Son of civil rights leader Marcus Garvey talks black history, Bob Marley in N.S.

In 1937, well-known civil rights leader Marcus Garvey visited Cape Breton, where he is still celebrated in local museums and with a summer festival bearing his name.

On Wednesday, the younger Garvey toured a museum inside the Glace Bay hall of the Universal Negro Improvement Association — which his father founded in 1914 — looking at photos and other artifacts from his father’s historic visit to the area nearly eight decades ago.

“It was a sort of homecoming in a way, even though it’s my first visit. But I represent my dad so it was a homecoming for him. They saw me as a part of him and were welcoming me back in his place,” said Garvey in a phone interview.

During his speech at the university, Garvey said he spoke about how people of African decent need to “reconstitute our history.”

“I think one of our problems is that we’ve been disconnected from our history and our culture as African people, because of the circumstances of slavery and colonialism,” said Garvey, a surgeon based in New York City, adding that he has traced his roots back hundreds of thousand of years.

“My father said people without a knowledge of their origins, history and culture is like a tree without roots.”

Garvey said Marley read a lot about his father, a Jamaican, and the speech delivered in Nova Scotia in 1937 was likely part of that reading material when Marley wrote Redemption Song. Marley died months after the song was released.

“I consider Bob Marley to be a revolutionary poet, and in the same vein as my dad, used his talents for civil rights,” said Garvey.

The tale of how one of Marley’s greatest songs was born in Nova Scotia is the subject of a new book by Halifax author Jon Tattrie called “Redemption Songs.” The book uncovers why Marley so revered Marcus Garvey, and looks at the roots of Rastafarianism.

The Nova Scotia government has announced it is giving the Glace Bay Universal Negro Improvement Association hall $25,000 for renovations, including building a stage and interpretive displays.

It says the renovations will better tell the story of how Garvey has impacted Glace Bay and will also look at the black miners’ experiences in Cape Breton.

The hall was built in 1918 and is the only remaining branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Canada.

There were once 1,100 association branches world-wide, however only about 20 remain.

Follow (at)AlyThomson on Twitter.

Aly Thomson, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Son of civil rights leader Marcus Garvey talks black history, Bob Marley in N.S.

Our Community