News — Jamaican Couple

Bob Marley‘s career after he broke out as a young Jamaican musical sensation spanned just ten years yet his global fame was apparent before he turned 30. Marley, via Bob Marley & The Wailers, was already known to many in the Caribbean, the United States and the United Kingdom before an attempt was made on his life in Jamaica in 1976.

By the late 1970s, he was playing in Africa, a continent he espoused so much love for. He was in Kenya and in Ethiopia in 1978. Of course, Ethiopia, the home of the Rastafarian saint Haile Selassie, was always going to be on Marley’s list of destinations. He was also in Zimbabwe where he was the special musical guest to mark that country’s independence in 1980.

However, it was in Gabon that year that Marley found love in the embodiment of Pascaline Mferri Bongo Ondimba, the daughter of El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, born Albert-Bernard Bongo. The Bongo name has been synonymous with Gabon for so long because Omar ruled that country from 1967 to 2009, only to be succeeded by his son, Ali.

Marley became intimately close to Pascaline but according to the latter’s own version of events, their actual first meeting was in 1979 in the US, making the meeting in 1980 a reunion of a sort.

“The first time I met him was in America in 1979 and when we went backstage when he saw me, he said “Gosh you’re ugly”,” Stephanie said in the Ken MacDonald-directed documentary Marley (2012). Stephanie was in the States with her father and went to see Marley perform in Los Angeles. She managed to secure a backstage pass to meet the musician who was unfortunately not impressed by her looks.

However, according to Bob Marley and the Dictator’s Daughter written by Anne-Sophie Jahn, it was Pascaline who invited Marley to perform in Gabon. It would seem even after Marley’s rude remark, the 23-year-old’s spirit had not been broken on that night. Her invitation was welcomed by some members of The Wailers who had never seen the motherland they sang of.

Marley and his crew were not received by Omar, the head of state who also went by the unofficial title of “king”. Omar sent future president Ali to meet Marley and his company. This snub was not lost on The Wailers since they were essentially on a state visit to play at Omar’s birthday party. It later also dawned on them that Omar was a dictator who developed the parts of Gabon that mattered to him while the rest of the country laid in abject poverty.

However, according to Pascaline, Marley was not personally offended by Omar because “he [Marley] told me that my father had been the only one to suggest that Haile Selassie move to Gabon after he was dethroned. And that the Rastafarians felt that this was a strong act that deserved their respect and admiration”.

Perhaps, Marley’s ability to transcend the immediacy of the disappointment that confronted him in Gabon, to give Omar the benefit of doubt, endeared the musician to the “king’s daughter”. In MacDonald’s film, Pascaline did present Marley as a deeply thoughtful and philosophical man. They were in love, she revealed. It was known among The Wailers and many others yet it was not everyone’s to know.

Marley had many lovers, including 1976 Miss World Cindy Breakspeare, mother of singer Damian Marley. He married Rita in 1966 but by his own account, it was possible some of his children were unknown to him. He knew he had fathered eleven by seven women.

Pascaline reveals that knowing who Marley was, she was on the pill. She liked him and wanted to be around him but “[h]e was a Rasta and his philosophy was to share everything. And it wasn’t his fault that the girls jumped on him. They all knew he was married… but he was a superstar.”

The president’s daughter was in Marley’s life even until the latter days when Marley’s skin cancer gave doctors a hint that the reggae legend did not have much time to live.

Nigerian-Jamaican photographer Nadine Ijewere, who became the first Black woman to ever shoot a Vogue cover in the magazine’s 125-year history, is raking in more firsts with the iconic fashion spread.

In 2018, the then 26-year-old shot for Dua Lipa for the cover of British Vogue, and three years down the line, she has become the first Black woman to shoot a cover image for American Vogue.

The London-based photographer, who has shot spreads for the magazine in the past, photographed the sensational Selena Gomez for American Vogue’s April cover. She has become a beacon of hope for many Black girls who will not be forced to follow supposed norms. “As a young Black woman, I didn’t imagine that I would one day have the opportunity to shoot a cover for American Vogue,” Ijewere wrote in a post on her Instagram.

Ijewere shared the spotlight with the fashion editor for the April 2021 issue, Gabriella Kafera-Johnson, who became the first Black woman to ever style a Vogue cover on the January 2021 issue. The two gushed about their collaboration and encouraged Black women to own their space in the fashion industry.

“I’m so honored to have been able to work with my fellow sister Gabriella Karefa-Johnson. I hope this encourages Black women that there is space for us to take in this industry,” Ijewere said.

The Nigerian-Jamaican woman has been interested in fashion imagery since she was a girl. After studying photography at the London College of Fashion, she began to focus her work primarily on the subjects of identity and diversity, informed by her Nigerian-Jamaican background.

“My work is all about the celebration of diversity without creating a representation – particularly for women, as we are the ones who are more exposed to beauty ideals and to not being comfortable in who we are,” she was quoted by the British Journal of Photography recently.

According to The Cut, the fashion industry revolves around women, and yet most decision-makers, designers, and executives in most fashion houses right down to stylists, photographers, and those who work behind the scenes are men.

Injewere hinted at the lack of diversity during a 2018 interview with British Vogue when she became the first Black woman to shoot for the magazine.

“I feel like in doing this I’m proving to younger girls from a similar background that it’s achievable,” she said. “It also feels like part of a broader shift within our culture to include far more diversity, both behind the camera and in front of it.”

Oneita and Clive Thompson fled Jamaica in 2004 after gang members burned their farm and threatened to kill them. In the U.S., the government denied them asylum but allowed them to stay. The Thompsons, for 14 years, worked, paid taxes, and raised their seven children in Cedarville, a small town in New Jersey’s Cumberland County. Clive, 61, worked as a heavy-equipment operator at Bridgeton-based Cumberland Dairy while Oneita, 48, was a certified nursing assistant.

They lived a normal and quiet life until the start of the Trump administration. In August 2018, the ICE told the undocumented Jamaican couple that it would not extend their stay for removal and were to report to it within days to be removed from the country.

The Thompsons then visited the office of the advocacy group, the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, which subsequently helped them find shelter while supporting their legal proceedings. A few days before they were to be deported, Clive, Oneita, and their two youngest children, who are both American citizens, took sanctuary in the First United Methodist Church of Germantown. They spent two years there before moving to Tabernacle church in September 2020.

While living behind the walls of the two churches, their two children were free to move in and out of the church grounds. Clive and Oneita however couldn’t even leave to get groceries else they will be arrested and deported.
Generally, churches are seen as safe places since ICE “sensitive location” guidelines hinder agents from “taking action” in houses of worship, hospitals, and schools, a report by The Philadelphia Inquirer stated.

Immigrants who take sanctuary are also able to buy time for their legal cases to progress while advocates also step in to pile pressure on authorities to rescind their decisions, the report added. That was the move the Thompsons took, and after 843 days of living in the two churches, the couple walked free on Monday, ready to go back to their South Jersey home.

They said the federal government dropped its deportation case against them, meaning they can now seek permanent residency in the U.S., a move that is already in progress. “When we got the letter from ICE, I was just looking at it in shock. It’s a big breakthrough – after working so long, this is a miracle. I feel like all the stress is drifting away, and everything is lighting up with joy,” Clive said in a statement.

It’s been tough seeking refuge in churches, where they slept, ate and bathed. “At first I would not even go on the porch, I was so fearful,” Oneita told.

“Some days I just wanted to hide in the walls of the church, and other days I felt badass and just wanted to kick the walls down … Not the physical walls down. Not the physical walls of the church, but the walls of injustice, the walls of racism, the walls of lies, the walls of black woman don’t have a voice,” Oneita said.

Getting deported would have separated them from their children and would have ruined their chances of living the American dream. Living in the churches was a way to continue their fight to stay in the U.S., the couple said. While in the churches, they made several requests to stay ICE’s order for removal as they applied for permanent residency but their requests were denied.

Then in May, their daughter, Angel, became an American citizen. She filed an I-130, a “Petition for an Alien Relative,” which reports say is the first step in allowing alien relatives establish permanent residency in the U.S. During Thanksgiving, the Thompsons went ahead to file a motion to reopen their asylum case with the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).

The ICE subsequently joined the family’s motion before the BIA to reopen the deportation case after pressure from church, community members, and officials, including Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Dwight Evans, who visited the couple in sanctuary.

“Upon the BIA’s issuance of a decision, the Thompsons were no longer subject to a final order of removal, thereby removing any imminent concerns of possible removal,” an ICE official told. Though the Thompsons are yet to gain permanent residency, they are satisfied with the experience of being free again. It’s estimated that 40 people in 16 states are currently in sanctuary at churches in the U.S.