Wednesday, August 13, marks the 39th anniversary of the founding of the Amandala newspaper.
Amandala began with the purchase of a Gestetner stenciling machine from British Honduras Distributors, which used to be at the northern point of the Swing Bridge. The price was $534.00.
That summer of 1969, the UBAD organization had raised $250.00 through donations from our members and supporters. The rest of the money came via a check from the account of a professor of Chinese at Dartmouth College. I believe I may have referred to the professor in the past as Paul Mirsky. But, according to the volume published to mark the 40th reunion of Dartmouth’s graduation class of 1968, his name was Jonathan Mirsky, and he’s now retired and living in London.
I’d never met Mirsky. A Dartmouth student by the name of Wallace L. Ford IV, class of 1970, had solicited the money from Mirsky and mailed it to me. According to Dandre DeSandies and Don Dayson, Wally is now a big time corporate lawyer in Manhattan. Dandre and Don are also class of 1970. Dandre is a professor at Stanford and Don is a doctor in Harlem. Both have visited Belize in the last few years. Wally, never.
As I’ve mentioned before, I started Dartmouth in September of 1965 with the class of 1969, but I graduated with the class of 1968 after being given a year’s worth of credits for my year and a half at S.J.C. Sixth Form. The late Guy Mhone, a native of Malawi, and I had drifted away from the Dartmouth Afro-American Society, because their focus was almost exclusively on the United States. Dartmouth had expanded its black enrollment significantly with the class of 1970, and, for whatever the reason, the younger guys appear to remember me more.
Without Mirsky’s donation, through the good offices of the young Wally Ford, it would surely have been months more before we could have started Amandala. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything today to Mr. Mirsky and Mr. Ford, as rich and successful as they are, but it’s important for the history that their roles be duly documented.
At the same time, it is valuable to note the diametric difference in the financing which began Belize’s leading newspapers – THE REPORTER in 1967 and Amandala, two plus years later. A group of wealthy businessmen pooled some of their money and established THE CHAMBER REPORTER in 1967. Amandala came from the nickels, pennies and dimes of the people of Belize.
Amandala didn’t become the leading newspaper here until 1981, and a few years after that we began the construction process in our Partridge Street yard which built the main Kremandala building, which houses our printing press, KREM Radio and KREM TV. We began work on our secondary building, which houses the Amandala offices on the ground floor and the African and Indian Library on the upper floor, around 1994. (All the construction was done by Rufus X.)
Amandala financed the establishment of KREM Radio in 1989 and subsidized the operation of the radio station until 1998. KREM Radio has not been properly recognized for its historic efforts in freeing the radio waves in Belize, partly because the political oligarchies then began to hand out radio licenses right, left and center.
Amandala financed the Kremandala Raiders semi-pro basketball franchise in 1992. The failure of the semi-pro basketball industry was a big blow to us business-wise, especially because there were so many reasons why such an industry had to succeed.
The post-traumatic shock of the basketball failure was felt in 2001, when our printing press collapsed, and our newspaper had to be printed at THE REPORTER for several months. We are properly grateful to Mr. Harry Lawrence.
Since 1996, Amandala has been edited by Russell Vellos, who has not been sufficiently recognized. Those who are experienced in the field know that the draining stress of our business has to do with “meeting the deadline.” In other businesses, you can tell your customers to come back tomorrow, but in the newspaper business you must meet your deadline, or you will begin to lose a lot of money very quickly. On this 39th anniversary, I pay respect to Russell Vellos. He’s been meeting deadlines for 12 years in a row.
We’re proud of the 39, and we want to express gratitude to our readers and advertisers, who made the 39 possible. “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.” (OMAR KHAYYAM).
All power to the people.