The ground where our heroes rest

Last Thursday, Jamaica marked 64 years of Independence, commemorating August 6, 1962, when the Union Jack came down and the black, green, and gold rose over a nation newly free to chart its own course. In the spirit of that milestone, today we turn to a place built to honour the very people who made that day possible: National Heroes Park.

Long before it became the resting place of the nation’s greatest patriots, this 74-acre stretch of Kingston had a very different life. From 1816, it operated as the Kingston Racecourse, a horse-racing track that also played host to cricket matches, royal jubilees and, fittingly, the public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1838. In 1953, ahead of a royal visit, the grounds were renamed George VI Memorial Park in tribute to Britain’s late king, with the Jamaica War Memorial relocated there to honour soldiers of the two World Wars.

Everything changed after Independence. As Jamaica began building a national identity of its own, the park was reimagined and, in 1973, it was officially renamed National Heroes Park, a deliberate turn from imperial symbols toward homegrown heroes. At its centre lies the National Heroes Circle, a dedicated shrine to Jamaica’s seven National Heroes. Marcus Garvey, declared Jamaica’s first national hero, rests beneath a black star-shaped monument; his remains were repatriated from London in 1964. Nearby lie cousins Sir Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley, whose rivalry and shared conviction shaped the road to universal suffrage and, ultimately, to nationhood. The park is also the resting place of prime ministers, governors-general, and beloved cultural icons, among them Louise Bennett-Coverley, ‘Miss Lou’, and reggae greats Dennis Brown and Toots Hibbert.

To walk in the National Heroes Park is to walk through the architecture of a nation’s memory, a racecourse turned royal memorial, turned shrine to self-determination. Each transformation of this ground mirrors Jamaica’s own journey, from colony to a kingdom of its own making.

The history of a people lives on in their culture and their arts, which are the soul and body of our ancestors, carried forward into who we are today and who we are still becoming. Let us reflect and seek within that history the truth of our own identity.

Contributed by Dr Lorenzo Gordon, a diabetologist, internal medicine consultant, biochemist, and a history and heritage enthusiast. Send feedback to inspiring876@gmail.com.