by Vinette K. Pryce
There was a time I questioned my mother’s deep devotion to politics and community service—so much so that I turned to my late father, Ralph H. Pryce, seeking clarity. I felt, at times, that Vena W. Baker was more committed to public duty than to her own daughter.
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“She was a staunch PNP,” my father affirmed, referring to the People’s National Party. He recalled a moment not long after my birth when he returned home to find me in the care of a stranger. Startled, he asked where my mother was and was told she had gone to the polling station. Apparently, an election between the Jamaica Labor Party and the People’s National Party had compelled her into action that day.
Pryce said he rushed to the location only to find my mother fully engaged in the process—counting ballots. “She didn’t even look up,” he recounted with a touch of humor, when he reminded her that she had a newborn at home. He promptly returned to our home at 21 Penn Street in Jones Town, picked me up, and took me to his mother’s house at 23 Clarence Lane.
Not long after, my mother found employment at Bellevue Hospital, working as a nurse until she eventually migrated. With no immediate family members available to care for me, I was boarded on Lyndhurst Road, just around the corner from Peterkin’s Preparatory School on Brentford Road.
It was there that I began receiving postcards from faraway places—Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jordan, South Africa, Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and even China. I kept every one of them, holding onto them as proof that my mother had indeed walked where Christ was said to have walked. Without them, my classmates doubted her journeys.
“You ah idiot, how she fi go go ah heaven?” one of my fellow nine-year-old students once said, interpreting biblical stories as something only accessible through religious faith, not literal travel.
But my mother did travel—extensively. She balanced her role as a psychiatric nurse on the Klau Pavilion of Montefiore Hospital with studies at Bronx Community College, Lehman College, and Long Island University—graduating from all three institutions. Alongside her academic and professional pursuits, she explored Europe, South America, and embarked on ocean cruises at least twice a year. Her journeys included the Baltics, India, Haiti, Cuba, Panama, Madagascar, Alaska, and Hawaii.
It was not unusual to call the hospital and be told, “Your mother is in China with Winnie Mandela,” or that she was off to Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Mali, Ethiopia, or sailing the Nile. Remarkably, she often departed without telling me, her only child.
At home in New York, she devoted countless hours to various community and cultural organizations, including the Jamaica Progressive League, National Action Network, United African Movement, the Schomburg and Countee Cullen Libraries, the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), and many more.
She was a disciple of Pan-African scholars such as Drs. John Henrik Clarke, Ben-Jochannan, Leonard Jeffries, and James Smalls—many of whom she traveled with annually to Africa. Though she was humble and preferred working behind the scenes, she was widely respected. Many in these circles affectionately referred to her as “Mother B”—a title I only learned about through Rev. Al Sharpton.
My mother admired and remained loyal to Jamaican political icons Norman Washington Manley and his son, Michael. She embraced their principles in her political activism, including her support for David N. Dinkins, New York City’s first Black mayor, and Barack Obama, the first Black President of the United States. In fact, she accompanied me to three inaugural galas following Obama’s election and braved the cold of Washington, D.C., to witness his inauguration in person.
Labor Day was sacred to her. She would leave early in the morning to secure a spot along Eastern Parkway for the West Indian Day Parade, often being the last to leave after cleanup. She never missed the children’s carnival either. “If you get to kiddie carnival before me, find me a seat,” she’d say. Though she had seen Mardi Gras in New Orleans and J’ouvert in Trinidad, she found true joy in Brooklyn every first Monday in September.
Even after retiring from Montefiore, she continued to serve—this time as a school nurse.
There is so much more to say about Vena W. Baker, but neither time nor space can truly capture the depth of her life and legacy. She passed away quietly on May 24, 2024, at the age of 95. True to her nature, she left no dramatic parting words. Instead, she had written her own eulogy 24 years earlier and requested that it be read quietly at her homegoing service at Unity Funeral Chapel in Harlem.
Until the end, she remained sharp and active, completing crossword puzzles daily. She was ready.
I, her only daughter, and her sole grandchild, Kahlil Goodwyn, continue to grieve her passing. But we are forever grateful—for her strength, her wisdom, her example, and her unwavering love for both family and community.
