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UBAD’s 52nd anniversary

HighlightsUBAD’s 52nd anniversary

BELIZE CITY, Tues. Feb. 9, 2021– Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the founding of the United Black Association for Development (UBAD) in 1969.

In August of 1969, UBAD began to publish the newspaper AMANDALA as its information organ.

As a result of the arrests of the AMANDALA publisher at the time, Ismail Omar Shabazz, and editor, Evan X Hyde, both UBAD officers, on seditious conspiracy charges in February of 1970, and their subsequent acquittal in Supreme Court in July of 1970, UBAD made the decision to constitute itself as a political party in August of 1970.

The UBAD Party was formally dissolved in November of 1974.

Following is an excerpt from a book by Evan X Hyde, THE CROWD CALLED UBAD, which discusses the birth of UBAD.

“Well, Wilhelm Arnold he started rapping that it was best we write a constitution and form ourselves into a body with rules and regulations. Everyone agreed. At a meeting held at Arnold’s office on North Front Street (present were Shabazz, Arnold, Livingston, Belisle, Galento and myself), we chose a name for the organization — The United Black Association for Development — UBAD.

“On Sunday the 9th February 1969 we all piled into Arnold’s Land Rover and went to his farm at Mile 26 on the Northern Highway to write a constitution for the organization. Most of the constitution work, patterned basically on the UNIA constitution, was done by Lionel Clarke. Clarke was elected president. I was elected first vice-president, Robert Livingston second vice-president, Wilhelm Arnold treasurer, Ismail Shabazz assistant treasurer, George Flowers secretary, Penny Casasola assistant secretary, Louis Belisle, Charles X Eagan, Galento Neal and Alfred Faber councillors.

“Of those elected, only Justice, Belisle and Faber were not present at the meeting at Arnold’s farm. Silky Stewart was at the meeting but refused to accept office. No one could understand it at the time. But now we do. Stewart was a spy.”

– from pgs. 12, 13, THE CROWD CALLED UBAD, by Evan X Hyde, Modern Printers, 1970.

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