by Howard Campbell
SOUTH FLORIDA – The title of Audrey Wright Peterman’s memoirs — From my Jamaican Gully to The World And Back! — is quite a mouthful. But that’s because the feisty environmentalist has a lot to say.
First released in December, 2019, the book was recently updated to include her stance on climate change and the importance of educating persons of color about being environmentally aware.
Peterman and her Alabama-born husband Frank, who were longtime South Florida residents, moved to Jamaica four years ago. For many years, they were a rare black presence in US environmental affairs but helped raise interest among minority groups about the National Parks Service.
One of Peterman’s most direct observations about the lack of minorities in the National Parks Service came in 2006 when she addressed a conference of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) in Arizona.
“There was nobody who looked like Aretha Franklin or James Brown, and looking around one could easily believe that the parks had been purged of people of color. I said that the demographic shift was upon us, and that we were effectively presiding over the demise of the Park System, if we did not speedily set about the business of engaging non-white people with the parks so that they come to love them and want to protect them,” Peterman recalled.
Although her speech was passionate, Peterman admits very little changed. But with a committed husband, she soldiered on and became a transformative trustee member of the NPCA.
That organization honored Peterman and two of her minority colleagues last April for tireless efforts in diversifying and helping maintain the National Parks Service.
From my Jamaican Gully to The World And Back! not only looks at Peterman’s life in the US where she migrated to in 1978. But her roots in rural Clarendon where she learned to appreciate the basics of life.
Prior to migration, she was a journalist at the Gleaner newspaper in Kingston, an experience Peterman credits for completing the book in three months.
“It’s for people who feel nostalgic for the old days when life in the countryside was so much slower and more communal than it is today. People of the African Diaspora in particular need to know that it doesn’t matter where you start, you can make a difference if you believe in yourself and have a spiritual framework,” she reasoned. “People who want to catch up on what’s happening with our environment and don’t want to delve through scientific literature; they can learn through this great story.”
