Black (Green and Gold) History Month

by Din Duggan

I barely made it. If 2012 wasn't a leap year, I would have missed the opportunity to write a timely column on this subject. But today - the 29th and last day of February - is as good a day as any to remind you, for the 479th time, that it was a black man who invented the almanac, the air-conditioning unit, and cake soap. Okay, maybe not cake soap. And even if he were black, had he followed deejay Vybz Kartel, the inventor might not have stayed black for much longer.

I've often heard bemused African-Americans ask why February - the shortest month of the year - was given to them to celebrate black history. The facetious answer is: because you're black, of course. In reality, though, the remembrance goes back to 1926, when historian Carter Woodson created Negro History Week, the second week in February. Woodson chose that week because it contained the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass - two men pivotal in ending slavery in America.

A Jamaican in New York

What's the point? This isn't the African-American Gleaner. And despite the influx of imports that have helped propel our trade deficit with America from US$300 million 20 years ago to US$1.3 billion today, we are (at least, most of us) still in Jamaica. Nonetheless, the Jamaican experience is indelibly linked to the African-American experience. Our contribution to African-American society and culture is unquantifiable.

By the time 1980s crossover reggae artiste Shinehead chanted "I'm a Jamaican in New York", much of America had long been introduced to our bold, brash people. From the early 20th century, Jamaica's first national hero, Marcus Garvey, urged blacks to repatriate to Africa. Claude McKay, Jamaica's first poet laureate, was a seminal figure in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance.

A wave of Jamaican immigrants helped fill America's swollen labour demands during both World Wars. Beginning in the 1960s, America became our favoured immigration destination. Today, more than a million Jamaicans live in the US. The black, green, and gold is an integral part of the red, white and blue.

Bob to Busta

Before Bob Marley became a global icon, he worked as an assistant on a Chrysler assembly line in Wilmington, Delaware. Clive Campbell, better known as Deejay Kool Herc, is widely acknowledged as the creator of hip hop, having brought his breakbeats and catchy rhymes from Kingston to the Bronx. Twenty years after Herc created rap, a child of Jamaicans, Christopher Wallace, better known as Notorious B.I.G., perfected it - becoming, perhaps, the most acclaimed rapper of all time.

From Bob to Biggie, Busta Rhymes to Harry Belafonte, Jamaicans have profoundly influenced American music. Artistes from the old school - Slick Rick, Kid from '80s duo Kid n Play, the late Heavy D, and Pepa from Salt-N-Pepa - to the new school - songbird Alicia Keys; pop stars will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas) and Sean Kingston - all trace their roots to Jamaica. Diamond recording artiste Shaggy even served in the US armed forces during Operation Desert Storm.

NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing is a Jamaican-American, as are models Tyson Beckford and Naomi Campbell. But our contribution extends well beyond entertainment.

Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell counts his mother, a Jamaican psychotherapist, as his greatest influence. America's first black secretary of state, Colin Powell, is the son of Jamaicans, as is David Paterson, New York's first black governor. And while actor Dule Hill, a Jamaican, may have served a fictional president on NBC's hit show The West Wing, in real life, President Barack Obama is represented at the United Nations by Ambassador Susan Rice, the granddaughter of Jamaicans.

Interwoven in this Jamaican-American story is also a sombre, tragic chapter. From Lee Boyd Malvo, the younger DC sniper, to Colin Ferguson, the New York subway shooter, Jamaicans have certainly left blemishes on the face of American society. But this dark chapter - like those written by members of other immigrant groups, from Italian-American Mafiosos to Irish-American mobsters - is an indispensable part of our story.

Alas, a sampling of noted Jamaican-Americans is merely the preamble to our saga. Across America - in hospitals, research labs, classrooms, courtrooms, and boardrooms - ordinary Jamaicans are painstakingly composing the complete content of our Jamaican-American story while Jamaican parents in homes from Flatbush Avenue to Pines Boulevard prepare the next generation of Jamaican-American legends for their places in black history.

Din Duggan is an attorney working as a consultant with a global legal search firm. Email him at columns@gleanerjm.com or dinduggan@gmail.com, or view his past columns at facebook.com/dinduggan and twitter.com/YoungDuggan.