Mariamne samad biography for kids
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“… I remember mentally promising Mr. Garvey when I was seventeen years old, that I would call his name every day of my life until his name began to rise again.”
Sister Samad, as she was affectionately called, spent her life fulfilling this promise she made to Garvey on the occasion of his death in 1940. As a member of the UNIA’S Juveniles, she spent most of her life living up to the ideals of Garveyism.
Though not Jamaican by birth, we claim her as one of our daughters as she made Jamaica her home after settling here in 1976 with her Jamaican husband. Here, she spent most of her time teaching and lecturing youth on Garveyism and Africa. She made her home into an intellectual space which attracted many scholars as well as those who yearned for knowledge on Garvey, Africa and Pan-Africanism. Every last Saturday of the month, she would open her doors to anyone who was seriously interested in learning about Garvey and the Mother country, Africa. In fact, several Garvey scho
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Honouring Queen Mother Mariamne Samad
Carolyn Cooper, Contributor
Mariamne Samad named herself after a woman who was stoned to death. As a child, she'd read a book of Bible stories which told the tale of Mariamne, the second wife of King Herod. As she remembers it, Herod's son by his first wife, Doris, accused his stepmother of adultery. Confronted by Herod, Mariamne fearlessly stood her ground, proclaiming her innocence. She was put to death all the same.
Wikipedia gives a much more elaborate utgåva of the story in which men fighting for power used women as pawns. Herod married Mariamne, the niece of his rival Antigonus, "in an attempt to secure a claim to the throne". He banished his first wife and their three-year-old son. No wonder the boy was 'carrying feelings' against his stepmother.
To cut a very long story short, Herod was so obsessed with Mariamne's beauty he gave instructions that if his wife outlived him, she was to be killed. He did not want her to remarry. Natural
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Leroy DavisAssociate Professor of History and African American Studies
Leroy Davis, (B.A., Howard University, 1976; M.A., 1978; Ph.D., Kent State University, 1990); 20th Century African American and American history, 20th Century African Diaspora.
I am especially interested in cross-cultural experiences of African descendant peoples throughout the African Diaspora, which is the focus of my current research project tentatively entitled “Without Apology: The Life of Mariamne Samad, 20th Century Black Nationalist in Harlem and Jamaica.” The work is a working-class life history or biography of Harlem-born Mariamne Samad, a 90 year-old black cultural nationalist whose parents were followers of Marcus Garvey. Samad’s life experiences include family connections in Sierra Leone in West Africa, Georgetown, Guyana (her father’s birthplace) in South America, and Kingston, Jamaica (where she still resides) in the Caribbean.
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