JAMAICA-Marcus Garvey plaque to be unveiled in Atlanta

WASHINGTON, CMC—The Jamaica Embassy said Monday that a plaque will be unveiled in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 25 to honor Jamaica’s first National Hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The event will take place at the Big Bethel AME Church, where Garvey made his first appearance and delivered a public lecture on March 25, 1917, marking the 108th anniversary of the historic address.

According to the embassy, the unveiling ceremony will form part of the second annual Atlanta Marcus Garvey Lecture, initiated by Garveyism professor and President of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Steven Golding, in collaboration with the Atlanta Jamaica Association.

Adding to the significance of the event, March 25 is also commemorated by the United Nations as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, it added.

Golding said that the plaque was designed by Nubian Jak, a British Jamaican who has produced over 100 black history heritage markers in the United Kingdom (UK) since the beginning of the 21st century.

Jak, who will be present for the event, said guests will be treated to an exclusive screening of the 40-minute narrative film Mosiah, the first movie to depict Garvey’s life.

Atlanta writer and actor Samuel Lee-Fudge plays Garvey in the movie. Fudge will attend the plaque unveiling as a guest.

As the founder and first President-General of the UNIA and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), Garvey built the most significant mass movement of Black people in history, establishing a robust framework for economic independence, cultural pride, and political self-determination that reached from the streets of Harlem to the shores of Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond.

The embassy added that the Mayor of Atlanta, André Dickens, Jamaica’s Consul General for the Southern United States, Oliver Mair, Jamaica’s Honorary Consul in Atlanta, Dr. Elaine Bryan, and President of the Atlanta Jamaica Association, Evette Taylor-Reynolds, are among those expected to attend the plaque unveiling.