POLITICS
ELLIOTT, Robert B. – "Robert B. Elliott was born in Boston, to West Indian [Jamaican] parents, in 1842. Much of his education was received abroad – first in the grammar schools of Jamaica, later in High Holborn Academy (London), and finally at Eton, from which he graduated with honours. While in England, he also studied the law.
Upon his return to the United States, Elliott became an editor with the Charleston Leader, was elected to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention, and in 1868 won a seat in the lower house of the state legislature.
Subsequently, he was elected to the 42nd U.S. Congress. After serving two terms, he returned to New Orleans where he practiced law until his death on August 9, 1884." [Source: Negro Almanac]
PHOTOGRAPHY
ALLEN, Winifred Hall "[Photographer Principal Subjects: Journalism – Active 1930s]
Born in Jamaica, West Indies, Winifred Hall Allen moved to New York City at the age of 18 and worked for William Woodard in his photo studio in Harlem. She also attended the New York Institute of Photography. After graduating she took over the Woodard Studio when Woodard decided to move to Chicago. Later changing the name of the studio to the Winifred Hall Photography Studio. Like James Van Der Zee, Allen was a photo journalist and much of her work provides us with another biography of Harlem in the 1930s." [Source: Negro Almanac]
MUSIC
CLASSICAL MUSICIANS
RUSSELL, Oswald – Of all the Jamaican concert pianists Oswald Russell has had the greatest opportunity of international study and performance. He is a brilliant pianist; he has studied and performed in London, Vienna, and in New York, where he was a student at the Juilliard School of Music, and where he was able to meet Leonard Bernstein and other modern American composers. During his visits to Jamaica he composed for dance groups. He has directed such distinguished choreographers as Martha Graham, Agnes DeMille and George Balanchine. [Source: The Arts of an Island]
Link: http://www.fitzroydearborn.com/Contents/BlackCt.htm
AUTHORS
CLIFF, Michelle – was born in Jamaica and grew up there and in the United States. Educated in New York City and at the Warburg Institute at the University of London, where she completed a Ph.D. on the Italian Renaissance. She is the author of novels, "Abeng, No Telephone To Heaven", and "Free Enterprise", short stories, "Bodies of Water", ‘prose poetry’ "The Land of Look Behind" and "Claiming" and "Identity They Taught Me to Despise", as well as numerous works of criticism. She is also the editor of a collection of the writings of the southern American social reformer Lillian Smith entitled The Winner Names the Age.
Link: http://www.cc.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Cliff.html
POWELL, PATRICIA – Born in Jamaica, Powell lived there until she was 16 when she emigrated to the United States. Currently the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard University, Powell is the author of two previous novels, "Me Dying Trial" (1993) and "A Small Gathering of Bones." (1994). She earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a master’s of fine arts in creative writing from Brown University. Her latest novel, "The Pagoda" follows a Chinese shopkeeper, Lowe, who flees China in the 1890s to seek a better life in Jamaica, where slavery had just ended.
