Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

The annual Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day holiday on March 30 celebrates the repeal in 1951 of the 1917 Shouter Prohibition Ordinance. The Ordinance, issued by the colonial authorities, banned any worship activities by members of the faith, whether in public or private.

Well-known Baptist singer Beverly “Sister Bev” Irish said the holiday represents the freedom from oppression which came when the Ordinance was repealed. “We were banned from keeping any forms of meetings and it was in 51 that we got back our freedom to stand on the streets and minister to people. In those days you could get locked up if you were on the streets ministering or if you were singing or shouting or clapping or anything like that. So this day is a freedom day for us as a spiritual people.”

Spiritual Shouter Baptist Elder Marlene Browne said it was a great day when the Baptists were given the holiday by the then UNC Government in 1996. “When we got that holiday, it was really something good after all the years of being suppressed and not able to perform freedom of your worship and we became recognised in the sense that we had a day like nearly everybody else. Many times we were always looked down on as a nobody, so it was really nice when that happened, so the significance of the holiday is that it showed us to be on par and in the eyes of the other people and them, we were recognised as somebody special.”

According to the National Library and Information Service, the reason given for the ordinance was that the Shouters made too much noise with their loud singing and bell ringing and disturbed the peace, although an unspoken reason was the antagonism for the African practices within the practice of the religion. Browne said “When we Spiritual Baptists came to the new land, we came practising our faith, in our style, and we were introduced to the European world, so although we would use the Bible and we would pray and do certain things, we would practice our religion in our African way and people never wanted to accept that because they looked at it as demonic and bad and with all sorts of scepticism, but who you are is what you are.”

There are many different national bodies of Spiritual Shouter Baptists throughout T&T and each one celebrates the holiday in their own way. Irish said “We celebrate normally, so if we’re keeping a service we keep service and we have certain formats of entertainment like we would have at the Spiritual Baptist churches, we have choirs, we have groups of drummers, we have all different things and we would collaborate and come together and make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

Browne said she would like to see a difference in how the holiday is celebrated. “The first two years they did the celebration, it was Port-of-Spain, South and Tobago. Now, because of division, you would find that it has broken up into pieces, you would have City Hall in Port-of-Spain, St. Augustine, there’s Barbara Burke’s place in Maloney, a place in Enterprise by Leader Browne, then there’s one in Point Fortin, and another fraternity that gathers in Maloney, and different places. I would love to see the day when we could just be Port-of-Spain and one in South. It makes us look like we can’t come together. The Adventists have one day every year that they will gather to celebrate Passover and they will gather in Port-of-Spain this year and next year they will be in South and the following year they will be in Tobago. If we could only take that page out of the others, and do that in that way, it would show a great unity and not even unity alone, but it will show we have raised to a level of wisdom, we’ve become wiser. Regardless of what happens though, I’m still proud about being a Baptist, and being able to congregate, so every year I always go somewhere, spend the day and take part in some worship and just enjoy the day, because it’s your day to celebrate.”

More information on the origins and faith practices of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist religion can be found at https://www.nalis.gov.tt/Research/Subject-Guide/Baptist-Liberation-Day.