In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the One Love Peace Concert, renowned photographer Howard Moo Young Tuesday presented four sets of nine photographs of that concert to former prime minister Edward Seaga, the Michael Manley Foundation, the Marley family and the National Gallery.

The concert, held on the night of April 22, 1978, featured Jamaica’s top stars of the era, headlined by Bob Marley, who eventually became the country’s biggest ever superstar.

Marley’s now famous gesture of getting Seaga, the then opposition leader, and his bitter political rival, then prime minister Michael Manley, on stage to hold hands became an epic moment in Jamaica’s history and was captured on film by Moo Young.

On Tuesday, minister of information, culture, youth and sport, Olivia Grange, expressed gratitude to Moo Young for his donation and stressed the importance of the selection to Jamaica’s culture.

“In the history of Jamaica, there is no photograph that better expresses the mixture of culture and politics that epitomises our nation, than Howard Moo Young’s photograph of reggae rebel Bob Marley uniting the hands of the PNP’s Michael Manley and the JLP’s Edward Seaga,” said Grange.

“Bob Marley made history that night when he boldly demanded that Manley and Seaga step up on stage and present a show of unity,” she added.

Danny Roberts, chairman of the Michael Manley Foundation, called for a greater awareness of Jamaica’s historical struggles, saying: “There are too many of us who need to understand the significance of this.”

The impact of the pictures, he said, “is that they capture the past and should be able to point us to the future”.

The concert was aimed at uniting the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who were at the time locked in battle for political and ideological supremacy.

According to Seaga, JLP don Claude Massop and PNP henchman Aston ‘Bucky’ Marshall had agreed to end the fighting while both were imprisoned. When both were released, the unofficial oral pact was followed by the establishment of a peace council with other influential members of Kingston underground. They decided to hold a function to promote the idea of peace and the peace concert was conceptualised.

Music icon Tommy Cowan was recognised for his role as organiser of the concert.

Seaga, the only surviving of the three photographed by Moo Young, described the event as “one of the greatest nights of our history”.

The concert was also recognised internationally as sixth on a list of 20 rock performances compiled by Channel 4, a UK-based television station and voted on by a panel of artistes, journalists and broadcasters.