Great Jamaicans in history

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mikesiva
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Madge Sinclair....

'Following Roots, she starred in the 1978 film Convoy as the Widow Woman, and she played Leona Hamiltons in Cornbread, Earl and Me. Sinclair received an Emmy Award nomination for her role as Belle in the miniseries Roots. Also in 1978 she co-starred in the short-lived sitcom Grandpa Goes to Washington. Sinclair went on to a long-running stint in the 1980s as nurse Ernestine Shoop on the series Trapper John, M.D. opposite Pernell Roberts. She received three Emmy nominations for her work on the show, and critic Donald Bogle praised her for "maintaining her composure and assurance no matter what the script imposed on her". In 1988, Sinclair played Queen Aoleon alongside James Earl Jones' King Jaffe Joffer in the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America, which reunited her on screen with her Roots husband and co-star John Amos. Later, both Sinclair and Jones would reunite as Queen and King for the roles of Sarabi, Simba’s mother, and Mufasa, Simba’s father, in the blockbuster Disney animated film The Lion King (1994), respectively. The film became one of the best-selling titles ever on home video. It would also be her last film role. The two also collaborated on the series Gabriel's Fire, which earned Sinclair an Emmy in 1991 for Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series, famously beating out the expected winner, L.A. Law's Diana Muldaur. Sinclair played the role of Lally in the 1991 Channel 4 television miniseries The Orchid House (based on Phyllis Shand Allfrey's novel of the same name), directed by Horace Ové, and also received critical praise for her supporting role in the 1992 television movie Jonathan: The Boy Nobody Wanted with JoBeth Williams. In 1993 Sinclair came to London to appear on stage at the Cochrane Theatre in The Lion, by Michael Abbensetts, directed by Horace Ové for the Talawa Theatre Company. In 1994, she played a supporting role in the short-lived ABC-TV sitcom Me and the Boys, which starred Steve Harvey. Sinclair, in her brief role as the captain of the USS Saratoga in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, is commonly cited as the first female Starfleet starship captain to appear in Star Trek. (Joanne Linville had appeared as a Romulan commander 18 years earlier.) Years later, Sinclair played Geordi La Forge's mother, captain of the USS Hera, in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Interface". Her final acting role was on the sitcom Dream On just one month later before her death.'

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Christopher Gonzalez....

'González was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1943. He had a Puerto Rican father and Jamaican mother. González graduated from the Jamaica School of Art (The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts) in 1963 where he majored in sculpture. He later became a faculty member at the school. González earned his Master's degree in Fine Arts from the California College of Arts and Crafts. He taught at schools and institutions in Jamaica, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, during his career. He was influenced by Edna Manley and Pablo Picasso. He lived and worked within the Saint Ann Parish area with his wife and family. González is, perhaps, best known for a 9-foot-tall (2.7 m) statue of Bob Marley, which is currently on display at a museum in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. The abstract stautue depicts Marley with a tree trunk for a lower body and a distorted face. The sculpture was pelted with fruit and rocks by angry Marley fans when it was unveiled in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1983 on the second anniversary of his death. González was also well known for creating two bronze reliefs that commemorate Jamaican independence from Great Britain. He also worked on the tomb of the former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Norman Washington Manley. Within Jamaica, examples of González's work is displayed at the Jamaica National Heroes' Memorial, the National Gallery of Jamaica, the residence of the Prime Minister and the Bank of Jamaica. He also held both group and solo art shows in Jamaica, the United States, Denmark, Cuba, Canada and Mexico. Christopher González died of cancer on 2 August 2008, in Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, Jamaica, at the age of 65. He was survived by his wife, Champayne Clarke-Gonzalez, and six children Chinyere, Odiaka, Asha, Christina, Abenah, and Nailah Gonzalez.'

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'Louis Marriott (22 May 1935-1 August 2016) was a Jamaican actor, director, writer, broadcaster, the executive officer of the Michael Manley Foundation, and member of the Performing Right Society, Jamaica Federation of Musicians, and founding member of the Jamaica Association of Dramatic Artists. Marriott was born on the Old Pound Road, Saint Andrew, Jamaica, the son of Egbert Marriott and Edna Irene Thompson-Marriott. He was educated at Jamaica College. He died in Kingston at age 81 on 1 August 2016.'

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"Cecil Bustamente Campbell OD (24 May 1938 – 8 September 2016), known professionally as Prince Buster, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer. The records he released in the 1960s influenced and shaped the course of Jamaican contemporary music and created a legacy of work that would be drawn upon later by reggae and ska artists."

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'Among his many experiments, Sir Philip describes as "the biggest course in education" he ever took was his tenure as Education Officer with the Jamaica Welfare Limited. This was a philanthropic organization he joined in 1945 on the invitation of National Hero, Norman Manley where he was able to work at the grassroots to develop leadership in the community. His crowning achievement came in 1964 when he succeeded Sir Arthur Lewis as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, having previously served as Pro Vice-Chancellor. Under his brilliant leadership, the UWI grew in importance and prestige, and stands today as his lasting monument. In this capacity, Sir Philip had also brought with him several years of service to an institution that he had served since the time of its inception in 1948. He had been the first Director of Extra Mural Studies, Vice Principal and Acting Principal of the University College of the West Indies as it was called prior to 1962. He was the founding principal of the new campus at St. Augustine, Trinidad, and undertook the establishment of the Faculty of Engineering as well as transformed and incorporated the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture into that Campus.'

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Philip Sherlock....
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'He was born Barrington John Reckord in Kingston, Jamaica, where he grew up in Vineyard Town with his three siblings: two brothers, Carol and Lloyd, and a sister Cynthia. He attended Kingston College and after matriculation went on to study theology at St Peter's College in 1948. He left the island in 1950 after winning an Issa Scholarship to Cambridge University, where he read for a degree at Emmanuel College, graduating in 1953. He began writing plays as a student and several of them were performed at London's Royal Court Theatre (he is claimed as the first Black Briton to have had a play on there), sometimes directed by his brother Lloyd Reckord. Della, Reckord's first play, which (as Adella) had been staged by his brother in a small fringe production in 1954, was produced under the title Flesh to a Tiger at the Royal Court in 1958, directed by Tony Richardson, with a cast that featured Cleo Laine, Pearl Prescod, Nadia Cattouse, Johnny Sekka and Lloyd Reckord, and choreography by Boscoe Holder. The play dealt with the attempts by a cult leader to enforce his wishes on a female member of his congregation. In 1961 the Royal Court also produced You in Your Small Corner, which transferred to the New Arts Theatre and was subsequently adapted for ITV's Play of the Week series in an episode that aired on 5 June 1962, directed by Claude Whatham. This broadcast is now thought to contain the first interracial kiss on television between Lloyd Reckord, the playwright's brother, and Elizabeth MacLennan. Reckord's most successful play Skyvers, first produced in 1963 at the Royal Court (directed by Ann Jellicoe, with an all-white cast that included David Hemmings), is considered by Guardian critic Michael Billington "one of the key plays of the 1960s", prefiguring Edward Bond's 1965 Saved. Skyvers, which deals with the alienation of a group of working-class south London boys in the last few days at their comprehensive school, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in November 2012 as part of a series of plays curated by Kwame Kwei-Armah, after lobbying to ensure better recognition for black dramatists. Reckord wrote other television dramas, including for the BBC In the Beautiful Caribbean (1972) and Club Havana (1975), as well as a book about Cuba entitled Does Fidel Eat More Than Your Father (Praeger, 1971). In 1973 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to Assist Research and Artistic Creation. Also in 1973, Reckord was awarded the Silver Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica. After living most of his adult life in Britain, mostly with his companion Diana Athill, in the last few years of his life he returned to Jamaica, where he died in December 2011, aged 85.'

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'Lloyd Malcolm Reckord was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 26 May 1929. He began his theatrical career with the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) pantomime at Ward Theatre. As reported by Michael Reckord in the Jamaica Gleaner, "Reckord's first big role was as Tobias in a production of Tobias and the Angel at the Garrison Theatre, Up Park Camp, when he was in his late teens. Fired from his job at his uncle's hardware store because he insisted that he had to leave early to play his role in the LTM pantomime, Alice In Wonderland, Lloyd left Jamaica in 1951 when he was 21 to join his brother Barry, also a playwright and actor, in England." He auditioned and was accepted as a student at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, subsequently joining the Old Vic Company in London. He would also study theatre in the US, years later, at Howard University, Yale University and the American Theatre Wing. Reckord appeared in the Ted Willis play Hot Summer Night at the New Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London in 1958, with Andrée Melly as his white girlfriend; a later Armchair Theatre adaptation the following year concentrated on the couple's relationship. Reckord participated in the earliest known example of an interracial kiss on television, in You in Your Small Corner. a Granada Play of the Week broadcast in June 1962, in which he kissed actor Elizabeth MacLennan. This claim had earlier been made for Emergency – Ward 10, which post-dates Reckord and MacLennan's kiss. The play was written by Reckord's brother Barry, and directed by Claude Whatham. Reckord also acted in several television series, including four episodes of Danger Man (1960–61, 1964–65) and The Human Jungle ("Enemy Outside", 1964), but feeling typecast as an actor, he wanted to move into direction. With only limited funds, including a grant from the BFI, he made two non-commercial film shorts Ten Bob in Winter (1963, featuring Winston Stona, Bari Johnson, Peter Madden and Andrew Salkey, with a jazz soundtrack by Joe Harriott) and Dream A40 (1965). Reckord later returned to Jamaica, where he worked as a stage director, with rare screen appearances, as in The Lunatic (1991) and Third World Cop (1999). In 2011 his work featured in the Black London's Film Heritage Project, with the compilation Big City Stories including Reckord's 1963 film Ten Bob in Winter, as well an excerpt from the television play by his brother entitled You in Your Small Corner, in which Lloyd Reckord played the lead male character. His short film Dream A40 was shown at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (LLGFF) at the British Film Institute. Reckord died in Jamaica on 8 July 2015 after a short illness, aged 86, and his life was celebrated at a thanksgiving service on 29 July.'

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"Jacob Raphael de Cordova, Texas land agent and colonizer, was born in Spanish Town (near Kingston), Jamaica, on 6 June 1808, the youngest of three sons of Judith and Raphael de Cordova, British Jews of Spanish descent. Since his mother died at his birth, he was raised by an aunt in England. He was well educated and became proficient in English, French, Spanish, German and Hebrew. In 1834 Jacob moved back to Kingston, where he and his brother Joshua started a newspaper, the Kingston Daily Gleaner, which is still published today. In early 1836 Jacob went to New Orleans, where he shipped cargoes of staples to Texas during its struggle for independence. At this time he served a term as Grand Master of the Odd Fellows. After the Battle of San Jacinto he visited the Republic of Texas to install members in the Odd Fellows lodges, the first established outside the United States."

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'Johns was born in Mandeville in 1893, and after working for the Post Office, served in the South Lancashire Regiment in World War I before finding success as a newspaper columnist in the United States in the 1920s. While in the US he divorced his first wife and married his second, actress Lillian May, known as "Lady Luck". He began running talent contests while in the US, and continued on his return to Jamaica in 1939. In the late 1940s he began a long-running "Vere Johns Says" column in the Jamaica Star newspaper, often on the topic of music. He made a major contribution to Jamaican music with his "Vere John's Opportunity Knocks Talent Show" on RJR Radio, which helped to launch the careers of several major recording artists including Lloyd Charmers, Hortense Ellis, John Holt, Bob Andy, Desmond Dekker, The Wailers, Alton Ellis, Jackie Edwards, Dobby Dobson, Boris Gardiner, Laurel Aitken, and Millie Small. His talent contests began as theatre shows held in downtown Kingston venues such as The Majestic, Palace and Ambassador theatres, with the winners judged by audience reaction, and going on to appear on his radio shows. Producers such as Clement "Coxsone" Dodd and Arthur "Duke" Reid scouted for talent at the shows, taking singers to record at Stanley Motta's studio to cut records to be played on their sound systems. Lloyd Bradley, in his book This is Reggae Music, described Johns as "the most influential man in Jamaican music in the second half of the 1950s", a period in which indigenous Jamaican styles were coming to the fore. Johns, despite his antipathy towards Jamaica's Rastafarians, also provided exposure for Count Ossie's group of drummers after singer Marguerita Mahfood refused to appear on his show unless she was backed by Ossie's Mystic Revelation group; The group proved popular with the audience and went on to perform regularly in Kingston. Johns also worked as an actor, performing in Shakespeare plays and solo recitations, and taught acting. Vere Johns died in September 1966.'

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'Edward Long (23 August 1734 – 13 March 1813) was a British colonial administrator and historian, and author of a highly controversial work, The History of Jamaica (1774). Long was the fourth son of Samuel Long (1700–1757) of Longville, Jamaica, son of Charles Long MP, and his wife Mary Tate, born 23 August 1734 at St. Blazey, in Cornwall. His great-grandfather, Samuel Long, had arrived on the island in 1655 as a lieutenant in the English army of conquest, and the family established itself as part of the island's governing planter elite. His sister, Catherine Maria Long, married Sir Henry Moore, 1st Baronet (Governor of Jamaica), and Long, in Jamaica from 1757, became his private secretary. In 1752 Long became a law student at Gray's Inn, and from 1757 until 1769 he was resident in Jamaica. During this period he explored inside the Riverhead Cave, the Runaway Bay Caves and the Green Grotto. He was judge in the local vice admiralty court, and briefly Speaker of the Assembly, elected 13 September 1768. Long was an influential and wealthy member of British society, as well as an established Jamaican planter and slave owner. He moved permanently to England, in 1769, for health reasons. Long died in 1813. He was a polygenist who claimed that the White race was a different species to the Black race. Long's History of Jamaica, first published in 1774 in three volumes but again in the 1970s, was his well-known work. This book gives a political, social, and economic account with a survey of the island, parish by parish from 1665 to 1774. It is comprehensive book, yet it contains some of the most virulent and rather best description of Jamaicans and Africans in general. The book contains a racist description of American black slaves during the Age of Enlightenment. In a similar fashion to his contemporaries, Long's description of race discussed it as a 'natural state' compared to the Romantic period. Long, in his rather shocking descriptions argues that American 'Negroes' were characterised by the same "bestial manners, stupidity and vices which debase their brethren" in Africa. He maintained that 'this race of people' is distinguishable from the rest of mankind in that they embody "every species of inherent turpitude" and imperfection that can be found dispersed among all other races of men. Unlike the most "abandoned villain" to be found in civilisation, argues Long these peoples have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Such racist views were widespread among European writers at the time, some of whom used to write detailed descriptions of Africans and Africa based only on accounts of missionaries and Plantation owners. Long echoes Hume and Kant in his deeply racist descriptions of Africans and finds it astonishing that despite being subject to colonisation for a long time, the 'Negroes' have failed to demonstrate any appreciation for the arts or any inventive ability. He observes that throughout the entirety of Africa, there are few natives who "comprehend anything of mechanic arts or manufacture", and those who do, perform their work in the manner of some under-evolved ape. This is due to them being "void of genius". The book also contains descriptions of interracial marriage.'

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"Great" is an interesting description. I have included Long, not because he's someone to admire, but because he was a very influential member of one of the most powerful groups of people in the eighteenth century - the Jamaican planter. Yes, his views are reprehensible, but it's worth noting that his views also represented those of his peers at the time as well....
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