Abstract

The Jamaica Organization of New Jersey (JON-J) Awards of Excellence Gala, held on August 23, 2024, at The Hanover Manor in East Hanover, New Jersey was a grand affair marked by glamour, glitz, and great execution. The Theme of the Awards Gala, ‘Embracing Challenges, Unlocking Opportunities’ shone through the careers of three awardees: legendary Ophthalmologist and Philanthropist, Dr Winston J. Scott; the incredibly talented Impresario of Jamaican Culture, Andrew Clarke; and outstanding Caribbean teacher educator, Professor Emeritus Errol Miller.
The theme was also evident in JON-J’s promotion of financial and other support for the Pre-University Male Program (PUMP) of the Mico University College in Jamaica. The primary mission of PUMP is to increase the supply of male teachers in secondary schools in Jamaica, particularly in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) where there are great shortages.
The Keynote Address explored the Theme of Embracing Challenges, Unlocking Opportunities with respect to Jamaica the place and Jamaicans the people – i.e. the nearly half of the Jamaican people living outside the place, also the many people not born in the place, but choosing to be Jamaican and coming to live and die in the place. What does it mean to be Jamaican whether one lives in or outside of Jamaica? What common changes are taking place in both Jamaica and its Diaspora?
This exploration was done through an injection of the history of who the Jamaican people and Commonwealth Caribbean people are; their shared contemporary anguish in Jamaica and the Diaspora; and the prospect of a President of the United States of America being someone with Jamaican ancestry and roots.

Keynote address to the Jamaica Organization of New Jersey (JON-J) Gala 2024

August 23, 2024 by Professor Emeritus Errol Miler

“Thank you, Mistress of Ceremonies Tanache Reid, President Owen Eccles, Vice Presidents, Trustees, and members of the State Board. I also want to acknowledge the Members of JON-J, Councilman Bill McCoy, Mr. Derrick Scott, Community Relations Officer of the Jamaican Embassy, and Mrs. Michelle Tulloch-Neil, Representative of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council for the Northeastern States. A special thank you to Mrs. Jazz Clayton-Hunt, fellow honorees Dr. Winston Scott and Mr. Andrew Clarke, the esteemed Members of the Clergy, and our Specially Invited Guests. On behalf of my wife (Dr. Sharon Miller), and I, we are honored to attend this grand gala, celebrating Jamaicans, friends of Jamaica, and the Jamaican community here in New Jersey.”

Gratitude

The sizable gathering at this Gala, the beauty, glamour and glitz of ladies, sartorial elegance of gentlemen, and the superb execution of the carefully planned program have made this occasion one that we the Honorees will remember for the rest of our lives. You have not only honored us but done so in style and with pomp.

Salute to the founders of JON-J and to JON-J.

I am sure that Mr. Clarke and Dr Scott join me in saluting the founders of JON-J who in 1998 had the perspicacity to envision the mission of Jamaicans in New Jersey, designed the organizational structure, and mobilized Jamaicans and friends of Jamaica to implement that vision. We also salute JON-J for its rapid growth, innovative actions, meaningful service, and stellar hosting of events over these past 26 years.

A few personal notes

Permit me a few personal notes. Up to the time of his passing, the late Rev. Dr. Alfred B. Johnson, JON-J’s founding president and I had been friends for just over 70 years. We met as children because our families resided on the same road about five houses apart. Parents, brothers and sisters, and friends of both families intermingled. Freddie and I then went to Calabar High School. A lifelong friendship followed even though Freddie migrated, I remained in Jamaica, and we both lived very busy lives. However, when we caught up it was as if had never been separated. Rev Dr. Johnson was proud to have been the founding president of JON-J. When my wife Sharon was relocated to Washington D.C., we had a monster catching up over the phone. When, in his unique Biblical-based humor, Freddie told me that without his cane he was not able to get around, we agreed to visit but COVID and death vetoed that agreement. This weekend, we take a meaningful step in fulfilling that agreement by visiting and being warmly hosted by Dr. Abegail Douglas-Johnson, the beloved wife of Freddie. She embodies the qualities of a loving, caring, and faithful partner, while also being an outstanding and trailblazing educator in her own right. During lunch today, when Abegail invited me to sit in Freddie’s seat at the table, I was deeply moved. Abegail, all friends of Freddie thank you, not only for the loving care of him in his final years, but also for continuing to support those causes which were dear and special to him in life.

President Owen Eccles is a graduate of the illustrious Mico University College, founded in 1836, which is the oldest teacher education college in the Western Hemisphere. President Eccles was a student of The Mico when I was its principal. He has most generously and graciously stated, even again tonight, that I have had some positive impact on his life. However, truth be told, The Mico has been producing outstanding graduates of the caliber of Owen Eccles since the 1840s. They have shattered just about every glass ceiling that has ever been erected to keep down people of African ancestry and have consistently and persistently contributed to building communities wherever they reside – in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and in the world. But one of the joys of teachers is that some of their past students remember them kindly and attribute to them far more than they really deserve. So, Owen thanks for the part you played in this great honor bestowed by the Jamaica Organization of New Jersey on this grand occasion.

Support for the Pump Program at The Mico University College.

I unreservedly and wholeheartedly commend support for the Pre-University Male Program (PUMP) of Mico University College. The late Professor Claude Packer, while he was President of the College, conceived this initiative with a two-fold purpose. First, to offer a second chance to young men from inner-city and rural communities to obtain the matriculation requirements to go to college. Second, to increase the proportion of male high school teachers, especially in the areas of Science and Mathematics. I remember well the discussions with Professor Packer and was delighted that its implementation began in 2008, the year I was appointed the first Chancellor of Mico University College. Despite its proven success, PUMP has struggled for support in recent years.

However, current President, Dr Ashton Pinnock, who succeeded Professor Packer, has adeptly and skillfully negotiated 1250 four-year scholarships at The Mico funded by the Government of Jamaica for training teachers in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) consistent with its policy to give priority to these areas of shortages in the secondary school system and their importance in the continuing development of the country. A real challenge for PUMP in the past has been providing funding for participants for five years. Linking PUMP to STEM scholarships opens the possibility of significantly increasing the number of male teachers in the secondary school system since recipients of one year PUMP scholarships could continue with four years of STEM funding.
What is clearly demonstrated is the power of institutions to connect diverse creative individual contributions across succeeding generations and over centuries. This is one reason why the Mico Institution in Kingston is the only survivor from of the four Normal Schools and over 200 elementary schools that were founded by the Lady Mico Charity in England between 1834 and 1836.

The prospect of the American President having Jamaican roots.

Just over six months ago when I was contacted about the August 2024 JON-J Gala weekend, the items of the Agenda of the Zoom meeting were:

• 1. The Theme ‘Embracing Challenges, Unlocking Opportunities
• 2. Being the Keynote Speaker
• 3. The Mico University College PUMP Program.

The dates of August 23rd and 24th only had significance with respect to availability and travel. Much later I was informed that JON-J had decided to award me this great Honor and much later discovered that the Gala would occur at the end of the Democratic Convention. Even when I was deep in thinking about this Keynote Address, I did not discern any connection between the two events and the Theme. My thoughts ran along the lines of Jamaica the place, Jamaicans the people, nearly half of the people living outside the place, and many people not born in the place, choose to be Jamaican and come to live and die in the place. What does it mean to be Jamaican and to live in and outside Jamaica? What common changes are taking place in both Jamaica and the Diaspora? Clearly, Jamaicans living in New Jersey would know far more than I do about Embracing Challenges and Unlocking Opportunities in the State of New Jersey. What value could I bring to the occasion? How could this be linked to JON-J’s decision to assist the Mico University College PUMP Program to enhance coherence to the occasion? Experience counselled a small injection of the history of the Jamaican people and shared contemporary anguish in Jamaica and the Diaspora.

The St Ann Baptist Association had invited me to give the Inaugural James Finlayson Memorial Lecture on Sunday evening July 21, 2024. James Finlayson, a slave, was the prime mover in founding the Browns Town Baptist Church in 1831 and was its first deacon. In finalizing the presentation, I came out the study, went to the kitchen for some water, and saw the news on the television that President Joe Biden would not contest the 2024 Presidential Elections but had recommended Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Nominee of the Democratic Party. As would be expected, over the last month I have had to rethink this Keynote Address in relation to the Theme ‘Embracing Challenges, Unlocking Opportunities’. This keynote address was written before the start of the Democratic Party Convention on Monday. Any overlap is purely coincidental. Dr Scott, that you are from Brown’s Town makes what I am about to say even more germane to the occasion.

Have no fear, I am not about to start the Keynote Address but to conclude it. In the interest of time follow me closely. Each statement that follows is backed by substantial empirical evidence.

A small dose of the History of Jamaican and Caribbean People

1. The late Sir Alister McIntyre, Grenadian, worked at the United Nations for 25 years before being appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. He repeatedly told the story that at the Farewell Function in his honor, someone came and told him that they could always identify people from the Caribbean. His surprised response was, how? The answer was that Asians spoke mainly to Asians, Africans spoke mainly to Africans, Europeans spoke mainly to Europeans, Latin Americans spoke mainly to Latin Americans, but people from the Caribbean spoke freely to everybody. It must be added that Jamaicans speak back to anybody who tries to demean us.
2. Jamaica is populated by an admixture of Old-World peoples including tribes from Ghana, Nigeria, the Kongo of West Africa and West Central Africa; from all social classes of England, Scotland, and Ireland; some castes of India; various Dynasties of China; Jews from Portugal, Germany, and Syria; Druze, Muslims, and Christians from Lebanon and Syria; and descendants of intimate intercourse between all listed above. This combined with coping regularly with hurricanes, floods, drought, and earthquakes, and the necessity to worship and to have fun have fostered understanding of the common humanity of all humankind which is reflected in Jamaica’s motto ‘Out of Many one People’.
3. Beware of attempting to predict a Jamaican’s religion, political sympathies, tastes in music, connections, or outlook on life from her/his ethnicity, complexion, immediate family, or social class. Jamaicans are connected up, down, and within the social strata, families are of all religious and political persuasions, and complexion is a conundrum that confounds ethnicity. Diversity and multiculturalism are baked into Jamaican society and socialization.
4. Jamaica like the rest of the Commonwealth Caribbean has been integrated into West and into capitalism for the last 500 years. Our countries are modest of means, because of ongoing extraction of wealth, but our peoples are as modern in mindset, in use of technology, and au-fait with contemporary trends and challenges as any in the West.
5. Since the third decade of the 1600s, like the United States, Jamaica and the Commonwealth-Caribbean have been on the global frontier in the development of schooling, the evolution of elections and governance, the conduct of business, and transformations in human society. Although we export bananas, Jamaica has never been a banana republic or Jamaicans third rate, check the Olympics and academia.
6. .Vice President Kamala Harris is not the first Vice President of the United States to have Jamaican roots. That distinction belongs to George Mifflin Dallas, Vice President 1845 to 1849, during the Administration of President James Knox Polk. His father Alexander Dallas migrated to America, became a citizen of the United States, trained as a lawyer, entered politics, and rose to being Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of President James Madison. George Dallas was born in Philadelphia and like his father was a member of the Democratic Party. Dallas Castle in the hills of St Andrew is evidence of the members of the family that remained in Jamaica. Like Alexander Hamilton, who was from Nevis, the Dallas family participated in building the new American nation. The city of Dallas, Texas was named in honor of that family.
7. Subjected to colonization and economic exploitation, our people have never embraced victimhood or vengeance, but rather embraced challenges and unlocked opportunities as agents of our own destiny.
   
8. Freedom, personal and civic freedom, are among our highest values and despotism our common aversion.
   
9. Holding elections according to constitution and statute is a long-standing Commonwealth Caribbean tradition. For example, Barbados has held General Elections continuously since 1639 and Jamaica since 1663 except for 18 years of Crown Colony Government after which the British Government had to relent and reinstated elections.
   
10. Like the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, Jamaica and the Commonwealth Caribbean have our origins as colonies of the British Empire. While separating from Britain at different times and in different ways, we have continued the British tradition of holding elections according to constitution and law but have constructed and sustained authentic democracies specific to our unique imperatives. While the United States devised the Republican form of democracy we have created our own authentic versions of Parliamentary democracy.
11. Since the last two decades of the 18th Century there has been strong, long, and largely overlooked connections between African Americans and Jamaica. Three examples should suffice. First, it was African Americans – Rev George Liele, George Gibbs, and Moses Baker who brought the Baptist denomination to Jamaica in January 1783. It is they who invited English Baptist missionaries who first came in 1814. Second, Rev Richard Warren, Episcopal priest, was the founding President of the Native Baptist Communion, and pastor of its largest church. George William Gordon was Secretary and Paul Bogle, the first deacon of the Communion. Bogle and Gordon are now National Heroes of Jamaica. Members of the Native Baptist Communion were directly involved in the Morant Bay Riot in October 1865, the aftermath of which changed Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the British Empire in its use of force in its colonies. Third, John Willis Menard, first African American to be elected to the US Congress in 1868, although not allowed to be seated, lived in Jamaica for a short time, married Elisabeth Mary, a Jamaican, worked at the Albion Estate in St David, founded Workingman’s Literary Society of St David, and wrote articles in Jamaican newspapers challenging the notion that only persons from temperate climes were capable of intellectual development. John Menard was deported by Governor John Eyre in November 1865. He had his name cleared of any wrongdoing because of his close relationship with the White House which began before the assassination of President Abe Lincoln.
    

A few random pertinent, even impertinent remarks

Considering the above, allow a few random pertinent or even impertinent remarks.

• In whatever ways the founders, fathers, or framers of the American nation are defined, three things can be agreed. First, they were men of diverse beliefs. Second, they cohered on the axiom of the sovereignty of the people. Third, among them were slave owners, sexists, and skeptics of men who lacked education. However, they did not use their power to enact in the Constitution clauses that imposed the contradictions of their lives on succeeding generations. Rather, they left it to generations of Americans, born and unborn, to resolve these contradictions. I have also been a great admirer of these founders, fathers, and framers of the American Union because of the profundity and sagacity of what they had not done and the obligation this demands of their successors.
• Democracy has an inherent and fatal flaw. The Sovereign People cannot govern directly. The Sovereign Power of the people must therefore be devolved to their elected representatives, be they President, Prime Minister, Governor, Senator, or Member of the House of Representatives. These elected representatives can constitutionally and legally devise schemes that highjack the sovereign power of the people for themselves by passing electoral laws that permit gerrymandering and manipulating the electoral system to the end of perpetuating their term of office.
• Democracy is not a destination or an ultimate achievement. Rather it is continuous adherence to the letter of the law buttressed by oaths, norms, conventions, and voluntary practices that are held to be sacred, that is, the spirit of the law, and vigilance by the people through all organs of society.
• My exhortation to all citizens of these United States, especially those whose origins are from Jamaica, ensure that you are registered to vote. Make sure that you have all proofs required of Voters. Go and vote irrespective of whether you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Uncommitted or none of the above. Your vote is your voice. Voting is your obligation as citizens. Voting gives legitimacy to elections and governance. Voting is victory for democratic governance. The secret ballot is the power of the people.
• Would it not be a U-turn, not only in the United States but around the world, if the death nell of the American Civil War is sounded by secret ballots cast in free and fair elections and elections free from fear on November 5th, 2024?
• The impact on the life-chances of young men of disadvantaged groups would be profound and far-reaching.
• Kamala Devi Harris, born and bought up in the democratic traditions of the United States, with heritage in India the largest democracy in the world, and roots in Jamaica whose authentic democracy has been crafted by the people coming out of domination and adversity, can be trusted to continue Government of the People, by the People and for the People, so that it does not vanish in the earth.
• I have every reason to believe that Kamala Devi Harris will understand herself to be not a woman president, nor an Asian president, nor a black president but the President of all peoples of the United States of America.
• God Bless JON-J in continuing to carry out your mission consistent with your vision.

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