Some of your readers have contacted me regarding my letter stating that John Brown Russwurm was the second black person to graduate from an American college. Some thought he was the first.

Please publish my response as there are many who share that mistaken belief and others who have never heard of this famous man.

To one questioner I wrote:

'Thanks for your interest. JBR was the first black to graduate from Bowdoin College. He did so in 1826. However, three years earlier, Alexander Lucius Twilight graduated with a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont. In 1836, he was also the first African-American elected to public office as a state legislator, serving in the Vermont General Assembly ...'

I am stressing the point that as we Jamaicans celebrate Barack Obama's historic achievement, we should do so not merely as joyful spectators, but as people of a country whose sons and daughters contributed significantly to the making of America's first black president.

I am, etc.,

KEN JONES

alllerdyce@hotmail.com