Louise Lawrence of Watt Town, St Ann Jamaica W.I.
A Jamaican Woman is Raising Crops, and the Next Generation of Farmers
……excerpt from The World Bank feature story
Behind Louise Lawrence’s friendly smile and pleasant manner is a steely resolve. That resolve is necessary as she navigates a typically male-dominated field as a farmer in St Ann, on Jamaica’s verdant north coast. Beyond just succeeding as a female farmer, Louise has even chosen to take on a leadership role. Louise is the leader of the Watt Town Greenhouse Farmers Group, which boasts 20 farmers – eleven women and nine men.
Louise has chosen farming, in particular greenhouse farming, to make a living. She admits that it was not her first choice of a career, but she now believes farming is her calling. She says, “were I to live my life over again, I would have started farming earlier.”
Collectively, the Watt Town Greenhouse Farmers Group operates 22 greenhouses in addition to open field farms. Louise directly operates one greenhouse and also oversees the operations of three other greenhouses, one owned by her husband. And she is good at it - in only six years as a farmer, Louise has already received awards and recognition for her greenhouses.
Currently, Louise is concentrating on growing tomatoes as she has had some issues lately with sweet peppers. And while markets have been reduced because of the pandemic, Louise says that she continues to make a good living. She is encouraging more people to get involved with agriculture. She says that while the work is hard and the money may not be steady, the reward of feeding the nation, and by extension, the world, cannot be underestimated.
Just as JSIF provided her with the knowledge necessary to begin her career as a farmer, she is also passing that knowledge on to others who are interested. She has walked in their shoes. At one point, Louise was unemployed after spending time as a teacher, and other previous careers. Louise credits the REDI program, and the support of JSIF, for setting her on a path where she could send her children to school, giving them an opportunity for greater success.
Louise Lawrence is a proud ambassador for the REDI initiative as she has seen how it can transform lives. Because of farming, she is financially independent and her children are all making their own way in the world. Louise has now set new aspirations, that of homeownership. With a solid track record of achievement and determination, she has shown that she can take on any challenge.
Community activist Aileen Clarke Hernandez was born Aileen Clarke on May 23, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York. Her Jamaican-born parents, were theatrical seamstress Ethel Louise Hall Clarke and Garveyite brushmaker Charles Henry Clarke. Hernandez, who grew up in the ethnically-mixed Bay Ridge neighborhood of New York City, attended elementary school at P.S. 176 and graduated in 1943 as school newspaper editor, vice president, and salutatorian of Bay Ridge High School. At Howard University, she was taught by luminaries such as Ralph Bunche, Sterling Brown, Alain Locke, Howard Thurman and Thurgood Marshall. Hernandez was a member of the Howard Players, edited The Hilltop, and was active in the NAACP with her friend Pauli Murray. Hernandez graduated magna cum laude from Howard University with her B.A. degree in political science in 1947.
She moved to Los Angeles to take an internship with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and later went on to earn her M.S. degree in government from California State University at Los Angeles in 1961.
Hernandez worked for the IGLWU from 1951 to 1960; eventually she backed the efforts of the Federation of Union Representatives to obtain benefits from the IGLWU. In 1962, Hernandez was appointed by California Governor Pat Brown to be assistant chief of the California Division of Fair Employment Practices and began enforcing the state’s 1959 anti-discrimination law. In 1965, Hernandez was appointed a commissioner of the newly-formed United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by President Lyndon B. Johnson. As the first female and second minority appointed to the EEOC Commission, Hernandez paid particular attention to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1966, Hernandez co-founded the activist group, National Organization for Women (NOW), with her friend and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray, author Betty Friedan, and others. From 1970 to 1971, Hernandez served as the second national president of NOW, following Friedan. In 1971, Hernandez helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus, and in 1972 helped create NOW’s Minority Women’s Task Force. That same year, Hernandez formed Sapphire Publishing Company with nine other black women. Leaving NOW in 1979, Hernandez served on the board of the Ms. Foundation from 1976 to 1985. Hernandez toured China in 1978, and after touring South Africa in 1981, released the book, South Africa: Time Running Out.
She was the president of Hernandez and Associates, which she founded in 1967; she taught at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. Hernandez was a Regents Scholar in Residence at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1996. Hernandez has been honored by the National Urban Coalition, the Northern California American Civil Liberties Foundation, Howard University and many other organizations. In 2005, Hernandez was one of 1,000 women from 150 nations who were collectively nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work in social justice and civil rights.
Excerpt from: THE HISTORY MAKERS DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE