Visitors to Willesden Green Library in the north-west London borough of Brent, can pop into the Brent Museum and find a bust of Jamaican-born pan-Africanist icon Marcus Garvey on display.
Garvey was the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), which at its peak in the 1920s had a membership estimated between 6-12 million spread across the world, from the US, Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Costa Rica, Gold Coast (Ghana), Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, India, to far-flung places such as New Zealand.
The bust was unveiled last year on Garvey’s birthday, following a campaign by the Friends Of Marcus Garvey Bust Collective (FOMGBC) to have it installed as a permanent exhibit. A year later, on August 17, which was Garvey’s 130th birthday, BTWSC/African Histories Revisited in association with Brent Museum & Archives, organised the first Marcus Garvey Annual Pan-Africanism Presentation.
Among those who attended the packed event were Jamaican High Commissioner H.E. Mr Seth George Ramocan and Ghanaian Deputy High Commissioner Mrs Rita Tani Iddi.
“I’m glad that the High Commissioners of Jamaica and Ghana supported the event, so as to underscore the fact that Garvey represents not only Jamaica, but also global Africa,” said community historian and FOMGBC co-ordinator Kwaku.
“It’s important that a borough such as Brent, where there is a high number of Africans from the continent and the Caribbean, that our representation in the museum is embodied in the bust of Garvey.”
Before focusing on Garvey, H.E. Mr Ramocan highlighted notable Jamaicans who had come before, such as Nana (Nanny) of the Maroons, who fought the British for the Maroons’ liberation in Jamaica, and Dutty Boukman, who gave inspiration to the Haitian Revolution.
“It is in this tradition that Garvey walks,” he said. “Garvey was not just Jamaican, he was a global citizen. He was one who saw the need for liberation and bringing dignity to peoples who were oppressed.”
He continued, saying: “In laying a wreath at the shrine of Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King said Marcus Garvey gave impetus to the US civil rights movement. Today, the message of Marcus Garvey is brought round the world by reggae music.”
“As we all know, and have had it echoed this evening, Marcus Garvey was one of the prominent icons of the continued struggle for racial equality and empowerment of people of African descent,” said Mrs Iddi. She also highlighted the influence of Garvey on Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to “independence” in 1957, by pointing to “symbols of our nationhood, such as the Black Star Line, the Black Stars, which is the name of the national football team, and note also the rising black star in our national flag.”
Among Garvey’s UNIA-ACL organisation’s enterprises of the 1920s was the famed Black Star Line shipping business, which was meant to facilitate travel and trade between Africans on the continent, the Americas and Caribbean.
The event was organised by local community group BTWSC/African Histories Revisited in association with Brent Museum & Archives. It included the screening of the ‘Highlighting Marcus Garvey, UNIA & Garveyism Through Film’ documentary, presentation by Kwaku, statements by the High Commissioners, and contributions by Garveyite and community leaders. And Natalie Ford, a young woman of Jamaican heritage who has taken up the Garvey call for entrepreneurship, provided free afternoon tea.
“Just as the first of August is slowly becoming a fixture in the African British calendar as the day for the Reparations March in London, we aim to make the 17th of August a regular event in Brent, where we celebrate Marcus Garvey’s birthday and highlight pan-African issues,” added Kwaku.
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