WASHINGTON DC, USA— A plaque will be unveiled in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 25 to honour Jamaica’s first National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

The event will take place at the Big Bethel AME Church where Garvey made his first appearance and delivered a public lecture on March 25, 1917, marking the 108th anniversary of the historic address.

The unveiling ceremony will form part of the second annual Atlanta Marcus Garvey Lecture, initiated by Garveyism professor and president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Steven Golding, in collaboration with the Atlanta Jamaica Association.

Adding to the significance of the event, March 25 is also commemorated by the United Nations as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

                 Steven Golding

Golding explained that the plaque to be unveiled was designed by Nubian Jak, a British Jamaican who has produced more than 100 black history heritage markers (blue plaques) in the United Kingdom (UK) since the beginning of the 21st century. Jak will be on hand for the event.

He said that guests will be treated to an exclusive screening of the 40-minute narrative film ‘Mosiah’, the first movie to depict the life of Garvey. The movie features Atlanta writer and actor Samuel Lee-Fudge as Garvey.

Fudge will appear as a guest at the plaque unveiling.

As the founder and first President-General of the UNIA and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), Garvey built the largest mass movement of Black people in history, establishing a powerful framework for economic independence, cultural pride, and political self-determination that reached from the streets of Harlem to the shores of Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond.

Among those expected to attend the plaque unveiling are the Mayor of Atlanta André Dickens; Jamaica’s Consul General for the Southern United States, Oliver Mair; Jamaica’s Honorary Consul in Atlanta, Elaine Bryan; and president of the Atlanta Jamaica Association, Evette Taylor-Reynolds.

-JIS