TAKING CHARGE! THE RISE OF JAMAICAN-AMERICANS IN US LOCAL, STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS

Updated – November 13th 2018

When the Jamaica Diaspora Advisory Board Members of the USA meet from November 16-18, 2018 for its Leadership Summit in Atlanta Georgia, they and their Jamaican participants, should use the occasion to recognize and celebrate leadership by Jamaican-Americans at several levels – local, state and national.

The November 6 US mid-term elections have highlighted the growing confidence and influence of persons of Jamaican heritage in states and cities with large concentrations of Jamaicans. Nowhere is this more evident than in South Florida where newcomers Richard Campbell and Denise Grant were elected as Commissioners for the City of Lauderhill and Jackie Powell became the first Jamaican American woman to be elected to the Broward County Bench. See Article: (JACKIE POWELL: BROWARD COUNTY’S FIRST FEMALE JAMAICAN AMERICAN JUDGE IN WAITING) They are joining Wayne Messam(Mayor of the City of Miramar ) and City Commissioner Winston Barnes; Hazel Rogers (Mayor of Lauderhill Lakes) and Dale Holness, Commissioner for Broward County already serving in elected positions.

The special Jamaica/South Florida connection is explored in this interview with Dale Holness:

Home Away From Home: The Jamaica/South Florida Connection

 

 

For the first time in the history of any election in the USA Jamaicans in Jamaica became passionately involved in the campaign and outcome of the election and even though they could not vote, took to social media in sending messages of support and encouragement and urging family and friends to get out and vote. While there were other factors involved in raising the passions and interest of Jamaicans ‘back home’ there is no question that identification with Jamaican American candidates and for those they supported was a major factor and represents a new dynamic which the Diaspora Advisory Board should discuss and factor into future action plans. It can begin by compiling a list of all known Jamaican Americans serving in elected positions throughout the entire United States of America.

Jamaicaglobalonline would be happy to publish such a list and from time to time profile some of these Jamaican Americans.

In New York, young Attorney Naita Semaj, current President of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association did her Jamaican father Leahcim Semaj and her constituents proud by being elected a civil court judge, no doubt inspired by veteran Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and rising Democratic Party star, Bronx Assemblyman Michael Blake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out West, the stocks of California freshman Senator Kamala Harris continues to rise as she threw her support behind candidates in Georgia and her fellow Jamaicans in South Florida. The Jamaican community in the US continues to wait with bated breath to hear whether one of their own will enter the race for the Presidency in 2020.

 

And in Atlanta, Georgia, venue of the Leadership Summit, the unheralded Donna McLeod deserves special mention in becoming the first woman of Jamaican heritage to be elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. Her achievement is probably the most significant of all the successful candidates in the recent elections. Having lost a close race in 2016 by less than 200 votes in one of the most competitive Districts, Gwinnett County in Georgia, the 49 year old activist and medical industry consultant bounced back to beat her Republican rival by 58%, polling 14, 291 of the 24, 491 ballots cast.  

 

Jamaican-Americans are also significant players in Maryland state politics led by doyen State Senator Shirley Nathan-Pulliam the Trelawny-born registered nurse. Prior to her election to the Maryland State Senate in 2015, Ms Nathan-Pulliam served for 20 years in the Maryland House of Delegates having first entered the political arena in 2004. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland at Baltimore and holds a Masters degree in Administrative Science from the Johns Hopkins University where she is also a faculty associate.

 

 

 

Having served for two terms as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 2007-2015, Anthony Brown was first elected to the US House of Representatives for Maryland’s 4^th District in November 2016 polling 74% of the votes. Brown saw his victory at the time as redemption for the stunning loss he suffered in 2014 when he ran for the post of Governor – an election which everyone predicted he should have won. It was a chastening experience for the seasoned politician which made him determined to atone and to prove himself. Brown came back in 2018 to win a second term in the house increasing his majority to 78% of the votes. Prior to his two terms as Lieutenant Governor, Brown served four successive terms in the Maryland House of delegates from 1999.

Born to a Jamaican father and a Swiss mother, Brown is a Harvard-educated lawyer and an army veteran holding the rank of Colonel in the US Army Reserve. He is often compared to Barak Obama with whom, as it turns out, he shared classes at Harvard.

Once asked why he was attracted to a career in politics Brown said:

“I pursued a career in politics because of my desire to serve, a desire that sprung from my upbringing, my parents. My father who was a medical doctor …….he served his entire life in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in New York state, would remind me and my siblings from time to time, as well as show us every day, that you have to serve someone else before you can ever get around to serving yourself”

      Oh the wisdom of a Jamaican father and the value of a Jamaican upbringing

Jheanelle Wilkins is the newest (and the youngest)Jamaican-American member of the Maryland House of Delegates. The youthful Democratic Party activist first won her seat by appointment in 2017 but came back to win by her own steam in the November mid-term elections. Ms Wilkins was born in Kingston in 1988 but moved to the US as a 5 year-old. She is a graduate in Sociology of the University of Delaware and holds a Masters in Public Administration from the American University.

 

 

 

 

Marcia Ranglin-Vassell is a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives since 2017 and in the November mid-term elections retained her seat by polling a whopping 93.2% of the votes cast. A practicing teacher by profession, Marcia originally hails from 11 Miles Bull Bay in St. Andrew and taught for four years in Jamaica before migrating to the USA. Marcia’s story and her passage to Rhode Island politics is a fascinating one, deserving of a full profile on this website at a later date.

 

 

 

 

Veronica Airey-Wilson has the distinction of being the first Jamaican to be elected to the Hartford court of Common Council and the first Jamaican woman to serve as Deputy Mayor of Hartford Connecticut. Having migrated to the US in 1962, she has established herself as a successful insurance industry executive and entrepreneur. Among her other firsts was her election to the presidency of the then 40-year old West Indian Social Club of Hartford, the first woman to hold that position. Veronica Airey-Wilson is proud of her Jamaican heritage which has earned her the loyalty and respect of the third largest population of Jamaicans in the US.

 

 

JAMAICA GLOBAL ONLINE PROFILE: MICHAEL ALEXANDER BLAKE

Then there is the “story book” story of Michael Alexander Blake second term Assemblyman for Bronx who is a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee since 2017. At only 36 years old, this second generation Jamaican American began his political career in 2008 serving in the first Obama campaign in Iowa as Outreach Director helping to run the campaign in 7 states. His preparation had begun two years earlier when he was selected as a member of the inaugural class of then Senator Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ mentoring programme for young people of colour. After Obama took office in 2009, Blake served in the White House as Associate Director of Public Engagement and Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Inter Governmental Affairs where he oversaw outreach to minority business owners. These positions and the door–to- door canvassing techniques he acquired in the Obama campaign were to serve him well when he successfully contested the vacant Bronx seat in the New York State Assembly. These experiences also taught him an early political life lesson: “ Politics is not just about having the right policies, but also about building strong relationships”.

 Blake’s beginnings and rise to his current influential position in the DNC could not have been foretold by anyone except perhaps his Jamaican parents who with foresight named him after two Jamaican political heroes Michael Manley and Alexander Bustamante. He makes no secret of the fact that his mother was once homeless in Jamaica, overcame breast cancer; who doctors believed, was too sick to give birth and that his father cleaned hospital rooms for 29 years. Blake graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and has the distinction of being the first elected official to serve as a Fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2016. A Methodist Lay minister, he began preaching in his United Methodist Church when he was only 13 and a year later was elected youth president of the church. Blake believes its providential that he is alive and is where he is today; born on Christmas Day, 1982 with a heart murmur, he has survived 4 car accidents and unlike two of his three brothers has escaped being locked up.

Watch out for Michael Alexander Blake.