BERMUDA: Integration

Bermuda businessmen, long reluctant to jeopardize revenue from discrimination-prone U.S. tourists, last week let down most of the island’s social color bars. Top hotels—Belmont Manor. Castle Harbour, Princess, Elbow Beach. Inverurie, St. George—announced their intention “to accept reservations for dining, dancing and entertainment from local residents without discrimination,” and to allow visiting (but not resident) Negroes in rooms. Most smaller hotels, nightclubs and restaurants followed suit; movie theaters abandoned segregated seating. Bermuda’s 28,000 Negroes (in a population of 45,000) won their new gains through a boycott of movie houses. White Bermudians decided it was better to make concessions than to provoke racial conflict that would damage the island’s reputation as a tourist spot.