Connie Mark

Connie Mark (born December 21, 1923 in Rollington Town , Jamaica , † June 3, 2007 in London ) was a British activist of Jamaican origin. She served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and was a driving force within the black community, drawing attention to the contribution women made to the war effort. She also became chair of Friends of Mary Seattle and a member of the West Indian Ex-Servicemen and Women's Association and the West Indian Standing Conference.

life and work

Mark was born Constance Winifred McDonald in Jamaica to Mary Rosannah and Ernest Lynas McDonald. Her paternal grandmother was from Jamaica and her grandfather from Scotland . On her mother's side, her grandmother came from Lebanon and her grandfather from Calcutta . Despite their diverse ancestry, the family considered themselves British, largely because Jamaica was a British colony at the time. Two of her uncles were in the Boer War ^{which one?} killed, and her father taught in a school for British Army children. She grew up in Kingston and attended Wolmer's Girls' School. In 1943 she was in Jamaica in theAuxiliary Territorial Service where she worked in the UK Military Hospital for ten years. After her promotion to Lance Corporal , she struggled to get back her lower pay: "The Queen owes me eight years of Tuppence a day." She worked all her life to ensure that the role of Caribbean women soldiers was recognized. In 1991 she received the British Empire Medal for her services and in 1993 the MBE of the Order of the British Empire . In 1952 she married Stanley Goodridge, a young Jamaican fast bowler who was contracted to play cricket for Durham . She moved to live with him in Great Britain with her young daughter Amru Elizabeth in 1954, where her son Stanley was born in 1957. The couple later separated and she married Michael Mark. In 1980, she founded an organization called Friends of Mary Seacole, which was later renamed the Mary Seacole Memorial Association. A blue plaque was posthumously affixed in her honor by the Nubian Jak Community Trust at Mary Seacole House in Hammersmith, traditionally spelled MacDonald, the name of her ancestor. In 2018, The Voice newspaper listed her alongside Kathleen Wrasama , Olive Morris , Fanny Eaton , Diane Abbott , Lilian Bader , Margaret Busby and Mary Seacole as black women who contributed to the development of Britain on the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage . She was named on the Evening Standard's list of 14 "Inspirational Black British Women Throughout History" (alongside Mary Seacole, Claudia Jones , Adelaide Hall , Margaret Busby, Olive Morris, Joan Armatrading , Tessa Sanderson , Doreen Lawrence , Maggie Aderin- Pocock Sharon White , Malorie Blackman , Diane Abbott and Zadie Smith ). In her honor, Google published a Google Doodle on her 95th birthday on December 21, 2018.

Web links

• Question 100: The Black Women Who Changed British History
• Who is Connie Mark? Jamaican medical activist celebrated by Google Doodle today
• Connie Mark, community activist and Caribbean champion
• Short biography
• 1998 Connie Mark on Windrush, 1990s Interview Rushes