Are there any Jamaicans in Chicago, the windy city?
Jamaicans are to be found everywhere in the world. And yes, the windy city is no exception.
On a recent visit to Chicago, I visited the sections where many Jamaicans live. There were Jamaican businesses such as restaurants, beauty shops and even a Jamaican Bakery.
The Caribbean American Bakery is the producer and reseller of Jamaican products for Chicago and the Midwest. Naturally we sampled a few products. I had a spinach patty – delicious! Others in my group chose from a selection of beef, beef and cheese, curry chicken, jerk chicken, and mixed vegetable patties.
The bakery also offers a selection of Jamaican pastries such as hard dough bread, bread pudding, carrot cake, carrot bar, plantain tarts, gizzada, coconut macaroon, pineapple upside down cake, and sweet potato pudding.
I had a chat with the owner, Michael Humes who is originally from Stony Hill in St. Andrew. He explained that his father started the bakery back in 1982 when the place where he worked went out of business. The bakery has been in operation for over 42 years.
Michael’s customer base is primarily Jamaicans although other groups such as Africans do enjoy his products. His best-selling products are patties and hard dough bread.
When I asked how he manages during the legendary Chicago winters, he explained that sales do drop off a bit in the cold winters but in recent years the weather has been much warmer than usual.
Overall, he says Chicago is not as hectic as New York where a lot of Jamaicans in the diaspora have settled.
So, if you are ever in Chicago be sure and visit them at:
Caribbean American Baking Co. 1539 W. Howard St. Chicago, IL 60626 Phone (773)-761-0700) e-mail: caribak@aol.com
The Jamaican Museum and Cultural Center Inc (JMCC) recently received the outstanding Atlanta Caribbean Community award for excellent service in the community.
President of the JMCC, Dr. Apollone Reid stated that the organization was honored to be recognized by such a prestigious committee, while sharing the stage with exceptional philanthropic individuals from across the Caribbean. She asserted that the JMCC has been fulfilling its vision of preserving and disseminating the traditions of the Jamaican culture through its programs in Atlanta schools and contests, such as the Annual Fruitcake Competition that educate and energize the public.
The organization keeps the public aware of outstanding achievements by Jamaicans, through its social media pages and its website, jmccatlanta.com. In addition, the JMCC highlights Jamaican and Caribbean businesses as it presents its programs.
Dr. Reid posited that this recognition would not have been possible without the hard work of the members of the Board. On hand to receive the award along with the president were Vice President Christine Marzouca, Communications Director Laurel Wong, and Resource Director Dr. Glen Laman.
The JMCC is determined to bring global awareness to the rich Jamaican traditions that renown Atlanta Civil Rights Leader, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced and desired to see exist in the United States as he saw lived out in Jamaica.
Why would Africa’s children turn to the God of their oppressors for liberation?
Contemporary Black theology is complex and far-reaching. In this concise yet thorough volume, Noel Leo Erskine examines Black theology from every angle, seeking to answer this question.
Beginning with the Middle Passage, which brought millions of Africans into the Caribbean and United States, Erskine unpacks the background and distinctive ideas of Black theology. Erskine covers major thinkers and illumines various areas of inquiry: suffering and theodicy, sin and reconciliation, baptism and the sacraments, womanism and Christology, and others.
What unites these strands is the goal of liberation-of a faith that delivers not theoretical orthodoxies but real change in the lives of those buckling under oppression.
Black Theology and Black Faith is now available on Amazon.com and other booksellers just in time for Christmas.
The Jamaican Museum and Cultural Center continues to preserve the Jamaican culture and traditions by giving professional and non-professional Cake Bakers an opportunity to build their customer base.
Don’t miss out on hearing the history and the stories surrounding Jamaican Christmas Cake.
Entertainment: Special Artists
The top three participants will have their logo on the JMCC’s website for one year.
Benefits of Participating: Exposure to a wider community of Jamaicans and other nationalities with the opportunity to become entrepreneurs or increase customer base.
Prizes: Winner will take home the unusual trophy that will inevitably become the coveted treasure each year. In addition, there will be cash prizes for all three winners.
Location: CLTV Studios, 6254 Memorial Dr Suite C, Stone Mountain, GA 30083 (Free Parking is available)
Date of the competition: Sunday, December 10, 2023 at 4:00 pm
Coverage of the event: CLTV Channel
Eligibility: Anyone who can bake a Jamaican Christmas cake
Method of participation: Mail a small 5-inch fruit cake in a covered cake pan with your given ID#
Deadline for entry: November 15, 2023
Deadline for arrival of cake: December 5, 2023
To Participate: Submit your name, address, and telephone number to info@jmccatlanta.org with JMCC BEST FRUITCAKE COMPETITION in the subject line.
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Noel Erskine
Prominent Atlanta Jamaican Dr. Noel Erskine has retired from Emory University.
Erskine began his teaching career at Emory in 1977, teaching courses at both Candler and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Erskine is the face of Jamaica in Atlanta. Because of his work at Emory University, the churches and community, consistently for over 40 years he is revered as our cultural ambassador.
He is an educator who always reminds students and audiences that education is for liberation and emancipation. With leadership, innovation and a spiritual center that serves as guide Erskine has advanced an educational and cultural project with Jamaica as center.
He has written many books and articles which include Decolonizing Theology: A Caribbean Perspective (Orbis Press, 1981); King Among the Theologians (Pilgrim Press, 1995); From Garvey to Marley: Rastafari Theology (University Press of Florida, 2005); Black Theology and Pedagogy (Macmillan, 2008); and Plantation Church: How African American Religion was Born in Caribbean Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2014).
You can read more about his work at Emory University at:
Happy International Women’s Day! The Jamaican Museum and Cultural Center (Atlanta) celebrates the incredible contributions and achievements of women around the world, including those in the Jamaican diaspora.
Women from Jamaica and their descendants have made significant contributions to various fields, including politics, sports, music, and literature. Their resilience and determination have broken down barriers and paved the way for future generations. We highlight some remarkable women of the Jamaican diaspora whose stories inspire and empower us all.
Click the link below to read about the featured Jamaicans in the Diaspora:
Kris Kelly is the son of Atlanta Jamaicans George Kelly and Myrna Campbell-Kelly. His work as a 3D character artist is being noticed by the Gaming and Next-Gen Creativity industry. He was recently appointed as an Artist Ambassador for INTEL Corporation the world’s largest multinational computer chip manufacturer.
Kris grew up as a gamer and adored Star Wars and Final Fantasy. He still plays with friends on his PC and console. Star Wars-, Marvel-, and DC-inspired sculptures adorn the shelves and work surfaces of his home. Not surprisingly, those gaming roots run deep and continue to influence his career.
His website bills him as a Character Artist – Specializing in Creature and Character Modeling, Texture Painting, Look Development and 3D Modeling. He is poised to play a part in the augmented/virtual realities and metaverse frontiers.
Kris has appeared in commercials in Intel’s ‘Game & Create ‘ series, showing off their new 11TH Gen processors. These commercials show off his workflow as a 3D Character Artist, his ability to work anywhere, and the seamless transition between Creating and Gaming.
His main tool for work is the powerful Razer Blade 15, sporting the Intel Core i9-11900H processor paired with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics. The system’s eight cores and 16 threads, running at up to 4.9GHz, provided fast, responsive rendering times, and support for PCIe 4.0 SSD storage removed any bottlenecks in editing and transferring large graphical assets. The system’s 15.6-inch HDR OLED touch display, with 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, was also crucial for ensuring color accuracy in his design work.
With his painting and modeling skills he has demonstrated he can do photo-real humans, not just monsters and aliens and cute little robots. This has not gone unnoticed in the visual effects and digital sculpting worlds and as a result he is getting a steady stream of work.
Kris always knew he wanted to craft the stunning digital figures found throughout movies, shows, and games. However, he no connections or inside track and so he relied on common wisdom: go to school, stand out, be a star.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he moved to Los Angeles in 2007, fresh from the Savannah College of Art and Design, certain he would find success in Hollywood digital effects. Instead, he ran into the Great Recession and unrelenting rejection.
Undaunted he remained focused. He toiled to build his skills with Zbrush, a digital sculpting tool while also taking on whatever side gigs he could find. Like so many other freelancers, he lived paycheck to paycheck, often staying only a few dollars ahead of zero. Fortunately, persistence paid off. His skills gradually improved. Studios started to recognize him as a talented modeler. After a couple of years, those double-digit bank balances were finally behind him.
Kris is proud of his Jamaican heritage and even has the Jamaican coat of arms tattooed on his arm.
From the early 2000s to 2016, Denise Noe was a well-known figure in metro Atlanta’s Caribbean community.
Although she is not Caribbean, she worked extensively for Caribbean-oriented publications, first as a writer for The Caribbean Express and later as a writer and the Community Editor of The Caribbean Star.
Noe wrote reviews of Caribbean restaurants, profiles of accomplished individuals of Caribbean background, and articles about other matters of special interest to Caribbeans. She sometimes wrote about the Caribbean itself, including a cover article on Haiti. As a Caribbean Star reporter, she visited The Bahamas as well as Trinidad and Tobago.
Unbeknownst to most with whom she worked, Noe suffers severe psychiatric disabilities. She has been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, impulse control disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Her handicaps meant that, when The Caribbean Star folded, she was unable to secure other employment despite a conscientious job search. She went to Georgia Vocational Rehabilitative Services (GVRS) for help in getting a job. Noe took many tests and participated in “work evaluation” programs. Under the guidance of GVRS professionals, she applied for work at many places and went on job interviews.
She was unemployed and being evicted when her father allowed her to move into his home in Bolivar, Missouri where she now resides. She has lived in Bolivar for slightly over three years and has had several books published. In fact, two different books from different publishers came out within a month of each other: Wishbone Behind the Scenes, a book about the children’s TV show Wishbone that Bear Manor Media published, and I Spy, You Spy, They Spy, a collection of articles about true espionage cases that Black Lyon Publishing published.
Most books Noe has written are either about the entertainment industry or about true crime. Her first book, The Complete Married… with Children Book: TV’s Dysfunctional Family Phenomenon, was published while she was still in metro Atlanta. Other entertainment oriented books by Denise Noe are Teletubbies Behind the Scenes and Maury: The Story of An American Popular Culture Institution.
Denise Noe also wrote Christmas Gifts from the Chanukah Crowd: The Extraordinary Contributions of American Jews. Denise Noe is not Jewish but when she learned that anti-Semites accused Jews of making war on Christmas, she was inspired to write this book about what Jews have done to enrich this beautiful holiday.
True crime is an area on which Noe often writes. Black Lyon Publishing is bringing out a series of four collections of her true crime articles, three of which have been published. One is the aforementioned I Spy, You Spy, They Spy and the other two are The Bloodied and the Broken and Justice Gone Haywire. The fourth and last book in the series will be entitled They Didn’t Mean To Do It, a collection of articles about accidents with an alleged or proven criminal aspect.
Noe believes some of her best writing is found in The Bloodied and the Broken. “The first story is about the torturing to death of 16-year-old Sylvia Likens,” Noe states. “It is the saddest case I’ve written about and also the most emotionally powerful and meaningful.” The last story in the collection tells the story of a 6-year-old boy who was burned over most of his body by his own father. “This was especially sad because a parent’s job is to protect and David Rothenberg’s father attacked David in a way that left his disfigured for life,” Noe observes.
Some of the stories in Justice Gone Haywire are of political and social importance, Noe points out. “I cover the infamous case of the Scottsboro Boys in that book,” she continues. “Prejudice is often a factor in distorting justice and the Scottsboro Boys case is remembered for the way racism against Americans of African ancestry led to those young men being convicted of rapes that never occurred. Those youths grew up in prison because of racist stereotypes and the way those stereotypes warped justice.” That book also includes an article about the lynching of Leo Frank, an event that led to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
Cases covered in the I Spy, You Spy, They Spy include the legendary Mata Hari, World War II spy boss Vera Atkins, 1950s accused spy and convicted perjurer Alger Hiss, Christopher “The Falcon” Boyce, and Jonathan Pollard. Noe believes readers may find some surprises in the book. “Mata Hari is almost synonymous with spying in the public imagination but she really wasn’t much of a spy at all,” Noe comments.
A new Noe book that should be published soon is a biography of actress Marie Windsor who was sometimes called “the Queen of the Bs.” Entitled A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Life of Marie Windsor, it gets its cheeky title from the way this actress lived a life of kindness and high ethical standards even as she played femme fatales, outlaws, and other nefarious characters.
As a true crime writer, Noe has corresponded with many prominent criminals, among them Charles Manson, Columbus Stocking Strangler Carlton Michael Gary, British Moors Murderer Ian Brady, Eric “The Centennial Park Bomber” Rudolph, and Pam “To Die For” Smart. She put together a book about her correspondences that included reproductions of letters by the inmates. However, she could not find a publisher for it so she self-published it as an ebook entitled Voices from the Inside: Letters from Famous Prisoners that can be found on amazon.
“I am still hopeful that a publishing house will bring out a hard copy version of Voices from the Inside,” Noe relates.
Jamlanta.org 