Rosa Cuthbert was born in 1922 in Diego Martin,[1] on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. She and her younger sister Ameze were left with relatives when their parents Audrey and Henry Cuthbert emigrated in 1927 to the United States. The children did not join their parents in Harlem, New York, until 1932. The following year their mother became ill, and Rosa and her sister were sent to Brooklyn to live with a cousin.[3] The cousin's espousal of Garveyism and black nationalistic politics deeply affected Rosa.[4] After their mother's death in 1934, the two girls returned to Harlem to live with their father, who remarried.
When their father died in 1937, the orphaned girls were taken into the welfare system and lived in foster homes. Rosa left school at the age of 14 and took a job in a garment factory to support herself and her sister.[4]
