A day of activities to honour the legacy of Jamaican cultural icon Louise Bennett-Coverley, known worldwide as Miss Lou, was staged on Friday at the primary school named in her honour in Gordon Town, the community in the cool St Andrew hills where she lived for decades.

From as early as 7:45 am students at Louise Bennett-Coverley Primary School, formerly Gordon Town All-Age, engaged in activities celebrating the life and work of the woman who exported Jamaican folklore to the world at a time when colonial convictions frowned on local culture.

Miss Lou, who was born on September 7, 1919, would have marked her 105th birthday on Saturday had she not passed on July 26, 2006 in Toronto, Canada, where she spent the last 19 years of her life, having migrated there due to the illness of her husband Eric Coverley.

With Saturday not being a school day, Principal Taylor Morgan and her team, including Cultural Coordinator Patricia Grindley, marked the anniversary of Miss Lou’s birth on Friday in partnership with the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

Students, dressed in traditional Jamaican bandana outfits, were treated to storytelling and participated in different cultural activities while enjoying what was said to be one of Miss Lou’s favourite snacks — sardine fritters with limeade — during their lunchtime.

“We have the music corner and we have the theatre corner so these students have been divided into groups and they have gone to the different corners to learn about these different things that Miss Lou was involved in,” Grindley told the Jamaica Observer.

Louise Bennett-Coverley Primary School students perform Miss Lou’s poem Roast Turkey under the direction of Cultural Coordinator Patricia Grindley during the school’s celebration of the 105th anniverasry of Miss Lou’s birth last Friday.

She explained that student engagement was a key part of the celebration which encouraged them to host the activities one day before her actual birth date.

“Our theme says ‘Miss Lou, embracing the legacy’ and if we don’t embrace the legacy we won’t be talking about Miss Lou [in] years to come, and what better way to celebrate than to celebrate with the children in mind, so her legacy can live on,” Grindley explained.

As students continued their engagement in different activities, such as poetry and a Mini Miss Lou competitions, Principal Morgan emphasised that these activities will go a long way in not only maintaining the culture but also giving students an opportunity to learn more about Miss Lou’s legacy and appreciate her contribution to Jamaica.

“Engaging the students is a part of the culture at the school. The importance of that is, there is culture in the curriculum currently and so with Miss Lou being a cultural icon, it is important that the students carry on the culture; they must know and they must embrace where they are coming from; they must understand that speaking the patois, it is not something they should be ashamed of but embrace it,” she told the Observer.

Additionally, Morgan wants the school to be more involved in the national tributes to Miss Lou, noting that the school’s name is a direct representation of Miss Lou’s work and legacy and has a positive impact on the reputation of its current past students.

Students at Louise Bennett-Coverley Primary School Jhemar Plummer (left) and Alia Raymond (second left) enjoy one of Miss Lou’s favourite snacks — sardine fritters and lemonade — with Principal Taylor Morgan as they mark the 105th anniversary of the cultural icon’s birth at the school last Friday.
(Photos: Joseph wellington)

“This school was renamed after Miss Lou, it is called the Louise Bennett-Coverley Primary School and so we would like to embrace and carry on Miss Lou’s legacy because we cannot have the name Louise Bennett-Coverley Primary and we are not carrying on the legacy; and so the patois and the poetry, we embrace it here and we showcase it and I would like it to go not just throughout Gordon Town, not just in St Andrew but in and throughout Jamaica and even throughout the world,” she said as students performed one of Miss Lou’s poems titled Roast Turkey.

In the meantime, founder and artistic director of storytelling foundation Ntukuma Jamaica Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks expressed joy at being able to engage with the students through her storytelling exercises while using the opportunity to educate them about Miss Lou’s legacy. She said that her foundation has now “adopted” the school.

“The school is not just a name, the school carries history, it carries heritage. When people hear the name they must be happy to hear that name, they must be happy to welcome the children who come from that school, they must be happy to support the school with human resources, physical resources, with financial resources [and] we want the school to grow, and we can’t grow unless we are properly resourced,” Meeks said.

She added that Miss Lou’s legacy should be used as a platform to teach today’s students more about Jamaica’s cultural background and heritage.

“So today, for example, at lunchtime we are dining with Miss Lou and we are being introduced to some of the things that she likes to eat. That is important because it represents Jamaican cuisine, so through Miss Lou we can access other aspects of our culture and use the legacy of Louise Bennett to teach the children Jamaican history and culture,” she said.

In 2001 Miss Lou was appointed a member of the Order of Merit, Jamaica’s fourth- highest national honour, for her distinguished contribution to the development of the arts and culture.

She was described as the “only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through its own language” and was hailed for using her poems in Jamaican patois to raise the dialect of Jamaican folk to an art level which is acceptable to and appreciated by all in Jamaica.

From left: Cultural coordiantor at Lousie Bennett-Coverley Primary School Patricia Grindley, Founder and artistic director of Ntukuma Jamaica Dr Amina Blackwood-Meeks; and Principal Taylor Morgan at the celebration of the 105th anniversary of Dr Louise Bennett-Coverley’s birth held at the school last Friday.

Lousie Bennett-Coverley Primary School in Gordon Town, St Andrew.