JAMAICA’S first national hero, The Rt Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who died in London in 1940, aged 52, was without doubt among the more important, transformational personalities of the 20th century — here and globally.

Ninety-odd years ago he also served as a councillor in Kingston.

It’s against that total backdrop that naming of the council room of Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation in honour of Mr Garvey — who was born 137 years ago on August 17 — is entirely appropriate.

From his teenage years Mr Garvey dedicated his life, in the face of consistently fierce persecution, to the upliftment of black, downpressed people everywhere.

Even those among the black liberation movement of a century ago, who disagreed with Mr Garvey philosophically, took heart and inspiration from his unbending, unmitigated courage and determination.

His message that black people must stand up for themselves in a hostile, white-dominated world reverberated in Jamaica, throughout the Americas, in ancestral homeland Africa, and beyond.

Mr Garvey urged black people struggling for self-respect and identity in the aftermath of enslavement and unspeakable oppression to “canonise our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honour black men and women who have made their distinct contribution …”

For Jamaicans today who wonder why all this talk about colour, we believe it’s useful to mention — just as an example — that up to the time of political Independence in 1962 very few people of black complexion could land a job in a commercial bank, unless it was janitorial or related.

And, that up to the late 1950s only the most privileged or extraordinarily ‘bright’ of black complexion gained high school education.

Leading up to, and during the 1920s and ’30s, as Mr Garvey campaigned for liberation of the mind as part of his pan-Africanist, black nationalist philosophies, the situation was much, much worse.

Mr Garvey’s teachings influenced in no small measure the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century, mirrored in literature and the wider arts such as is exemplified by fellow Jamaican Mr Claude McKay’s celebrated poem If we must die…

Decades after his death, Mr Garvey’s teachings and activism helped to inspire the Civil Rights Movement and the work of heroes such as Dr Martin Luther King and Mr Malcolm X, which radically changed the United States.

In Africa through the 1960s, 70s, 80s and early 90s, Garveyism was a consistent source of strength as the people of that continent gradually liberated themselves from colonial oppression and racially motivated fascism.

In Jamaica, Mr Garvey’s service went way beyond racial consciousness and liberation to a vision of political and economic upliftment for those at the base of society.

Indeed, he was among the early champions of workers’ rights in this country.

We applaud KSAMC for choosing to recognise the national hero in the way it has.

Councillors must now take to heart advice from Dr Julius Garvey, son of Mr Marcus Garvey, that his father was “the perfect example of server leadership … that is what I would like to see in this chamber. If you are honouring Marcus Garvey it must be about the service that you are going to do for your communities and for the city of Kingston and St Andrew…”

There’s a responsibility they dare not shirk.