‘A token gesture from the community’

There is growing consensus for Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey to be recognised in her own right for the job she did alongside her husband – and long after his death – in raising awareness among people of African descent about their heritage and as a pioneer Pan-African.

Jacques Garvey was the second wife of National Hero Marcus Garvey, marrying the activist in July 1922. Garvey died in England in 1940 and Jacques Garvey died 33 years later in Kingston.

Last Saturday, on 126th anniversary of her birth, the community centre at 15A Jacques Road in St Andrew was renamed the Amy Jacques Garvey Community Centre. It was built in the 1980s on land which was owned by Colonel John Jacques, her great-great-grandfather.

During the ceremony at the centre, which is adorned by murals bearing images of the Garveys done by local artist Jimmy Stewart, residents spoke passionately of the awareness brought to them about Amy Jacques Garvey under an initiative led by Charles ‘Big Stone’ Sinclair.

“She is a great woman, but has not been so acknowledged, so this is just a token gesture from the community,” Wallace Swaby declared. “What we want to do is use this event to jump-start a national conversation that we think should culminate in Amy being properly acknowledged and recognised for her work.”

Everton Douglas, a member of the planning committee, admitted that it was only recently that he and other residents realised that “our community is of some importance, being the birthplace of Amy Jacques Garvey. We realise now that we can live or need to continue to live right in this community that is of importance to the Pan-African movement to our race, to our country and to women all over the world”.

Meanwhile, Sinclair is intent on seeing that Jacques Garvey is acknowledged for her pivotal work in world history.

“She died 49 years ago and the memory of her sterling contribution, first in supporting her husband and then preserving his legacy and keeping the flame of his vision of igniting racial pride among people of African heritage, has been swept under the carpet. This woman is too powerful ... not to be recognised,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, St Andrew South Western Member of Parliament Dr Angela Brown Burke read a message from Dr Julius Garvey, who, along with his older brother, Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr, and mother returned to Jamaica to live after the death of his father in 1940.

The message offered some insight into Julius’ childhood days living in the community.

Dr Garvey recalled that when he was seven years old, they lived first at 53 Mountain View Avenue, the home of his uncle Cleveland Jacques, but the family also owned a property at Jacques Road and they spent many leisure hours enjoying cricket, football, shooting birds, and climbing Wareika Hill. They also went swimming at the Barnett and Bournemouth beaches, and later, Marcus Jr went to Calabar High and he to Wolmer’s Boys’ School.

“We were happy, active with not a care in the world. I spent my teenage years at two and a half Jacques Road, where my mother built her home. It was a wonderful community. Nobody locked doors, there was the occasional fist fight and, indeed, it took a village to raise this child and other children. We have all grown up and scattered – some in Canada, England and here in the USA, some have passed – [but] none went astray,” Dr Garvey recalled in this message.

“I wish you the best for your community centre in the coming years. May it do for you what my community did for me, growing up on Jacques Road. Every young person was a friend, every adult was like an uncle or an aunt. There was love and support everywhere and discipline, too. How could you go astray? I expect you all to be a credit to the Amy Jacques Community Centre,” he added

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com