Kendal Major, a member of the Bahamian Parliament and speaker of the House of Assembly

F15_KLS_8984_r1_sized_inline.jpg

“My main focus,” says Kendal Major, a member of the Bahamian Parliament and speaker of the House of Assembly, “is helping people maximize their potential through laws and policies that empower them and deepen our democracy.”

Photography: 
courtesy of Kendal Major

Kendal Major is certainly not the first person to leave the Bahamas to seek an education abroad and return to his native country to help his people. But he is the first person to establish a periodontal practice, a direly needed service in the former British colony. And for good measure, Major is also a member of the Bahamian Parliament and speaker of the House of Assembly.

The long road Major RSDM’89 took to get an education in the United States and return to the Bahamas began when he was a teenager and wanted to be a veterinar­ian. At 16, Major had established an outstanding academic record that qualified him for a government scholarship, the existence of which the then-prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling had mentioned to Major’s father. The scholarship landed him at Tuskegee University in Alabama, from which he graduated at 19.

After switching to dentistry and graduating from dental school at Howard University, Major wanted to specialize in periodontics, the treatment of diseases of the gums. “I wanted to prepare myself clinically for private practice,” and Rutgers provided that. Before Major returned to the Bahamas as a periodontist, anyone needing help had to fly to Florida or wait for a periodontist to fly in.

When Pindling himself wound up in Major’s office for periodontal care, Major told him how he had helped him attend college in America. Pindling “was very proud that his policies and his vision came to pass because I became a product of that vision,” Major says. “And here I am now, treating the former prime minister because he needed my services.” 

Pindling inspired Major to make a contribution in another way—as a member of parliament. “I came into politics to really make a difference,” says Major, who was elected to the governing body in 2012. “In developing countries and the Caribbean, politics have been used to enrich people for narrow interests and to sometimes not look after the interests of the people they were elected to serve.”

Does Major have aspirations to become prime minister himself someday? “Any politician worth his or her  salt wants to be prime minister,” he says. For now, though, he is helping the  people of his country and changing the perception of politicians there. “My main focus,” he says, “is helping people maximize their potential through laws and policies that empower them and deepen our democracy.”