Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson’s contribution to Black Mexico cannot be overstated

In April of this year, I received a message from the President of Mexico Negro/Black Mexico, Don Pedro Sergio Peñaloza Pérez, who was elated to share a recent visit that he had made, along with a small delegation of Afro-Mexicans to the island of Trinidad to visit and celebrate their beloved Father Glyn Nelson Jemmott. Their visit also coincided with the Catholic Church’s celebration of 49 years of Father Glyn being ordained as a Catholic Priest.

Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson is well-known among researchers of Afro-Mexican history and culture, as one of the first persons from outside of Mexico, the grandfather of the archives, who we all sought as we embarked on our research expeditions into Afro-Mexican communities on the Costa Chica de Oaxaca y Guerrero on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Father Glyn would travel to Mexico as a young priest, recently graduated from the Vatican, with dreams of meeting with descendants of blacks who he firmly believed still existed in Mexico, despite reassurances from Bishops, the Archbishop and congregants in Mexico City where he was first posted that “Ya han desaparecido”/ “they have all disappeared.”

Of course, claims of the non-existence of black Mexicans were bolstered by the official position of successive Mexican governments, in keeping with the declarations of José Vasconcelos, a Minister of Education in Mexico (1921-1924), who rejected cultural and racial plurality in Mexico and advanced the ideology of mestizaje, which claimed that the true Mexican is mestizo and that blacks had long ceased to exist in Mexico. Fr. Glyn stubbornly dismissed these claims as being grounded in myth and doggedly continued his search until he quite unexpectedly encountered his fellow blacks in Oaxaca. That meeting led him to request a transfer (despite being cautioned against it) to work among this “forgotten” and undeclared population in Oaxaca. It was a request that resulted in twenty-eight (28) years serving as priest of the local Catholic Church in the small town of El Ciruelo in Oaxaca. During his tenure, he poured himself into teaching black Mexicans in small communities along the Pacific coast of Mexico – Oaxaca y Guerrero, about themselves, as descendants of Africans who had been taken to Mexico as slaves. Armed with his firm belief that mestizaje, as promulgated by Vasconcelos, and maintained by subsequent Mexican governments was a lie, he set about teaching them about their African heritage, their connections to him, as a Caribbean person and descendant of Africans and as someone who understood his blackness, he sought to educate them about their rights as people of African descent, in a predominantly Eurocentric society.

During the time I conducted research on Afro-Mexican communities on the Costa Chica of Oaxaca y Guerrero, I had the great honour of meeting Father Glyn Nelson Jemmott, who had recently returned to Trinidad in 2013. He shared his vast experience working as a Priest, who was not only interested in the spiritual well-being of his congregants, but in helping them to understand their true identity as African descendants and to develop pride in their unique African-derived cultural heritage. He wanted them to understand that their marginalisation, absence from official discourse on Mexican nation were all linked to Mexico’s rejection of them, based on race and locale. Father Glyn’s name was used by me many times to initiate conversations with groups of blacks along the street, in their homes and in restaurants. Suspicions of an obvious stranger would quietly turn to warmth and the ready sharing of histories and stories about themselves and their connections to the Afro-Mexican community, once I mentioned his name. Father Glyn had not only taught them about the Bible, he taught them about the dignity of being black human beings, of knowing and accepting themselves as blacks, the truths about their connections to an African past and helped them to develop a sense of belonging in a country, which until 2024, insisted that they were not part of Mexican nation – they did not exist. He consistently advanced arguments against the exclusion and depreciation of black Mexicans that he witnessed.

Father Glyn established the well-known Centro Cultural Cimarrón/Maroon Cultural Centre in El Ciruelo as a workshop where black artists, dancers and other creative persons could develop their skills and craft. The workshop remained in operation from 1986-2007 and was a focal point for the production of excellent artistic works by black Mexicans. He was also concerned about the abject poverty and neglect in Afro-Mexican communities, the low levels of education among the blacks of Costa Chica, due to the neglect of the area and was instrumental in the establishment of the Afro-Universidad Politécnica Intercultural in Oaxaca. This was the realisation of his long-held dream to see black youths receive tertiary level education that recognised and addressed their individual needs, and prepared them for future employment.

In 1992, Father Glyn organised the first gathering of Blacks, referred to as Mexico Negro/Black Mexico, a group which now meets annually to celebrate their black cultural and racial heritage. Its members apotheosise Father Glyn and honour him without failure in their annual Colloquium dedicated to interrogate the realities of blackness in Mexico, attributing their black consciousness to his sowing the seeds of knowledge about Afro-Mexican heritage and leading them to understand themselves as a distinctive ethnic group in Mexico (Ramsay).

One of the main objectives of the group has been the push to obtain constitutional recognition from the Federal Government of Mexico and commitment to the development of their region with good roads, a good educational system and social amenities. Father Glyn celebrated with Afro-Mexicans in 2013 and 2014 when the States of Oaxaca and Guerrero respectively acknowledged and modified their constitutions to give political, social, cultural and economic rights to Mexico’s Afro-descendant population. Glyn Nelson Jemmott recalled that at the time he had recently returned to Trinidad after thirty years in the Mexican Catholic church, but was flooded with emails in which leaders of the black community expressed gratitude for his struggles on their behalf saying, “Padre valió la pena”/ “Father it was worth it”.

The insistence, relentless appeals and educational workshops led by Father Glyn finally drew the attention of outsiders and increased pressure from the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and other activist groups to disturb Mexico’s position on black Mexico, to recognise Mexico’s blacks as a distinctive ethnic group, to allow them to vote, to be counted in the census; to gain visibility. Finally, in 2019, Mexico (The Federal Government) decided to amend Article Two of its Constitution to officially recognise Afro-Mexicans as a distinctive ethno-racial group in Mexico. In 2024, there was a further reform, that expanded and gave black Mexicans additional constitutional rights. This concession by Mexico came much later than all of the rest of Latin America and black Mexicans understand that there is still much to be done, but know that they owe much of their gains and recognition in the country which denied their existence to the work and struggle of a Trinidadian Priest, who did more than preach about God, but opened their eyes about themselves as blacks with a unique broader history and African-derived cultural heritage. His contributions can never be overstated.

As the Catholic church in Trinidad and Tobago prepares to celebrate Father Glyn’s 50 years as a Priest, I believe it is also fitting to honour him for the sacrifices he made when he elected to reside and serve in one of the most impoverished areas of Mexico, as he worked toward achieving dignity, knowledge of self, acceptance of heritage and identity among Afro-Mexicans, who will always hold him in high esteem. The dream is now that Mexico will begin to include bonafide black Mexicans on their athletics and football teams, rather than black people from other countries, who they claim they have now accepted. Black Mexicans need to break the sports barrier now too.

Professor Paulette A. Ramsay if professor of Afro-Hispanic Studies Research Fellow at the P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy