Marion Bethel

Marion Bethel (born 31 July 1953) is a Bahamian attorney, poet, essayist, filmmaker, human and gender rights activist, and writer.

Bethel is best known for her collections of poems, Guanahani, My Love and Bougainvillea Ringplay. Her work has appeared in publications including The Caribbean Writer, The Massachusetts Review and Junction, an anthology of Bahamian writing.

She resides with her husband Alfred Sears in The Bahamas, where she is a managing partner at Sears & Co.

In 2025 she was elected to serve as a commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Following the death of Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder and civil rights pioneer Evelyn Lowery, Bethel's film Womanish Ways: Freedom, Human Rights & Democracy 1934 to 1962 was showcased at Spelman College and she met some of Atlanta's most influential African-American entrepreneurs and activists, in addition to former vice-president of Tyler Perry Studios and CEO/President of Bobbcat Films Rogger Bobb. Her passion for the Women's Movement in the Caribbean and The Bahamas became evident from this movie and she received widespread support from many African, European, and Asian countries. She currently works as a managing partner at Sears & Co. and she was working on a third collection of poetry and a novel.

Writing Before finishing her bar examinations, Bethel spent a full summer writing a draft of Guanahani, My Love, her first book of poems, published in 1994, and later to be reissued by House of Nehesi Publishers in 2009. Her second poetry book, Bougainvillea Ringplay, was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2009, receiving positive review coverage, including from Fred D'Aguiar, Lorna Goodison, Antjie Krog, and Olive Senior.

Films Bethel acted as Ms. Wells in the 2008 movie Rain – which also featured Renel Brown, Nicki Micheaux and C. C. H. Pounder – and is better known for the documentary film she directed on the women's suffrage movement in The Bahamas. Entitled Womanish Ways: Freedom, Human Rights & Democracy, the Women's Suffrage Movement in The Bahamas 1934 to 1962, this documentary was showcased by Bahamas Consulate Office of Atlanta at Spelman College after the death of Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder and civil rights pioneer Evelyn Lowery. which received the 2012 Award in Documentary at the Urban Suburban International Film Festival in Philadelphia, despite interventions on behalf of female members of parliament Hope Strachan and Loretta Butler. However, representative for Englerston Glenys Hanna Martin states that Bethel's documentary was a "beautiful, powerful piece of work".

Bethel was elected a commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in June 2025 by the General Assembly of the Organisation of American States. Her three-year term started in 2026.