Delaware is home to over 6,000 Jamaicans, although the group doesn’t seem to have many services or a designated center.
Judy Malcolm is attempting to fill that gap. At the age of fifteen, Malcolm traveled from St. Catherine, Jamaica, to the United States. She is Bob Marley’s second cousin. She is actively striving to gather resources and establish the Jamaican Heritage and Reggae Museum because she is passionate about reggae music and Jamaican heritage. She thinks it will serve as a hub for Delaware’s Jamaican community to stay united.
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She believed that there was greater unity than ever between Jamaicans and other people of color when she first came in Delaware. She didn’t discover until much later that the forced bussing policy, which moved city kids to suburban schools in an effort to diversify the student body, was the underlying cause of what she initially believed to be a feeling of solidarity.“I didn’t even know that it was bussing until years later… they were bussing us from Wilmington to Glasgow. That’s where I went to school,” she remarked. “I was so busy trying to just acclimate to say, ‘I’m okay. I’m in a new place. I’m not with my mom. I’m not in a very familiar place.’”
Whatever the cause, according to Malcolm, there was a genuine sense of Jamaican solidarity. She remembers that they used to all speak Patois, a poetic Creole language rooted in English that with West African overtones.
“We came here as a small community. Our culture was very, very strong, we spoke Patois, we were able to go to a Jamaican club which no longer exists,” she shared. “Everybody was tight, but what has happened is that everybody kind of filtered out over the generations and time.”
Her goals are to bring the Jamaican community back together and create a secure environment.
“That was the reason why I felt that this particular area in Wilmington [needs] to have a heritage center. Not only can people come and learn about our culture, but our own Jamaicans, we need to harness and get people to come back together,” Malcom stated.
Thinking back on her own parenting experiences, she couldn’t help but wonder if her kids knew who Jamaica’s prime minister is at the moment. The thought that they might not be aware of it brought home how important the museum is.
The museum wants to educate tourists about Jamaican culture and its impact by offering seminars, cultural events, and displays. Children might explore it and even enroll in Patois lessons as an educational facility.
The museum’s exhibit on the late 1960s-era reggae genre, which features key figures like Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, and Toots and the Maytals, is one of its highlights.
Malcolm’s goals go beyond her relationship with Bob Marley, although there is no denying his impact on the global music landscape. Interest in her intentions is also influenced by his relationship with Wilmignton.
“You can’t say reggae music without Bob Marley,” she noted. “All people want to talk about is Bob.”
In 1966, Marley resided on Tatnall Street with his mother. Under the identity “Donald Marley,” he labored as a lab assistant at DuPont and on the assembly line at the former Chrysler factory in Newark to earn money for launching his own record company in Jamaica.
Marley’s 1977 Wailers hit song “One Love/People Get Ready” inspired the renaming of a park across the street from the Marleys’ residence as “One Love Park.”
In honor of Marley, his mother Cedella Booker, and other departed family members, Malcolm recently took the rest of the family to attend the just-released film “Bob Marley: One Love.”“Part of [what] I would like to see happen, is the remaining Bob Marley family, I would really like to bring the next family generation, that’s still here in Wilmington, I would like to take them with me to see the movie and capture it and let that be a part of the museum,” Morgan stated.
She expected a modest gathering because of everyone’s distance and varied locations. She was shocked to see over a hundred family members at the Christiana Cinemark. Malcolm stated that a frame would be placed on the wall of the Jamaican Heritage and Reggae Museum to honor the family get-together.
Malcolm is striving to acquire money and choose the ideal site for the museum. In the end, she wants the museum to be located along the Wilmington Riverfront.
