AG’s Senate Contribution on the Constitutional (Amendments) Bill

cknowledge presence of Hon. Melanie Griffin and Cleola Hamilton, Constitutional Commission, AKA Sorority and my daughters, the Great Granddaughters of Georgiana Kathleen Symonette

Madam President, I believe that ideas are part of our heritage — that passionate beliefs can be passed from one generation to the next.

My grandmother, Georgiana Kathleen Symonette, was born in 1902, in a different time.  But we share so much, including a belief that progress comes when you work for it, that, as the African proverb says, “when you pray, move your feet.”  She, Eugenia Lockhart, Mary Ingraham and Mabel Walker founded the Women’s Suffrage Movement. They and their fellow Suffragettes did not wait around for change, they moved their feet – collecting signatures and organizing petitions across our islands, speaking up for what they knew to be true, which was that women deserved a right to vote.  They understood that the right to vote was at the core of citizenship and indeed, of belonging…more>