Great Jamaicans in history

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Michael Garfield Smith....

'Born in Kingston, Jamaica, M.G. Smith was always a brilliant scholar. As a schoolboy at Jamaica College, one of the island's leading secondary schools, his schoolmates claimed him as their "intellectual hero." In 1939 at age seventeen, Smith achieved the highest marks of all Higher Schools Certificate candidates in the entire British Empire. More than a student scholar, he later emerged as a published poet of very considerable promise. His scholarly feats earned him the prestigious Jamaica Scholarship, which did not bring him to Bombay as he had wished, but to Canada, where he went to study English Literature at McGill University. Joining the Canadian army during the war, he served briefly on the frontline in Europe, in France, Holland and Germany. Demobilized in London in 1945, he turned from literature to law, which he studied for a year before the fateful switch to anthropology. As his wife Mary reported, Smith found the law "an ass" and not, as he had hoped, about justice. He took to anthropology quickly and anthropology to him. Soon he became a prize student in Daryll Forde's department at University College London, completed his undergraduate work in short order, and after very successful field research in Northern Nigeria, was awarded the Ph.D. in 1951. He subsequently carried out extensive field research in Northern Nigeria, Jamaica, Grenada, and Carriacou. Smith served as the Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Social and Economic Research University of the West Indies (Jamaica); Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles; Senior Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York City; Franklin M. Crosby Professor Emeritus, Human Environment at Yale University; and as Professor and Head of the Department of Anthropology, University College, London.'

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Peter Tosh....

'Tosh began recording and released his solo debut, Legalize It, in 1976 with CBS Records company. The title track soon became popular among endorsers of marijuana legalization, reggae music lovers and Rastafari all over the world, and was a favourite at Tosh's concerts. His second album Equal Rights followed in 1977. Tosh organized a backing band, Word, Sound and Power, who were to accompany him on tour for the next few years, and many of whom performed on his albums of this period. In 1978 the Rolling Stones record label Rolling Stones Records contracted with Tosh, on which the album Bush Doctor was released, introducing Tosh to a larger audience. The album featured Rolling Stones frontmen Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and the lead single – a cover version of The Temptations song "Don't Look Back" – was performed as a duet with Jagger. It made Tosh one of the best-known reggae artists. During Bob Marley's free One Love Peace Concert of 1978, Tosh lit a marijuana spliff and lectured about legalizing cannabis, lambasting attending dignitaries Michael Manley and Edward Seaga for their failure to enact such legislation. Several months later he was apprehended by police as he left Skateland dance hall in Kingston and was beaten severely while in police custody. Mystic Man (1979), and Wanted Dread and Alive (1981) followed, both released on Rolling Stones Records. Tosh tried to gain some mainstream success while keeping his militant views, but was only moderately successful, especially when compared to Marley's achievements. That same year, Tosh appeared in the Rolling Stones' video Waiting on a Friend. In 1984, after the release of 1983's album Mama Africa, Tosh went into self-imposed exile, seeking the spiritual advice of traditional medicine men in Africa, and trying to free himself from recording agreements that distributed his records in South Africa. Tosh had been at odds for several years with his label, EMI, over a perceived lack of promotion for his music. Tosh also participated in the international opposition to South African apartheid by appearing at Anti-Apartheid concerts and by conveying his opinion in various songs like "Apartheid" (1977, re-recorded 1987), "Equal Rights" (1977), "Fight On" (1979), and "Not Gonna Give It Up" (1983). In 1987, Peter Tosh seemed to be having a career revival. He was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Performance in 1987 for No Nuclear War, his last record.'

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Hugh Shearer....

'Shearer was elected to the House of Representatives of Jamaica as member for Western Kingston in 1955, an office he retained for the next four years until he was defeated in the 1959 elections. He was a member of the Senate from 1962 to 1967, at the same time filling the role of Jamaica's chief spokesman on foreign affairs as Deputy Chief of Mission at the United Nations. In 1967 he was elected as member for Southern Clarendon and, after the death of Sir Donald Sangster, appointed Prime Minister on 11 April 1967. Thanks to his work with the Jamaican Worker earlier in his life, Shearer managed to stay on generally good terms with the Jamaican working class, and was generally well liked by the populace. However, he did cause an outcry of anger in October 1968 when his government banned the historian, Walter Rodney from re-entering the country. On 16 October a series of riots, known as the Rodney Riots broke out, after peaceful protest by students from the University of the West Indies campus at Mona, was suppressed by police; rioting spreading throughout Kingston. Shearer stood by the ban claiming that Rodney was a danger to Jamaica, citing his socialist ties, trips to Cuba and the USSR, as well as his radical Black nationalism. Shearer was generally uncomfortable with notions of pan-Africanism or militant black nationalism. He was also insecure about the stability of newly independent Jamaica in the late 1960s. His term as Prime Minister was a prosperous one for Jamaica, with three new alumina refineries were built, along with three large tourist resorts. These six buildings formed the basis of Jamaica's mining and tourism industries, the two biggest earners for the country. Shearer's term was also marked by a great upswing in secondary school enrolment after an intense education campaign on his part. Fifty new schools were constructed. It was by pressure from Shearer that the Law of the Sea Authority chose Kingston to house its headquarters. In the 1972 elections, the JLP was defeated and the People's National Party leader, Michael Manley, became Prime Minister. Between 1980 and 1989, during the prime ministership of Edward Seaga, who had succeeded him as leader of the JLP in 1974, Shearer was deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.'

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Dudley Thompson....

'Born in Panama, to Daniel and Ruby Thompson, he was raised in Westmoreland, Jamaica, where he was a student at The Mico (now Mico University College) in the 1930s. After a short period as headmaster of a rural school, he joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War - one of Britain's first black pilots - and saw active service (1941-5) as a flight lieutenant in RAF Bomber Command over Europe, being awarded several decorations. Thompson married Genevieve Hannah Cezair in 1945; they had a son and two daughters. In 1946, he went to England to attend Merton College, Oxford, where he studied jurisprudence, as a Rhodes Scholar, obtaining degrees as a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Civil Law. From his university days he was a close associate of pan-Africanists such as Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore and C.L.R. James. After qualifying as a barrister at Gray's Inn in the early 1950s, and doing tutelage with Dingle Foot, QC, Thompson went on to practise law in Africa - in Tanganyika and Kenya, where he became involved in the nationalist movements. He assembled the international legal team that defended Jomo Kenyatta in his trial after he had been seized by the British colonialists in 1952 and subsequently charged with treason, accused of being an instigator of the Mau Mau rebellion. Later as President of Kenya, Kenyatta memorably placed his hand on Thompson sitting beside him and said: "This man saved my life." In Tanzania, where he was a friend of Julius Nyerere, Thompson is remembered as a founder of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). In 1955 he returned to Jamaica, and continued to educate people about furthering the links between Africa and the Caribbean, visiting schools to deliver inspirational addresses about the continent (Jamaica-born writer Lindsay Barrett was inspired to decide to live in Africa by one such visit that Thompson paid to his school, Clarendon College, in 1957). He practised law in Trinidad, Barbados, St. Kitts, Dominica, Bermuda, Grenada, The Bahamas, Belize and elsewhere in the West Indies, playing a role in the independence movements of both Belize and the Bahamas. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1963. He served as a member of the Jamaican Senate from 1962 to 1978, and a member of the House of Representatives from 1978 to 1983. In the People's National Party (PNP) administration under Prime Minister Michael Manley, he was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1972-7), Minister of Mining and Natural Resources (1977-8), and Minister of National Security and Justice (1978–80). He was also a vice-president and later chairman of the PNP.'

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Dub poet Mikey Smith....

'Smith was educated at Kingston College and the St George's College Extension School. He also studied at the Jamaican School of Drama with Jean "Binta" Breeze and Oku Onuora. Linton Kwesi Johnson released some of Smith’s work on his LKJ label. Smith appeared on the BBC television series Ebony and the BBC also broadcast a documentary based on his association with Johnson. "Mi Cyaan Believe It" is most remembered for Smith’s heartfelt phrase: "Laaawwwd - mi cyaan believe it - mi seh - mi cyaan believe it." In 1982, Smith released his debut album and performed extensively in Europe supporting such acts as Gregory Isaacs. He recorded a session for John Peel, which was broadcast by the BBC on 4 May 1982. He continued to work as a social worker representing prisoners in Gun Court. His outspoken commentary on the "isms and schisms of ‘politricks"’ in Jamaica led to his life being cut short. Linton Kwesi Johnson, during a presentation on Smith’s life and work at the second Caribbean Conference on Culture at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, had the following to say: "The late Jamaican poet, Michael Smith, was to my mind one of the most interesting and original poetic voices to emerge from the English-speaking Caribbean during the last quarter of the 20th century." Johnson, who produced Smith's first and only album in London, also wrote the following in an article for the Jamaica Observer: "In 1978, Michael Smith represented Jamaica at the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba. That year saw the release of his first recording, a single titled, 'Word', followed by perhaps his most famous piece 'Mi Cyaan Believe It' and 'Roots'." In 1981, Smith performed in Barbados during CARIFESTA and was filmed by BBC Television performing "Mi Cyaan Believe It" for the documentary From Brixton To Barbados. In 1982, Smith took London by storm with performances at the Camden Centre for the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books, and also at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton for "Creation for Liberation". While in Britain, together with Oku Onoura, Smith also did a successful poetry tour and recorded the Mi Cyaan Believe It album for Island Records.'

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'Mais published more than a hundred short stories, most appearing in Public Opinion and Focus. Other stories are collected in Face and Other Stories and And Most of All Man, published in the 1940s. Mais' play, George William Gordon, was also published in the 1940s, focusing on a politician and martyr of the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. It played an important role in the rehabilitation of the eponymous character. In conventional colonial history Gordon was described as a rebel and traitor, but on the centenary of the rebellion, he was declared to be a Jamaican National Hero. On 11 July 1944, Roger Mais published, "Now we Know", a stinging denunciation of British colonialism in Public Opinion, in which he explained that it was now clear that World War 2 was not a fight for freedom but a war to preserve imperial privilege and exploitation:

"That the sun may never set upon privilege, repression and exploitation and upon the insolence and arrogance of one race to all others ...That the sun may never set upon the great British tradition of Democracy which chains men and women and little children with more than physical chains, chains of ignorance and the apathy of the underfed, and the submissiveness, which is a spiritual sickness in the thews and sinews of a man; chains them in dungeons of gold mines and silver mines and diamond mines, and upon sugar plantations, and upon rubber plantations and tea plantations. For the great idea of Democracy which relegates all “n*****s” of whichever race, to their proper place in the scheme of political economy"

For writing this denunciation of Churchill's declaration that the end of World War 2 would not mean the end of the British Empire, the Jamaican novelist was tried for sedition and imprisoned for six months. This period was instrumental in his development of his first novel, The Hills Were Joyful Together (1953), a work about working-class life in 1940s Kingston. "Why I Love and Leave Jamaica", an article written in 1950, also stirred emotions in readers. It characterized the bourgeoisie and the "philistines" as shallow and criticized their influential role on art and culture. In addition, Mais wrote more than thirty stage and radio plays. The plays Masks and Paper Hats and Hurricane were performed in 1943, Atlanta in Calydon in 1950; The Potter's Field was published in Public Opinion (1950), and The First Sacrifice in Focus (1956). Mais left Jamaica for England in 1952. He lived in London, then in Paris, and for a time in the south of France. He took an alias, Kingsley Croft, and showcased an art exhibition in Paris. His artwork also appeared on the covers of his novels. In 1953, his novel The Hills Were Joyful Together was published by Jonathan Cape in London. Soon afterwards, Brother Man (1954) was published, a sympathetic exploration of the emergent Rastafarian movement. The next year Black Lightning was published. While Mais' first two novels had urban settings, Black Lightning (1955) featured an artist living in the countryside. In 1955 Mais was forced to return to Jamaica after falling ill with cancer; he died that same year in Kingston at the age of 50. In 1968 he was posthumously awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal by the Institute of Jamaica. His short stories were collected in a volume entitled Listen, The Wind, thirty-two years after his death. Mais' novels have been republished posthumously several times, an indication of his continuing importance to Caribbean literary history. He also had an influence on younger writers of the pre-independence period, notably John Hearne. Many of Mais' manuscripts have been deposited in the library of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.'

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Another outstanding novelist, Anthony Winkler....

'Winkler's literature has been published and sold all over the world. More famous for his novels and two screenplays, he has also contributed to a number of post-secondary English textbooks for almost four decades. Writing textbooks has been his full-time job, writing fiction has been his second job. Along with the series of novels that Winkler published throughout his career, there are also a few autobiographical works, but none more important than Going Home to Teach. This book is about the experiences Anthony and his wife, Cathy, share when returning to Jamaica to work at a teacher trainer college in 1975. Winkler wrote a number of novels, though his very first — called The Painted Canoe — took more than 10 years to get published. His next book, The Lunatic, was published in 1987, just a year after his first novel. The Lunatic received great success, propelling the book to be adapted into a movie in 1991. In 2004, Winkler published a collection of short stories, The Annihilation of Fish and Other Stories, from which the story "The Annihilation of Fish" was made into a film starring James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave and Margot Kidder. Winkler also wrote two plays: The Burglar, produced at the Little Theatre in May 2003 had a Canadian premier in Toronto in 2005 with the help of fellow Jamaican Paul Harrington-Smith, as well as in Kingston with the help of another good friend Maxine Walters, and The Hippopotamus Card in 2004. Winkler's last novel was The Family Mansion, about Europe's colonisation of Jamaica that he started in his previous novel God Carlos, which won the Townsend Prize for Fiction. In 2014 he was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica for his contribution to literature.'

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'Herbert George de Lisser CMG (9 December 1878 – 19 May 1944) was a Jamaican journalist and author. He has been called "one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of West Indian literature". De Lisser was born in Falmouth, Jamaica, to parents who were of Afro-Jewish descent, and attended William Morrison's Collegiate School in Kingston. He started work at the Institute of Jamaica at the age of 14. Three years later he joined the Jamaica Daily Gleaner, of which his father was editor, as a proofreader, and two years later became a reporter on the Jamaica Times. In 1903, De Lisser became assistant editor of the Gleaner and was editor within the year. He wrote several articles for the paper every day. In 1909 he published a collection of essays, In Cuba and Jamaica, and 1912 saw the publication of his second book, Twentieth Century Jamaica. He went on to produce a novel or non-fiction book every year. His first work of fiction, Jane: A Story of Jamaica, is significant for being the first West Indian novel to have a central black character. Another famous novel of his, The White Witch of Rosehall (1929), is linked to a legend of a haunting in Jamaica. De Lisser also wrote several plays. In December 1920 he began publishing an annual magazine, Planters' Punch. De Lisser devoted much time and effort to the revival of the Jamaican sugar industry and represented Jamaica at a number of sugar conferences around the world. He was also general secretary of the Jamaica Imperial Association, honorary president of the Jamaica Press Association, and chairman of the West Indian section of the Empire Press Union. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours.'

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'Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD (1 February 1957 – 1 July 1999) was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a subgenre of reggae. Bob Marley cited Brown as his favourite singer,[1] dubbing him "The Crown Prince of Reggae", and Brown would prove influential on future generations of reggae singers.'

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Alexander Bedward....

'After spending time in Panama, he returned to Jamaica and was baptized by a local Baptist preacher. He became not merely leader of a Revival branch but of a new movement, the Bedwardites, with affiliated groups all over Jamaica and in Panama. In the 1880 he started to gather large groups of followers by conducting mass healings services. He identified himself with Paul Bogle, the Baptist leader of the Morant Bay rebellion. In this connection he stressed for changes and developments in the race relations in Jamaican society. He supposedly said ”There is a white wall and a black wall. And the white wall has been closing around the black wall: but now the black wall has become bigger than the white.” Bedward was arrested for sedition but sent to a mental asylum. On release he continued his role as a Revival healer and preacher. He stressed his followers to be self-sufficient and at its height the movement gathered about 30,000 followers. He told his followers to sell their possessions including owned land and give him all the profits. Some of these followers did just that. On one occasion, he told his followers that they all would fly back to Africa, however to do so they had to climb up into a breadfruit tree in August Town while wearing bed sheets for the liftoff. However, they told him to go first and it resulted in him breaking his legs where he was submitted to the university hospital of the West Indies. He led his followers into Garveyism by finding the charismatic metaphor: Bedward and Garvey were as Aaron and Moses, one the high priest, the other prophet, both leading the children of Israel out of exile. Garvey's middle name was considered by people to be a mix of the two names Moses and Messiah. Later Bedward proclaimed that he was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and that, like Elijah, he would ascend into heaven in a flaming chariot. He then expected to rain down fire on those that did not follow him, thereby destroying the whole world. In 1921 he and 800 followers marched in to Kingston “to do battle with his enemies.” This however didn’t result in him flying to heaven. Bedward and his followers were arrested and he was sent to mental asylum for the second time where he remained to the end of his life. His impact was that many of his followers became Garveyites and Rastafarians, bringing with them the experience of resisting the system and demanding changes of the colonial oppression and the white oppression. Rastafari has taken the idea of Garvey as a prophet, while also casting him in the role of John the Baptist, by virtue of his "voice in the wilderness" call taken as heralding their expected Messiah, "Look to Africa where a black king shall be crowned."'

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