On the 139th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first national hero, Observer Online shares some interesting facts about the late Pan-Africanist.

Garvey was born in St Ann’s Bay, St Ann in 1887. His message of black empowerment is the driving force of the Pan African movement he started in 1920 while living in New York, where he was a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance.

His teachings inspired many freedom fighters across the globe including Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, and recording artistes like Bob Marley and Burning Spear.

MALCOLM X… was a thinker deeply rooted in the black radical tradition and whose philosophy shared striking similarities with that of Marcus Garvey

He died in London in June 1940 at age 52. Here are some interesting facts below.

1. Garvey’s parents, Malcus Mosiah Garvey Snr, a stone mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker, had 11 children. However, only Marcus Garvey and his elder sister Indiana lived to adulthood, with the other nine siblings dying in early childhood.

2. Garvey attended elementary school in Jamaica until age 14, and was thereafter instructed privately by tutors. As a young man, he had a talent for public speaking.

3. As a teen, Garvey migrated from St Ann to Kingston, where he worked as a printer and became involved in politics and trade unionism, leading a major print workers’ strike in 1908.

4. He published the short-lived political magazine, “The Watchman”, inspired by George William Gordon’s historical abolitionist paper. It folded after three issues.

5. As Garvey travelled internationally, he observed the poor living conditions and victimization of black people, compelling him to empower people of African descent.

6. On Emancipation Day in 1914, in Jamaica, he launched the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), encouraging self-government for black people worldwide; self-help economic projects and protest against racial discrimination.

Marcus Garvey created the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation.

7. The first UNIA division was formed in New York in May 1917, and within a month, it had two million members across the US. By 1920, there were 1,100 chapters in 40 countries around the world.

8. Garvey launched the UNIA’s Black Star Line Steamship Corporation in New York in 1919, aimed at establishing an efficient mode of transportation, communication and trade among black people globally while enhancing the image and pride of black people.

9. Garvey had numerous enemies, including FBI director J Edgar Hoover and fellow black leader W.E.B. Du Bois, who opposed Garvey’s separatism and repatriation efforts. Du Bois and NAACP members organised the ‘Garvey Must Go’ campaign to have the Jamaican deported.

W.E.B. Du Bois opposed Marcus Garvey’s separatism ideology and helped to organise the “Garvey Must Go” movement to get the Jamaican deported from the United States.

10. Marcus Garvey was twice married. His and his first wife, Amy Ashwood Garvey, divorced after three years of marriage. He and second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, had two sons – Marcus Garvey Jnr and Julius Winston Garvey.