Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in St Ann’s Bay, St Ann, on August 17, 1887. He left Jamaica in the 1900s and eventually ended up in Harlem, New York. Garvey became a leader of the Harlem Renaissance but, hounded by United States law enforcement, he was imprisoned on dubious fraud charges, and then deported to Jamaica.
In 1914, he started the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), in Jamaica. The UNIA, which grew into an international organisation, encouraged self-government for black people worldwide; self-help economic projects and protest against racial discrimination.
He died from a stroke in London in June 1940. His body was exhumed and shipped to Jamaica in November 1964. He was also officially recognised as a National Hero.
Read more at Jamaica’s first National Hero here.
