A prophet born in St Ann’s Bay

This week, Jamaica pauses to remember the birth of a man whose voice would eventually echo far beyond the small north-coast town where he took his first breath. August 17 marks the anniversary of the birth of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jamaica’s first National Hero and one of the most influential black leaders the world has ever known.

Born in 1887 in St Ann’s Bay to Marcus Garvey Sr, a stonemason, and Sarah Jane Richards, young Marcus grew up in a household of modest means but rich in intellectual curiosity, shaped in part by his father’s personal library. Forced to leave school at fourteen to help support his family, he apprenticed in the print trade, an experience that would later fuel a career built on the power of the written and spoken word.

Travels through Central America and a period in London exposed him to the harsh realities facing black communities across the diaspora, and in 1914, back home in Jamaica, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), dedicated to black pride, unity, and self-determination.

Garvey’s message found only modest traction in Jamaica, so in 1916, he set sail for the United States, settling in Harlem, where the UNIA would grow into the largest black nationalist movement in history, boasting branches across the globe. Through the Negro World newspaper, the ambitious Black Star Line shipping company, and his thunderous oratory that drew tens of thousands, Garvey urged people of African descent everywhere to see themselves not as subjects of history but as its authors.

Legal troubles and financial setbacks would eventually curtail his American career, but his ideas, which came to be known as Garveyism, proved impossible to contain, inspiring independence and civil rights movements across Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States for generations to come.

Today, Garvey rests at the Marcus Garvey Memorial in National Heroes Park, where each August 17, the nation gathers to lay floral tributes at his shrine, while the Institute of Jamaica hosts lectures examining his life, philosophy, and enduring relevance.

From a small home in St Ann’s Bay rose a vision large enough to reshape how millions of people of African descent understood their own worth and destiny.

You may not always be popular, but you can remain grounded in what you believe. In times of change, stand firm in your convictions. They are your greatest possessions.

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