THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on February 28 in the years identified: 1943:leader Thomas Sharp,

of the Jamaica Democratic Party, gives his first political speech in Kingston at the regular Sunday mass meeting of the Harmony Division of the United Negro Improvement Association, held at Liberty Hall. His subject is the ‘Planks of the Democratic Party,’ but to the very end of his discourse members of the audience call out: ‘We want your programme, Tell us what your party stands for.” In opening his address, Sharp speaks highly of the work of Marcus Garvey and the late J.A.G. Smith. His party stands, he says, for the economic, industrial, and agricultural development of Jamaica. They are not out to dominate Jamaica. 1955: The 79th annual assembly of the Congregational Union of Jamaica convenes at Shortwood Congregational Church, lower St Andrew. This is the first time in the history of the 120-year-old church that the assembly meets here. Welcome is extended by Chairman Stanford Webley and Cleve Grant, minister of Shortwood, who is to host the assembly, read the messages of greeting from Governor and Lady Foot, Norman Manley and Mrs Manley, and Robert and Lady Barker. Representatives of other churches attend the official welcome tea at the Manse and bring greetings from their churches. These include John Perry, moderator of the Presbyterian Church; Cyril Dorsett of Coke Memorial Church; Leslie Larwood of East Queen Street Baptist Church; S.U. Hastings, president of the Moravian Church; Robert Nelson of the Disciples of Christ. 1958:Public A decision of the

Health Committee of the St James Parish Council taken recently to charge one penny per person for use of the public lavatories at Long Lane in St James, is rescinded after a verbal battle among members of the People’s National Party-dominated council. The federal election campaign, which begins officially, has a direct bearing on the reversal of the committee’s previous decision. The Jamaica Labour Party had made use of the stand taken as a political weapon. Alexander Bustamante, on a recent visit to St James, refers to the council’s action in instituting the charge.

– The Gleaner Archives