The party's founders included: Cassius Stuart, Howard R. Johnson, Dario Roberts, George Carey and a number of then-students of the College of the Bahamas.

Within a year of the party's formation, Johnson, Carey, Roberts and others left the BDM, citing methodological differences with Stuart as the primary reason for their departure.

Ironically, the BDM's Mace Incident was strikingly similar to an event of important political significance in Bahamian history known as Black Tuesday.

On that particular day, 15 April 1965, then-leader of the opposition and former Prime Minister, Sir Lynden Pindling threw the Mace out of the House of Assembly window in protest against the unfair gerrymandering of constituency boundaries of the then United Bahamian Party (UBP) government.

[citation needed] On 24 March 2005, Stuart and Smith again dominated the national news when they briefly prevented Prime Minister Perry Christie from accessing the House of Assembly.

Stuart contested the Bamboo town Seat for the Free National Movement but fell short by 340 votes of a win over Renward Wells.