Baptists — a symbol of hope

This holiday commemorates the repeal on March 30, 1951, of the 1917 Shouter Prohibition Ordinance that prevented the Spiritual Shouter Baptists from practising their religion. During that time the Shouter Baptists worshipped in secret and risked persecution or jail because the British had deemed the religion inappropriate.

Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day symbolically represents the freedom we all have to choose how we worship in this country. As a society, we are deeply indebted to the Spiritual Shouter Baptists.

Their strong spirit and perseverance helped lay the foundation for dignified protest that led to the end of British colonialism in this nation.

Their contribution is immeasurable.

Although the Baptists have protested the use of Baptist rhythms in secular music, their unintentional influence on this nation’s music has created defining moments in our musical history. Our musical history is a chronicle of the Baptist struggle for acceptance.

In the 1930s, Growling Tiger submitted a song to the censors entitled What is the Shouter? The censors rejected the song because his lyrics were so negative. Tiger’s scorn merely mimicked public sentiment tainted by colonial prejudice.

Not yet able or willing to embrace our own voice as a people led many people to publicly scorn the Baptists. But the Baptists were making waves.

In 1929, two famous anthropologists landed in Trinidad after finishing field work on the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana. While they waited for a ship to take them back to the US, Melville Herskovits and his wife Frances read a newspaper article about the Shouter Baptists.

They vowed to return to Trinidad to study the Baptists.

Twenty years later, the Herskovits returned to conduct research on what was to become the first anthropological study of a Protestant Negro culture in the English- speaking Caribbean. In 1949, the Herskovits published their ethnography entitled Trinidad Village.

They recorded a CD of Baptist songs called Peter Was a Fisherman.

We have the Baptists to thank for that important anthropological study.

Calypsonians’ ridicule of the Shouter Baptists continued through the 50s. Their recordings, however, unconsciously evoked a national sense of spirituality separate from the image and feeling of conformity that colonialism demanded.

The Baptists’ journey from banned religion to freedom of expression is best captured in Earl Lovelace’s novel The Wine of Astonishment.

With the emergence of the People’s National Movement, Baptists became a symbol of resistance; a symbol of freedom on both a national and spiritual level.

Then came Calypso Rose, the first woman to be crowned Calypso Monarch and Road March winner. Her music featured Baptist rhythms.

SuperBlue (then Blue Boy) rose to fame in 1980 from his soca hit Soca Baptist. The Baptists claimed the song was sacrilegious, and they asked the late Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams to ban the song on the radio. His reply, “Let good sense prevail.” Protest aside, Soca Baptist has remained one of our most defining calypsoes.

In 1986, David Rudder became National Calypso Monarch and Road March King partly because of his Baptist rhythms in Bahia Gyul, a David Rudder/Pelham Goddard composition.

In 1991, this nation rallied around SuperBlue’s Carnival offering, another Baptist-influenced soca, Get Something and Wave.

When SuperBlue offered Trinidad and Tobago hope “that soon we will rise again,” his unwavering conviction came from consulting the bell-ringing Mother Muriel.

Today, Carnival is filled with calypsoes featuring Baptist rhythms.

The Baptists, once scorned, ridiculed and even pe r s e cut ed, have emerged as a symbol of hope. Their music has become the heartbeat of this nation.