"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." —Marcus Garvey
Born Marcus Mosiah Garvey on August 17, 1887, in St Ann's Bay, Garvey was one of 11 children of Marcus Garvey Sr and Sarah Jane Richards.
He attended school in Jamaica until the age of 14.
He was an apprentice in a print shop before he left Jamaica for Costa Rica and later London, where he studied law and philosophy at Birkbeck College in Bloomsbury.
Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927. He would set up several pan-Africanism movements before returning to London.
Marcus Garvey was the father of the black nationalist and pan african movements, activist & founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL)
He advanced a Pan-African philosophy which inspired a global mass movement, known as Garveyism. Garveyism would eventually inspire others, from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement.
He also created The Pan-African/Black Liberation flag.
In January 1940, he suffered a stroke which left him paralysed. He died on June 10, 1940, at the age of 52 from a second stroke.