MEMBER of Parliament for St Andrew South Western, Dr Angela Brown Burke is calling for an expansion of Marcus Garvey’s teachings beyond the school curriculum, in order to preserve the legacy of Jamaica’s first national hero.

Garvey has been Jamaica’s hot topic since Sunday after he was posthumously pardoned by former United States President Joe Biden. Garvey, who advocated for black nationalism, was convicted of mail fraud in the US more than 100 years ago, in a trial widely believed to have been rigged.

Browne Burke, who was responding to a statement on Garvey’s pardon by Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports Minister Olivia Grange in Parliament on Tuesday, argued that Garvey’s teachings, which had a profound impact on so many leaders of the world and so many organisations across the globe, ought to be more greatly preserved by the country.

She added that while Jamaica has started to honour Garvey’s legacy through the Marcus Garvey School Project, there is need to go further.

“Because it is the teachings of Marcus Garvey that is going to liberate us as a people, that is going to make the difference in how our young boys and girls see themselves so that they no longer see the black skin as a badge of shame — and that is what is going to make his legacy long-lasting when our people stand up, adopt, internalise and manifest his teachings,” said Brown Burke.

“I believe the greatest honour that we can show here in Jamaica is to broaden the Marcus Garvey teachings. Not just in schools [but] in our youth clubs, in our communities, in…our teacher training institutions so that it becomes a part of who we are, with our young people recognising their greatness and not just accepting that, ‘We have to bleach to reach,’ or that ‘We have to do something to our hair for it to be accepted,’ that that same peppercorn, Negroid hair is part of who we are.

“I yearn for that day when we can all stand as proud Jamaicans on that legacy and teachings of Marcus Garvey as a proud race, a proud people, and as proud individuals,” added Brown Burke.

Grange, however, argued that the Government continues to honour the legacy of Marcus Garvey through various avenues including the Marcus Mosiah Garvey Multimedia Museum at Liberty Hall — situated at the site of the headquarters of Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica — which the Government acquired in 1987.

“It is now a modern platform which is testament to Garvey’s life, mission and work,” said Grange.

The culture minister added that there is a Jamaican-built heritage which has its imprint in the form of Marcus Garvey Basic School in Kingston; Marcus Garvey High School; Marcus Garvey Technical High School in St Ann; as well as Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston, which will be rehabilitated soon; Marcus Garvey Youth Information centre in St Ann’s Bay; Marcus Garvey Skills Training Centre; and Marcus Garvey Resource Room in the St Ann Parish Library.

“We also annually pay a floral tribute at Garvey’s shrine in the National Heroes’ Park on the anniversary of his birth each year, August 17, which has been formally declared Marcus Garvey Day, and a lecture is carried out at the Institute of Jamaica to end the day’s activity. We now also have the staging of the Marcus Garvey Awards annually, in partnership with the UNIA, to mark the day, as well as the Marcus Garvey awards for the arts through the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission,” added Grange.

She declared that this historic pardon of Garvey is a most significant step in a process which must continue until the national hero is exonerated, as his name must be cleared completely.

“So we now look to the US Congress to take action to expunge the criminal record from the hero’s name — similar to the action that was taken in this Parliament where we unanimously voted to clear the criminal records of Jamaican national heroes and other freedom fighters who were convicted in colonial times for their actions that have enabled our Emancipation and our Independence,” said Grange.

She stressed that it was for this reason, in 2009, Jamaica National Heritage Trust secured the transcript of Garvey’s trial in the United States of America.

“So today, I proudly display all four volumes as a reminder for posterity and as our tool with which we are now equipped to go forward for his exoneration. It’s all here — the details of the trial in the United States,” Grange said as she displayed copies of the transcript in the House.

— Alecia Smith