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Abstract

The 1930s and 40s saw a spike in anti-racist and women's rights activism in Bermuda. This article explores the relationship between the whitedominated Bermuda Woman's Suffrage Society (BWSS), its Secretary Gladys Morrell, and the Afro-Bermudian Recorder newspaper under editor David Tucker. Tucker and the Recorder expressed an ideological alliance with the BWSS in the 1930s, citing a shared battle against discrimination. Suffragists also mobilized against reactionary government policies targeting the black community. However, the Society's failure to take up a broader anti-racist agenda – coupled with political opportunism on Tucker's part – led to a split in the early 1940s. These experiences illustrate both the potential of and difficulties sustaining alliances across race/class/gender lines in a deeply divided society. The tendency of both the Recorder and the BWSS to speak on behalf of (rather than providing a platform for) black women also fuelled the splintering of agendas in these years.

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