THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on May 23 in the years identified:

1973: Prime Minister Michael Manley made a formal announcement that Minister of Education, Florizel Glasspole will be the next governor general of Jamaica. The announcement was timed to coincide with the celebration of Labour Day, in recognition of Glasspole’s status as “Dean of the Labour Movement”, as the prime minister described him. Mr Glasspole succeeds Sir Clifford Campbell who retired on March 1.

1973: Jamaicans again put “work in Labour Day”, following the pattern established in 1972, when Prime Minister, Michael Manley, called on the nation to do this exercise, and himself set example in Kingston. Manley and his wife along with the acting Governor General, Sir Herbert Duffus, and Lady Duffus, and leading citizens of the island joined with people from all walks of life in cleaning, painting, mending fences, repairing and putting up buildings as part of the day’s programme.

1973: Hundreds of Rastafarians lined the waving gallery of the Norman Manley Airport and sang praises to “Jah” in an emotional goodbye to three of their colleagues who departed for Ethiopia. Vernon Carrington, Ivan Coore and Lascelles Laird left for New York from where they will go on to Addis Abba, capital of the African State regarded by Rastas as home, to visit a settlement of Jamaicans.

1978: Zambian President, Dr Kenneth Kaunda made a two-hour stop-over in Kingston on his way from a State visit to the United States of America. He was welcomed by Prime Minister, Michael Manley, Mrs Manley and Mayor of Kingston, Councillor George Mason.