![]() |
Marcus GarveyNational hero of jamaica
Date of Birth: 17.08.1877
Country: ![]() |
Biography of Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey, the national hero of Jamaica, was born on August 17, 1887, in Jamaica. Despite attending school until the age of 14, he primarily pursued self-education. Between 1912 and 1914, he traveled through Central America and then lived in London for a period of time. Upon returning to Jamaica, he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) on August 1, 1914, along with a group of comrades. The main goal of the UNIA was to establish a state in Africa with self-governance for people of African descent. Failing to achieve significant success in Jamaica, Garvey moved to the United States, where he established branches of the UNIA in Harlem and several other African-American ghettos in the northern part of the country. He published the newspaper "Negro World" and founded the Negro Factories Corporation. In 1920, he chaired an international congress of Negro organizations, which saw the participation of delegates from 25 countries worldwide. The congress concluded with a parade of over 50,000 African Americans through the streets of Harlem.
However, Garvey held excessively radical views on racism, believing in the necessity of preserving the racial purity of African Americans. He even approved of the existence of the Ku Klux Klan as an organization fighting against racial mixing. These beliefs led to him gaining numerous enemies within the African-American movement. Furthermore, his unethical business practices resulted in him and some members of the UNIA being indicted on fraud charges in 1922 and sentenced to prison. Garvey received a 10-year sentence; however, he was released from prison and deported from the United States in 1927. Following this, Garvey's influence within the African-American movement significantly declined and was never restored. He died in London, living in practical isolation.