Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Frank Gordon - File

After Hopeton Dunn, chairman of the Creative Production Training Centre (CPTC) board, had named some of the persons on whom the organisation has done film documentaries to those gathered on the top floor of Liberty Hall on Thursday evening, he said, "It is our goal to do the production and the celebration while the luminaries are with us."

Frank Gordon, the latest addition to a list that includes Howard Cooke and Wycliffe Bennett, was quite at home at the launch of Frank Gordon: A National Treasure at the home of Garvey's UNIA on King Street, downtown Kingston. A dedicated Garveyite, Liberty Hall has been one of his regular haunts and a brief look at the documentary showed him revisiting his birthplace at nearby 6 Love Lane.

He was also shown going into St. William Grant Park, Gordon having seen many speakers, including St. William Grant, there.

When Gordon, now 84, spoke in a strong, clear voice near the end of the programme after being received with a standing ovation, he gave thanks that he was alive to see the documentary and his grandchildren could also see it. "History is the greatest redeemer to man's understanding of himself and his fellowman," Gordon said. "What happen to black people today, we do not understand history. With television, the relationship between the youth and the aged is not being cemented."

Gordon said that the Garvey movement is one that will never die, although noting that if "you do not have $20, $100, you cannot come into Liberty Hall."

"If we do not understand history, nothing is going to free us of the slavery that globalisation is putting on black people today," he said.

Professor Barry Chevannes, in giving the main address, placed Frank Gordon in the category of 'folk philosopher', "people whose ideas are shared through the oral tradition."

"This is a man who loves wisdom and pursues wisdom where it is to be found," Chevannes said.

"Like St. William Grant, until now Frank Gordon has been a largely unsung hero," Chevannes said. "I salute the CPTC for this recovery of memory."

Mayor Desmond McKenzie, Trade Union Congress president, Hopeton Caven, and Minister of Information and Development, Donald Buchanan, also spoke at the function hosted by CPTC CEO Angela Patterson, with Kemar Garrison and the Carifolk Singers providing poetry and song respectively.