MaVynee Betsch was recently introduced to me as the expert guide for a tour of the Kingsley Plantation on Amelia Island, on Florida's east coast  This witty and intelligent woman is well equipped for this role by right of her birth; she is the Granddaughter of the black woman who seven generations before had wed Zephaniah Kingsley and lived in her own house and supervised slave workers on his river-side estate.  What is remarkable about MaVynee is not just her blood connection to a slave from Senegal, West Africa named Anna Madgigine, but that just about everything in her long journey through life has qualified her as an articulate activist and passionate conservationist.

MaVynee is an "event" in herself!  Clad in sandals and colourfull Sea Island cottons , wrapped in a bright orange poncho  she talked  about that colours'  significance in the days when racial tensions and segregation kept coloured folks at the beach behind an orange rope, even out into the ocean!  The "Beach Lady" as she is also known is  distinguished by her six foot braid of hair, which she wears even in Florida's humid climate across her shoulders, around her waist and over one arm to honour the curve of the River Niger in West Africa.  I can only speculate as to how she manages to sleep at night!  MaVynee wears shells around her ankles , feathers in her hair and the "buttons" on her costume freely express her feelings on human rights and nature conservancy .

Her Great-Grandfather Abraham Lincoln Lewis was one of the seven founders of The Afro-American Life Insurance Company, and became the first black millionaire in the State of Florida.  MaVynee was sent to major in voice and piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and after graduating as a classically trained soprano traveled in Europe and sang opera in Germany.  Nowadays her energy is focused on bringing attention to the need to achieve a balance on the hot issue of potential land development  where she lives at American Beach : Florida's first black beach community.

*  You can learn more about MaVynee's life and her concerns here:

MaVynee Betsch