Claudius Massop, Jamaica Labour Party and West Kingston enforcer, was killed by police along Industrial Terrace in Kingston on February 4 1979. Alphonso Tinson and Lloyd Frazer were also killed in the Sunday afternoon incident. They were returning to Kingston from a football match. Massop was 30 years old.

Aston “Bucky” Marshall, a rabid supporter of the People’s National Party, was a major player in organising the January 1978 Peace Treaty in West Kingston. Marshall was murdered in a New York City nightclub on March 8, 1980.

Milton “Tony” Welsh was one of Member of Parliament Tony Spaulding’s enforcers in Arnett Gardens, a People’s National Party stronghold. Welsh was also a key figure in the peace movement of the late 1970s. He survived most of the ‘gorgons’ of the period, dying at age 67 in April last year.

Jacob Miller started his career at Studio One as a teenager in the late 1960s. He lived up to that early promise as lead singer of the Inner Circle band, and seemed destined for international stardom in the aftermath of the One Love Peace Concert, but died in a motor accident at age 27 in March 1980.

Bob Marley was seen by ghetto youth as a champion of the poor and marginalized. The “Gong” was an international star at the time of the One Love Peace Concert, rubbing shoulders with Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Roberta Flack, etc. He died in May 1981 at age 36 from cancer, leaving a massive catalogue of timeless music.

Peter Tosh, the self-proclaimed “Stepping Razor”, marched to his own beat. His uncompromising stance on issues like apartheid and legalisation of ganja earned him admirers globally. He was murdered at his St Andrew home in September 1987 at age 42.

Dennis Brown, the former boy “wonder and much-loved Crown Prince of Reggae”. Brown remains arguably the most popular artiste among Jamaicans, influencing a generation of singers including Frankie Paul, Richie Stephens and Luciano. He died in July 1999 at age 42.

Michael Manley was Jamaica’s prime minister for most (1972-80) of the turbulent 1970s. His ideology of democratic socialism spawned a number of social programmes geared forward uplifting the poor, resulting in social change and political division. He died from prostate cancer, at age 73, in March 1997.