Organised by the Jamaican Museum and Cultural Center, it saw patrons purchasing bricks for US$100 and US$250.

Dr Apollone Reid, president of the Jamaica Museum and Cultural Center, says her organisation’s objective is to raise US$10 million to start construction on the building, which is expected to be completed in 18 months.

Reid, a physical therapist, said with the constant traffic through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a Jamaican museum is bound to attract interest.

“Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world. Three-thousand passengers travel through the airport daily. This is an opportunity to get persons to stopover in Atlanta as they are in transit to their final destination,” she told the Observer Online.

Considered the mecca of black empowerment in the United States, Atlanta was a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s.

Several locations honouring the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, leader of that revolution, are located in the city.

Reid noted that Atlanta also has historic significance for Jamaica’s first National Hero.

“It is important to have the museum in Atlanta because of the rich history of black excellence and achievements, namely Marcus Garvey’s legacy,” she said.

Garvey gave his first public lecture in the United States in March 1917 at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta. He also served a two-year prison sentence for mail fraud at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, starting in 1925.

On January 19, one day before he left office, United States (US) president Joe Biden pardoned Garvey who died in London in June 1940 at age 52.

Reid says the next step for her organisation will be a series of outreach initiatives to secure funding for construction of the museum.

– Howard Campbell