Today is August 17th 2018, which if there wasn't a joint celebration day for our National Heroes in October every year, could possibly be named Marcus Garvey day and be positioned as another National Holiday, or honorary day of celebrations at least!
At least Marcus Mosiah Garvey is our FIRST National Hero, according to chronology and he is also probably the MOST famous, other than the only Female Heroine, Queen Nanny of the Maroons. According to the information we accept as facts, Jamaica’s first National Hero was born in St. Ann’s Bay, St. Ann, on August 17, 1887.
He was conferred with the Order of the National Hero in 1969 as per the second schedule of the National Honours and Awards Act. Marcus Garvey is said to have died in London, England, my other home, in 1940 and was brought back home to Jamaica posthumously for burial here.
My thoughts today are really about National Heroes in general and how many of our Heroes are very much still alive and with us today, but are not being celebrated. I am wondering why is it that we have to wait for someone to be gone, deceased, dead before we appreciate their work, their contribution before they are celebrated?
I'm also thinking about the legacy of Marcus Garvey and about how much more can be done to continue the work that he pioneered. The Marcus Garvey training centre downtown standing derelict and in need or repair is a poignant, tangible reminder of how little is being done to continue the efforts to train and educate our future leaders, across the classes. Has the legacy of Marcus Garvey now been taken up by Black Elitists. Leaving behind those under-privileged and disenfranchised, lower classes who he spoke to so eloquently in his speeches "UP YOU MIGHTY RACE!.." Have the uptown, new negro types become so preoccupied with being upwardly mobile that they stopped looking back and giving back? Have they forgotten where we are coming from, and what it is that we said we were trying to accomplish, as a race not just as individuals?
No comments:
Post a Comment