Dear Editor,
Reverend William Menzie Webb was not only a very senior member of the Baptist clergy, but was also the founder of the Westwood High School for Girls, or as described then, young Jamaican ladies of colour. In fact, the inability of the Reverend Webb to find acceptable schooling for his daughters Emily and Catherine (my great grandmother), due to their colour, had forced him to send them to school in England in the late 1870s. The founding of Westwood was my relative's attempt at breaking down racial barriers in education or discriminatory treatment meted out to black girls.
The recent case of the cancellation of the initial appointment of the St Hilda's High School head girl, because of religious belief, smacks also of discriminatory treatment, albeit on religious grounds. I feel quite sure that if my great grandmother were still alive, she would share with us the awful pain of discrimination she had to endure, because of her colour, and would empathise and seek to redress the wrong experienced by this young girl by offering her a place at Westwood to complete her education comfortably. As one of the descendants of the Webb family, I therefore wish to suggest to the board of Westwood that the gesture of offering her a place at the school would be a fit and worthwhile gesture in honouring the legacy of that fine institution.
Colonel Allan Douglas
Kingston 10
alldouglas@aol.com
Westwood could make a gesture
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Reverend William Menzie Webb was not only a very senior member of the Baptist clergy, but was also the founder of the Westwood High School for Girls, or as described then, young Jamaican ladies of colour. In fact, the inability of the Reverend Webb to find acceptable schooling for his daughters Emily and Catherine (my great grandmother), due to their colour, had forced him to send them to school in England in the late 1870s. The founding of Westwood was my relative's attempt at breaking down racial barriers in education or discriminatory treatment meted out to black girls.
The recent case of the cancellation of the initial appointment of the St Hilda's High School head girl, because of religious belief, smacks also of discriminatory treatment, albeit on religious grounds. I feel quite sure that if my great grandmother were still alive, she would share with us the awful pain of discrimination she had to endure, because of her colour, and would empathise and seek to redress the wrong experienced by this young girl by offering her a place at Westwood to complete her education comfortably. As one of the descendants of the Webb family, I therefore wish to suggest to the board of Westwood that the gesture of offering her a place at the school would be a fit and worthwhile gesture in honouring the legacy of that fine institution.
Colonel Allan Douglas
Kingston 10
alldouglas@aol.com
Westwood could make a gesture
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