Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey, Provisional president of Africa and Messiah, was the most widely known agitator for the rights of the negro and one of the most phenomenal. Arriving in the United States unknown and poor, in just about four years he became the most talked about black man in the U.S., the West Indies, and perhaps the world. He was born in Jamaica, West Indies. He had very humble parents. His father was a breaker of stones on the roadway. Marcus went to a denominational school and he dreamed of doing great things. He worshiped Napoleon. On Sundays he pumped the organ in the Wesleyan Methodist Church at St. Ann's Bay, of which his parents were members. Later Garvey became a Catholic.

He stopped going to school at the age of sixteen to become the apprentice in the printing plant of P. Austin Benjamin in Kingston. six years later he became the foreman. He began agitation for the political' rights of the blacks of the island, who, though in the majority, were of lower social caste than the mulattoes. He also went among the West Indian laborers who were recruited to work and he urged them to demand more pay and better working conditions, and for this he got arrested in Port Limon, Costa Rica.

Prashant Singh