National

Today in History: August 28

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Zion Baptist Church, actor Roxie Roker and The Bahamas Baseball Association. See what events took place on this day in history.

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8 months ago

August 28, 2023

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – On this day in Bahamian history – In 1835, Zion Baptist Church on New Providence opened for worship.

The church is located on the corner of Shirley Street and East Street and is the second oldest church in Nassau after Saint Matthew’s Anglican Church.

It’s the third oldest continuous Baptist church in The Bahamas after Bethel Baptist Church at Saint John’s Native Baptist Church.

Then on this day in 1929 – Bahamian-American Actress Roxie Roker was born in Miami, Florida.

Roker was the daughter of an American mother and a Bahamian father who had moved to Florida.

She is best known for playing Helen Willis, one-half of U.S. television’s first interracial couple on the hit TV show “The Jeffersons.”

She’s the mother of American artist and musician Lenny Kravitz. Roker died in 1995 at the age of 66.

In 1954, The Bahamas Baseball Association was formed. The historical society notes then meeting place was in the old Y.M.C.A building on Cockburn Street in Grant’s Town, New Providence. E. S. Stanley Mitchell was elected the first president of the association.

Then fast forward to 2019 when the court of appeal upheld a magistrate’s decision to acquit former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Senator Frank Smith of bribery and extortion charges.

Prosecutors were challenging what they called the “flawed and erroneous” February 1 ruling of Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt to acquit smith on allegations of extortion.

Finally, in 2020 health officials confirmed an additional 97 cases of COVID-19, putting the total number of cases to 2,020. 1221 of those cases were active while 742 had recovered. At the time there were only 50 Covid-related deaths.