There are those who become distinguished historians by virtue of the depth and extent of their original research.
There are others who are universally recognized to have created history by virtue of their own distinctive contribution to the shape and course of human progress.
There is a small and select few who span both categories. The Hon. Lucille Mathurin Mair falls within this special band. Much has already been said and much more will be written about her specutacular achievements as a scholar, a Mentor, a Teacher, an Author, and Ambassador, International Diplomat, and we should not omit that of a Mother. All of this will still fall short because Lucille as a person was more than the total sum of her tremendous accomplishments in all of these separate fields.
Quite recently, we have heard a great deal of those who have shattered the glass window. Lucille was one who helped to unlock the door and in innumerable areas she was the first to open the way for others.
Let me begin with the building on the Mona Campus of a larger Hall of Residence to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of female students to U.C.W.I as it then was. No one was more fitting to be chosen as the FIRST female Warden on this campus than Lucille Mathurin who came to fulfil the dreams and aaspirations of Mary Seacole, that great pioneer and heroine of blessed memory. The configuration of the Hall was vastly different from Irvine Hall, where the Ladies previously resided. Ingress and egress, particularly from dusk to dawn, had been made far more difficult for resident and visitor alike. The curfew hour was 10.30. At somewhere around 10.15 each night the newly appointed Warden seemed to appear from nowhere to welcome the return of her charges and to thank their escorts for the care they had rendered in ensuring a safe passage back home.
Thereafter, the signals from her were clear -Until she became engaged as a Lecturer also, her sole concentration was on the physical and moral welfare of the students, while at the same time imbuing in them a confidence and determination that there was no intellectual or professional wall which they could not scale. The positive influence she had on the lives and careers of the Ladies of Mary Seacole Hall cannot be exaggerated.
I would be ill-advised, nor is it necessary for me to reiterate her outstanding contribution to the evolution of Caribbean history. Lucille said it herself in 1990 Speech and Professor Verene Shepherd wrote last Saturday as to the enduring legacy bequeathed "to the historiography within the reproduction of the patriarchal machinery of domination and exploitation."
Her seminal contribution to the political process and to international diplomacy must be placed within the context of her time. Lucille, like so many of her early contemporaries secured tertiary education in the United Kingdom. That group, whether they came from Africa, the Caribbean or any part of an Empire on which the sun would never set, deplored the existing imperial order which fostered oppression, discrimination and prejudice of race, colour, gender, religion and class. Virtually every one of them returned home with the resolve to fight the barriers of Colonialism, poverty, inequity and injustice wherever it appeared. While some became immediately active in the political area, there were others who chose to fight the battle on other fronts.
Lucille dedicated herself to the struggle for equity highlighted in issues of gender and the international economic system. And so she was articulate in defining the contours of feminism, while making it abundantly clear in her substantive writings and her own demeanour, that she was not one to fit the stereotyped classification of being herself a feminist. A figure of grace, elegance and beauty, there was never the slightest doubt of her preparedness to charm when that suited the purpose but to be like granite when the cause so required. In many circles, that alluring smile and the twinkle in her eyes only served to disarm anyone who had a different agenda in mind.
Jamaica, the Caribbean and the world have lost a champion in the fight for equality and justice, a pioneer in the sphere of building self esteem and the universal acceptance of the dignity which should be afforded every human being on the single Planet we share.
Those of us who were privileged to know her, will miss her in our own unique way.To her children, Gail, David and Adrian, her immediate family, to the countless sistren and brethren as they mourn her passing, we extend our heartfelt sympathy and support.
Even as you have dearly loved her, the time has come to let her go.
Be comforted in the knowledge that Lucille Maude Mathurin Mair did even more than she had to do during her sojourn with us on earth.
She has fully deserved the right for her soul to rest in peace.
February 6, 2009
P.J. Patterson
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