Folks from across the globe occasionally come and visit Jamaica, the land of wood and water. What do you love about Jamaica? Here is a video highlighting what our fellow citizens love about the island: (https://www.facebook.com/winston.steele.12/videos/2074001189282305/)

According to the Jamaica Information Service (JIS): “The Honourable Olivia Grange, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport says she is very excited by the prospect of an Ice Arena being established in Jamaica for the sport of Ice Hockey to be played locally.”

The picture above showcases the following key stakeholders in the project: The Honourable Olivia Grange, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport prepares to poke the puck away from Greame Townsend, National Hockey Coach (2nd left) as it is being released by Donovan Tait, hockey player and coach (left). Looking on in anticipation are: Dorothy McLeod, Director, California Cultural Alliance (3rd left); founding members of the Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation Judith Smith (4th left) and Lester Griffin (right). The Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation and representatives from Tropical Ice Ventures of Canada paid a Courtesy Call on the Minister today (December 1) at her offices in Kingston.

Read more here.

Here are a few reference articles providing additional information:

• https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/08/23/hockey_players_lace_up_for_a_shot_at_team_jamaica.html
• http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/ice-hockey-delegation-here-this-week_118322?profile=1511
• http://www.newslocker.com/en-in/sport/ice-hockey/ice-hockey-delegation-here-this-week-jamaica-observer/

Members of the Jamaica Hockey U20 team will be participating in two playoffs in Ontario, Canada in an effort to exposed marginalized community to the historic game.

More interesting details maybe found on the Canada’s CBC Radio Canada Website (Click here for details)

Here are twenty four facts about Jamaica you might not have known about Jamaica..

These facts ranges from religion, sports, history, agriculture to technology.
Checkout out the details on ILoveJamaica.com (http://ilovejamaicans.com/24-interesting-facts-about-jamaica-most-people-dont-know)

John Brown Russwurm was an American abolitionist who was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica to an English father and an enslaved mother.

By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Feb. 3, 2017: When Black History Month is discussed, West Indian blacks who have made a significant contribution to the United States’ black history are rarely ever acknowledged. Yet their contribution remains inedible. Here are five Jamaican immigrants – beyond Marcus Garvey – who U.S. Black History has all but forgotten:

John Brown Russwurm

John Brown Russwurm was an American abolitionist who was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica to an English father and an enslaved mother. As a child he traveled to the United States with his father and received a formal education, becoming the first African American to graduate from Bowdoin College and third African American to graduate from an American college. As a young man, Russwurm moved from Portland, Maine, to New York City, where he was a founder with Samuel Cornish of the abolitionist newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, the first paper owned and operated by African Americans. Russwurm became supportive of the American Colonization Society’s efforts to develop a colony for African Americans in Africa, and he moved in 1829 to what became Liberia. In 1836 Russwurm was selected as governor of Maryland in Africa, a small colony set up nearby by the Maryland State Colonization Society. He served there until his death in 1851. The colony was annexed to Liberia in 1857.

W. A. Domingo.

Wilfred Adolphus Domingo was born in Kingston, Jamaica and became an activist and journalist and the youngest editor of Marcus Garvey’s newspaper the Negro World. As an activist and writer, Domingo travelled to the United States advocating for Jamaican sovereignty as a leader of the Black Brotherhood and the Harlem Socialist party. Through this role, he gained the attention of Alain Locke during the Harlem Renaissance. Domingo was a contributor to Locke’s anthology The New Negro. Domingo’s essay “The Gift of the Black Tropics” gave an account of the sudden immigration of foreign-born Africans of the West Indies to Harlem during the early 1920s.

Claude McKay
Clarendon-born Festus Claudius McKay, who later became known as Claude McKay, first wrote poems primarily in the Jamaican dialect but switched to Standard English forms after moving to the United States in 1912 to attend Tuskegee University. His militant sonnet “If We Must Die” was first published in 1919 during a period of intense racial violence. The poem noted for its revolutionary tone became popular among African American readers and is considered a landmark of Harlem Renaissance. McKay became involved with a group of black radicals who were unhappy both with Marcus Garvey’s nationalism and the middle-class reformist NAACP. These included other Caribbean writers such as Cyril Briggs, Richard B. Moore, and Wilfrid Domingo. They fought for black self-determination within the context of socialist revolution. Together they founded the semi-secret revolutionary organization, the African Blood Brotherhood. His 1928 novel Home to Harlem became a best-seller and won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. The following year his novel Banjo was published which was hailed as a radical work that envisioned the black political identity in a global framework. McKay was among the most famous writers of the Harlem Renaissance and an influential figure of the movement.

Joel Augustus Rogers
Joel Augustus Rogers was a Negril, Jamaica-born author, journalist, and historian who contributed to the history of Africa and the African Diaspora, especially the history of African Americans in the United States. Rogers emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1906, where he settled in Harlem, New York and became a close personal friend of the Harlem-based intellectual and activist Hubert Harrison. Rogers’ first book From “Superman” to Man, self-published in 1917, attacked notions of African inferiority. From “Superman” to Man is a polemic against the ignorance that fuels racism. In the 1920s, Rogers worked as a journalist on the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Enterprise. He was a sub-editor of Marcus Garvey’s short-lived Daily Negro Times. He was one of the greatest popularizers of African history in the 20th century.

Thaddeus Alexander Kitchener

Thaddeus Alexander Kitchener, a Kingston, Jamaica-born immigrant, is believed to be the first black graduate of Suffolk Law School, a private, non-sectarian law school located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated class of 1913. At the time of his admittance to Suffolk, Kitchener, according to the Suffolk University Archives, was employed as a janitor at Simmons College in Boston. Kitchener was an alumnus of Wolmers High School in Jamaica.

Steve Russell
Actor – Author

We Celebrate Black History Month…

“Never be limited by other people’s LIMITED imagination.”
— Dr. Mae Jamison

This week we acknowledge our Head Coach, Graeme Townshend, who continues with his incredible journey to achieve what others would call impossible…

Read More

Jamaica Cultural Alliance 18th Annual Tea Party (2016)

Los Angeles, California, June 20, 2016 – Jamaica Cultural Alliance, a long-standing Los Angeles based cultural organization will hold its 18 the Annual Tea Party at the historical Culver Hotel on Sunday, July 10, 2016.

The organization prides itself on sharing information about Jamaica as well as its connection to other cultures throughout the world. This event will showcase the vocal talent of a recent graduate from USC School of Music, Ms. Ashley Chanel as well as fashions by Ghanaian designer Rosemond R Sagoe and jewelry by Maasai women of the Ongata-Rongai region of Kenya. The event is sponsored by the Jamaica Tourist Board.

JCA has deliberately chosen this site for the event, as Culver City, which like Jamaica has a rich history, is preparing to celebrate its centennial year. The year-long celebration begins on September 20, 2016 and will conclude on September 20, 2017 – which marks the 100 year anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Culver City.

Jamaica Cultural Alliance is a Los Angeles based non-profit organization with the objective of expanding and enriching knowledge and awareness of Jamaican culture, history and heritage as well as its connection to Los Angeles, the United States and the world at large. For further information please visit >www.jamaicaculture.com or call (323) 692-0423.

Dorothy McLeod
(323) 692-0423
jca@jamaicaculture.org
www.jamaicaculture.org