MaryAnn wrote:And I'm sitting here trying to figure out the connection between being Danish and being Virgin. ..... I give up!
There is absolutely no connection between being Danish and being Virgin. If there had been a coupling between these entities, my country would not have been the present European (maybe worldwide) nation with the longest continuous history.
The Virgin Islands were named by Columbus in 1493 after a Catholic myth about St. Ursula and the 11.000 virgins. I have not dug too deep into that myth, but it is my understanding, that not even the modern Catholic Church supports that myth.
The Danish period is nothing to be particularly proud of towards the black population of the Virgin Islands. For Denmark is was a matter of sugar and rum, maybe also a few spices.
But then the main upholders of the Danish heritage are exactly the Black Virgin Islanders. They have been trained by Danish craftsmen in the old tricks of the trade to maintain the old forts, which were the strongholds in the control of the black population.
When I was 8 or 9 years old I for the first time ever met a black person in vito. He had been born on the Virgin Islands during the Danish years and had together with a girl been taken to Denmark to be shown at a colonial exhibition.
He chose to stay in Denmark. He became a deputy headmaster at a school, but was famous all over the country as a phenomenal singer accompanying himself on accordion. He is long gone, but one of his traditions stays on. He was also a very inspiring choirmaster in a mix of gospel and Danish traditions. He started a movement called, of everything, The White Choirs. These are made up of hospital staffers in various cities. They perform in their official hospital gowns, hence the name.
Victor Cornelins was his name. The name is unique, because the priest misspelled Cornelius on his birth certificate.
He caused one of the biggest surprises in my younger life. My father was the host of the event, so I was presented to Victor Cornelins. We shook hands, and my eyes got very open. He at once knew why. As he was the first black person I ever met, I was deeply surprised by the colour of his palm. Nobody ever had told me about that.
I still remember an anecdote he told these 50 years ago:
The nazis did not like black people, but they did not dare to touch Mr. Cornelins. He even had a special freedom to travel all over the country during the WWII occupation to do his lectures and concerts.
As an intermission I have to tell that old style soap basically was cooked animal fat. The German army wanted our fat, so wartime soap was supplemented with clay to various degrees. My still alive father remembers that soap as a total disaster.
One day sitting in one of our then very primitive railway sidelines, Mr. Cornelins sat on a bench across a local farmer, who obviously had not seen a black person before.
The farmer said: “OK, it’s wartime, but we still can get 80% soap, if we wanna pay for it!â€
