Episode 78: Ansil Saunders - Bonefish Legend

As a fifteen year old tenderfoot building boats, Ansil Saunders
would’ve never believed he’d one day become a national hero.
Stemmed from Scotland, his extended family of boat builders would
eventually build the most sought after bonefish skiffs on an Island
in the Bahamas. Five generations later, Bimini’s Saunders was not
only working with local wood to build skiffs, but he too started to
guide and eventually became legendary by catching the all-tackle
world record 16 pound bonefish (which still stands today) with
angler, Jerry Lavenstein. But there was a daunting cloud that
always bothered him, people treated him differently because of the
color of his skin. Bimini’s “Big Game Club” wouldn’t serve black
people, and at twenty one years of age he walked in and demanded
equality. For forty days he was turned away and on the forty first
the tide turned and black men and women were finally welcomed.
Saunders, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. all had
the same dream of an equal playing field for the black man. Dr.
King went to the Bahamas seeking a peaceful place to write his
Nobel Prize acceptance speech. It was Ansil that took Dr. King to
Bonefish creek to write his legendary oration. Years later he would
return to write his striking sanitation workers speech. Four days
later Dr. King was assassinated. Saunders’ was the Chairman of the
Progressive Liberation Party for fourteen years. Bimini declared
Independence in 1973. He also started the Boy’s and Girls Club in
1969. His goal was to educate the younger generation so that they
too may continue to “Level the Playing field!” Ansil Saunders is a
National Treasure. It was a special honor to get to know him and
have him and his son, Tyrone, in my home. And it’s perfect that we
bring you his story on Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. Day...