FT. LAUDERDALE – The Broward County Commission Libraries Division will host a community tribute in honor of the late Hon. Louise Bennett-Coverley, O.M., J.J., M.B.E., (Miss Lou) on Monday, October 16, beginning at 7 p.m. at the African American Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale.
Monday, October 16th is also observed as Jamaica’s National Heroes Day.
The event will celebrate and remember the legacy of Jamaica’s cultural icon through music, verse, drama and ole’ time stories to be performed by Florida-based Jamaican artists. Some of those include the Jamaica Folk Revue, the Tallawah Mento Band, Malachi Smith, Miss Ivy Armstrong (affectionately as Miss Ivy), and dub poets Malachi Smith and Damian “Memory” Reynolds among others.
Miss Lou
The story of famed Jamaican National Hero, Nanny, will also be told in drama, in presentation by local performers, the Queens Entertainment Troupe.
The short play entitled “If It Wasn’t for Nanny” has familiar folk characters such as Anancy and reveals several facts about the Jamaican national hero who was credited for the leading the Maroon resistance to English domination. Nancy outsmarted the famed British Redcoats using guerilla warfare and her brilliance became legendary.
The evening’s entertainment is free to the public and begins an informal reception at 6 p.m. Performances begin at 7 p.m.
Miss Lou died at age 86, on Wednesday (July 26) in Toronto, Canada where she had resided for more than a decade. She would have celebrated her 87th birthday next September 7th.
Miss Lou was buried in Jamaica on Wednesday (Aug. 9) at the National Heroes’ Park in Kingston.
Throughout her career, Miss Lou was recipient of many awards and accolades including the Jamaica’s Order of Merit in 2001, the Order of Jamaica in 1974, the Norman Manley Award for Excellence in the field of Arts, the Institute of Jamaica’s Musgrave Silver and Gold medals for distinguished eminence in the field of Arts and Culture, and in 1983 the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of the West Indies.
