{"id":12951,"date":"2022-01-18T16:44:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T20:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=12951"},"modified":"2022-02-22T16:59:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T21:59:52","slug":"forward-upward-onward-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/forward-upward-onward-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Forward. Upward. Onward. Together."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Hon. Jamahl Strachan, MP<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jamahl Strachan went to Washington in the summer of 2008 to work as an intern on Capitol Hill, where as a 20-year-old rising senior at UMES he landed a coveted assignment in the office of the junior senator from Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fall, the latter became the first Black man elected President of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan, now 33, is the Bahamas\u2019 youngest Member of Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan came to Princess Anne in the fall of 2005 with adolescent dreams of representing his country in the Olympics as a track-and-field athlete as well as harboring thoughts of a legal career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His four months in the nation\u2019s capital changed the trajectory of Strachan\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I returned (to campus) from Washington,\u201d he said. \u201cI had lost all interest in track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan finished his studies at UMES in 2011 with two degrees \u2014 a bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s in criminal justice \u2014 and with a new-found yearning to return to the Bahamas to make a difference in people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt I had to go home,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t spend all your time at university.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan had no idea<\/strong> in early 2008 who Barack Obama was.  As a student-athlete, he concentrated on his studies to stay eligible to compete \u2013 he graduated summa cum laude<\/em> \u2013 and trained as a high jumper and record-setting pole vaulter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan\u2019s visits home were few and far between.  He typically remained stateside to save on the cost of travel and to focus on staying in shape academically and athletically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After seeing a poster on a Hazel Hall bulletin board as an undergraduate, and encouraged by a UMES professor, Strachan secured a Comcast Diversity Congressional Scholarship, a program that exposed undergraduates at historically Black institutions to the work of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and four other UMES students headed off to Washington shortly after the spring semester ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan was not immediately assigned to a Congressional office.  A week later, however, he got a message to report to Obama\u2019s U.S Senate office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By early June it was clear Obama would be the 2008 Democratic Party nominee for president; Strachan\u2019s ambitious fellow interns unsuccessfully lobbied him to trade assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He showed up for work and recalled an office staffer greeted him with a typical ice-breaker question: \u201cWhich part of Illinois are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That exchange is among Strachan\u2019s favorite memories from the summer of 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan embraced the assignment as a challenge just the way he would \u201cas a competitive student-athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had absolutely no knowledge of Illinois,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I devoted myself to learning everything I could about the state and the people Sen. Obama represented.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Summer 2008<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, he described it as a warp-speed course on the intricacies of the federal government, and the geographically diverse mid-western state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan interacted with Obama three times that summer, including a photo session on the Capitol steps the senator made time to attend to show appreciation for his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt shows you how your life can change in an instant,\u201d Strachan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding work back home right away was difficult.  He eventually landed a position with IBM, then was recruited to work for the Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While thankful to being able to serve his country, the life of a desk-bound bureaucrat did not excite him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, Strachan headed to Beijing, where he said he earned a master\u2019s degree in international law from the China Foreign Affairs University.  He learned to speak and read Mandarin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon his return to the Bahamas a year later to his government job, he hoped to get an overseas posting that never came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 28, Strachan borrowed a page<\/strong> from community-organizer Obama\u2019s early career playbook and started a non-profit, \u201cThe Future of our Neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He drew on his experience as a socially active undergraduate, where he pledged and eventually was elected by peers to be chapter president of Omega Psi Phi, a fraternity that places a high value on community service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan enlisted a network of friends and acquaintances to join him in mounting a grassroots campaigns to clean up down-on-their-luck neighborhoods and address \u201cfood security\u201d woes facing Nassau Village neighbors.  His image as an emerging philanthropist got noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
2009 track meet<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Challenged by his fianc\u00e9e, Strachan submitted a portfolio to the Progressive Liberal Party hoping its leadership might support him as a candidate for the Bahamian parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI resigned from my job not knowing whether an election would even be called,\u201d he said of the former British colony\u2019s election system, adding \u201cI have no issues not knowing what I\u2019m going to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan has not had contact with former President Obama since 2008, but noted \u201cI wrote to him while I was vying to be a Member of Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He swept into office in September 2021, garnering, he said, 75 percent of the vote to represent the Nassau Village region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Progressive Liberal Party leadership made him its liaison to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the parliamentary secretary, which makes him the agency\u2019s number two official and an \u201cambassador at-large.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strachan credits taking a chance on coming to America for a college education as \u201ca once in a lifetime opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reality is that \u2013 that was my springboard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think my story \u2013 so far \u2013 shows the sky is the limit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The headline is inspired by the Commonwealth of the Bahamas’ national motto.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamahl Strachan went to Washington in the summer of 2008 to work as an intern on Capitol Hill, where as a 20-year-old rising senior at UMES he landed a coveted assignment in the office of the junior senator from Illinois. That fall, the latter became the first Black man elected President of the United States….Read more Forward. Upward. Onward. Together.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-12951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12951"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=12951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}