The Jamaican public’s focus on the enthralling campaign building towards the September 3 parliamentary general election means much else is being partially lost under the radar.

One such is that of Sunday, August 17, the 138th anniversary of the birth of Jamaica’s first National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

We dare say most Jamaicans also missed news of the latest move to clear Mr Garvey’s name of the stain caused by malicious imprisonment in the United States just over 100 years ago.

US Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke, who is of Jamaican parentage, has reportedly introduced what’s been called the Marcus Garvey Legacy Package in the United States House of Representatives.

The package comprises two pieces of legislation to honour a man Ms Clarke describes as “one of history’s most influential leaders in the global struggle for black self-determination, human rights, and economic empowerment…”

The Marcus Garvey Exoneration Resolution declares that Mr Garvey was innocent of politically motivated charges brought against him, and calls on the president of the United States to “take all appropriate measures to fully exonerate him and clear his name”.

The second resolution is urging naming August 17 Marcus Garvey Recognition Day. It calls on the US president to “issue a proclamation encouraging national observance through ceremonies, educational programmes, and cultural events”.

Ms Clarke reminds us that, as a pan-Africanist leader, Mr Garvey “led one of the earliest black civil rights movements in the Americas, founded one of America’s earliest black-owned shipping companies in the
Black Star Line, and established a legacy that has persisted to this day. Garvey’s advocacy for civil rights and the economic advancement of the black community is known to all who celebrate his name…

“However, the stain of a false, racially motivated conviction has influenced the opinions of detractors and critics for far too long.”

Born in St Ann on Jamaica’s north coast on August 17, 1887, Mr Garvey waged an unrelenting campaign in defence of black rights in Jamaica, the wider Americas, and elsewhere that made him among the more important figures of the 20th century.

Legendary US civil rights martyr, the Rev Martin Luther King Jr said of Mr Garvey: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level” to give millions of Black people “a sense of dignity and destiny”.

We agree wholeheartedly with Ms Clarke that, while former US President Joe Biden’s pardon of Mr Garvey in January “represented tremendous progress”, there should be no rest until his name is completely cleared in the United States.

Crucially, initiatives such as Ms Clarke’s are important in helping young people everywhere, regardless of nationality, race, colour, class, to appreciate their history.

We are reminded of this by alarming news that the great US cultural institution, the 179-year-old Smithsonian, is being threatened by US President Donald Trump for exploring “…how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future.”

Hopefully, the American people will stand in defence of the right to educate their people about where they are coming from.

For, as Mr Garvey famously said, a people without knowledge of their history and culture is “like a tree without roots”.