Remembering TCI’s National Hero: JAGS McCartney Day 2024
by Karen Rollins May 6, 2024
On 29 May, Turks and Caicos will celebrate the life of its only named national hero, James Alexander George Smith (JAGS) McCartney.
Members of the McCartney family, civil leaders, and politicians are expected to gather at the JAGS McCartney Mausoleum on Old Airport Road, Grand Turk for a ceremony which will include the laying of a wreath.
At the event in 2022, TCI’s Premier Charles Washington Misick, described Mr McCartney as “an idealist at heart.”
In a speech entitled ‘Rebuilding the dream, a unified nation’, Mr Misick stated: “At a time when the Turks and Caicos was a largely undiscovered ‘backwater town’ constrained by a colonial mindset, McCartney had a big vision for constitutional reform that would be inclusive of the rights of all Turks and Caicos Islanders…
“JAGS was not only a visionary who dreamed big, he was a consensus builder – a unifying force for good.”
Mr McCartney was elected as TCI’s first chief minister at the age of 31 in 1976. He tragically died in a plane crash on 9 May 1980.
