By Felicia Purcell-McDaniel,
Globe Sports Editor

Three years ago Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced HR 71, a bill that designated June as Caribbean American Heritage Month.

    In a continuing legacy of that action, the third annual Caribbean-American Heritage Legacy Awards and Reception was recently held at the Elihu M. Harris building in the heart of downtown Oakland.

    Caribbean Television founder Shorron Levy served as the mistress of ceremonies.
    This year’s honorees included E.R. Braithwaite, the author of the book To Sir with Love and a former ambassador to Guyana, his homeland. When the movie To Sir with Love hit the big screen in the late 1960s, much attention surrounded the star of the film, Sidney Poitier, who portrayed Braithwaite in the popular movie.
    However, none of it would have been possible had Braithwaite, who earned a degree in physics from Cambridge University, not chronicled his life experiences when he inherited a job teaching a rambunctious group of white teens in a racially driven London school in the 1950s.
    “I was told that because of the color of my skin I would not get a job in physics,” said Braithwaite. “I didn’t want to work on the railway or be a porter” — the few jobs available to blacks during that time. According to Braithwaite, there was a shortage of teachers, so his “special services were in demand.”
    The late actress Madge Sinclair was also honored during the event for her works in film and television. The Jamaican-born actress was honored in a moving tribute by her granddaughter Ashley.
    Sinclair’s credits include Cornbread, Earl and Me, Coming to America, Trapper John, M.D. and The Lion King, among many others.
    Other honorees included author and professor Opal Palmer Adisa; actor and filmmaker Jeffrey Andersen-Gunter; MLS player Dwayne Derosario; Trevor Crearey, director of systems engineering at Broadband Corporation; Percy Hintzen, author and professor at UC Berkeley; and Lawford Goddard, director of education and training at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture.
    For more information, visit www.cb1tv.com.

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