Fellow columnist Orville Taylor ought to be commended for writing on a subject related to the office of national hero in 'Were all our heroes really heroic?' (Sunday Gleaner, October 14, 2012) in which he questioned whether most of our national heroes were fit and proper to assume that status.

However, Taylor's thesis suggests that the criterion for being made a national hero should be that one would gain little or no benefit from one's agitation.

"Heroes make self-sacrifices for others to gain, with little or nothing in it for them." This could be problematic. It would exclude persons such as Nelson Mandela, South Africa freedom fighter, Martin Luther King, US civil-rights leader, and Mahatma Gandhi, Indian non-violent activist. All three would have benefited from their movements.

In fact, Taylor's only hero George William Gordon would not even make the cut based on that criterion. Gordon was of mixed race and hence treated as a second-class citizen and gained from his advocacy.

Taylor still insists on refusing to recognise the pivotal role that the Native Baptists played in Gordon's election to the House of Assembly. Taylor states, "Dick argues that he was elected to the legislature by local Baptists, whose interests he represented in the House. However, given that universal suffrage was not until 80-plus years later, it cannot be assumed that the majority of his electors were the poor blacks, whom he spoke up for."

However, a nuh me sey suh, but Gordon gave credit to them. Furthermore, the argument that there was no universal suffrage is not relevant. In 1854, there were 2,235 voters in Jamaica, and in 1864, there were 1,903 names on the voters' list out of a population of 450,000. In the 1849 elections, Mr Heslop got 46 votes to win over Mr Davidson (35) in St Thomas-in-the-East. Heslop was supported by Native Baptists.

Gad Heuman, British historian, in his book Killing Time, said Gordon lost the 1862 elections for St Thomas. However, Gordon won the subsequent election in 1864 with the help of Paul Bogle as his campaign manager. The Times of January 1866 claimed that Bogle had 150 names for his political machinery. Bogle went on a massive enumeration exercise through getting lands to persons of African origin. When he declared his election expenses, there were expenses for food and also rum!

Interestingly, if my memory serves me right, the number of persons who voted in that election was 104. Gordon was right to credit the Native Baptists for his election.

Taylor questions Sam Sharpe being a national hero. He said, "The question would be, was Sharpe's uprising an attempt to secure his freedom or that of others ... ? How different was his riot from that of prisoners with life sentences who lead violent outbreaks."

Taylor, known for his jokes, is taking a joke too far. Sharpe was a believer in the equality of all human beings, a value not common then among the Europeans, not even the missionaries. The Anti-Slavery Society which was formed in 1823 did not oppose slavery based on equality of all races, but rather on the harsh treatment of the enslaved.

Sharpe's position was visionary when he said, "The whites had no more right to hold black people in slavery than the black people had to make white people slaves." Therefore, his position would prevent Africans from enslaving Europeans, which showed that his movement was not selfish but would benefit others not of his race.

Truly, Sharpe is fit and proper to be a national hero.

The Rev Devon Dick is an author and pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.