A University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer wants the regional institution to endow the title of Professor Emeritus on National Hero Marcus Garvey for his contribution to education, social and business entrepreneurship.

According to Dr Kadamawe K’nife, Garvey championed entrepreneurship in his time as a means of developing black economic power. He suggested, too, that Jamaicans should follow Garvey’s example and try to utilise the resources of our worldwide diaspora to generate investment opportunities for the country.

K’nife was delivering the fourth Marcus Garvey Lecture at a programme to launch the 10th anniversary celebrations of the St Ann Homecoming and Heritage Foundation.

The launch was held at the St Ann Parish Library last month.

Making reference to Garvey’s Black Star shipping line, which was founded 100 years ago, K’nife said that the current expansion of the Panama Canal, which Garvey had predicted, and the economic hub being developed in Jamaica offer boundless opportunities for creating wealth for people of all levels in the society who can provide the services that will be needed for the development of the hub.

In that regard, he said that the lecture series sponsored by the foundation in honour of Garvey provided students with the opportunity to reflect on and learn from the national hero’s vision, leadership, initiative, and legacy of inspiration and nation-building which, in Martin Luther King’s words, “gave millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny, and made the Negro feel that he was somebody”.

K’nife congratulated the St Ann Foundation on its work over the past 10 years in encouraging students and residents to learn from the entrepreneurship and industry of the sons and daughters of St Ann who have excelled and are a part of Jamaica’s heritage.

The anniversary celebrations will include a student mentorship project to be developed at Marcus Garvey High School in St Ann’s Bay, the foundation’s annual parish awards banquet at Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort on Saturday, August 9, a thanksgiving worship service on August 17, and the maintenance of a scholarship programme named ‘The Children of Our Village’ in collaboration with St Ann’s Bay Primary School.

The foundation will also be seeking to persuade the authorities to name the St Ann’s Bay town centre the Marcus Garvey Square in honour of the national hero, who was born in St Ann’s Bay.