
multiple facets of society.
She was the first black Bermudian to be appointed to an administrative post in the
civil service when she joined the Department of Education as a supervisor in 1949.
She was the first woman appointed to Bermuda’s Senate and the first woman to be
courtesy the royal gazette
made a Dame in 1994. Dame Marjorie was the founder of the Business and Profes-
sional Women’s Association of Bermuda and set high standards for deportment
and diction.

Gina Swainson • (b. 1958)

Born in Bermuda in 1958, Gina Ann Cassandra Swainson
is the only Bermudian to win a major international
beauty pageant. In 1979, at only 21 years of age,
she won the Miss World Pageant held in the United
Kingdom. That same year she also placed second in
the Miss Universe Pageant held in Australia. This was Assessment
a significant achievement as it was uncommon to do Indicator
well in both pageants! Write a poem about Gina

To honour this achievement, there was a parade held for Gina in Bermuda after Swainson and don’t forget to
her return. She also appeared on several postage stamps in 1980. Gina went include all the facts you’ve
on to open her own make-up business on Front Street called ‘Gina of Bermuda’. learned. Act out the partner
She later moved to Britain, where she still lives today although she frequently skit for Gina Swainson.
returns to Bermuda.

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