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Marcus Garvey history is so fascinating, so powerful, that we have to marvel at how so few people today are aware of it.

Being partly blind might not be the only reason why I don't read. As to remembering what little I read, that's another thing I can't explain.

But let's propose that Marcus Garvey was the greatest visionary and organizer for the African world that has ever lived.

Scrolling down through the articles here will undoubtedly take you to an article or two that sums up the history in a short version that is better than nothing.

Up there among the most useful publications is "The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey" by his widow, Amy Jacques Garvey. Professors Emeritus Rupert Lewis and Robert Hill are looked on as leading authorities on Garvey history. There are videos and documentaries in great volume, and an online search on Marcus Garvey will yield a lot of instructive material.

But there is another, usually forgotten, aspect to Garvey's history, and that concerns where he was born and educated. That place is St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

St. Ann's Bay is also exceptional. Columbus stumble onto the Caribbean in the 1490's, thinking he had circled the world and arrived in India. Thus the name West Indies (I think). He was stranded in Santa Gloria (St. Ann's Bay) for two years, and three of his ships are still buried there. It was the first capital for the Spanish, and so is referred to as Jamaica's first capital (despite the British take over from the Spanish in 1655, and never having regarded it as THEIR capital. That little bit of confusion helps to cloud and obfuscate the entire history of "Santa Gloria."

St. Ann's Bay seems to have been a respectable port town for the British, and its location in the exact center of the north coast also made it a reliable location for regional governance along at least half the northern coast. It is therefore the capital of St. Ann parish, one of 14 parishes that divide the nation.

But St. Ann's Bay has fallen on hard times. The decision from the 1960's to invest major resources on the sun and beach hotel-based tourism in neighboring Ocho Rios led to rapid and profound decline of once proud St. Ann's Bay. Although Marcus Garvey's remains were exumed and returned to Jamaica from London in the 60's, and he was made Jamaica's First National Hero, Jamaica's governance system disregarded his essential vision for a great African Unity. Continental Africa's spate of national independence was largely inspired by Garveyism, but there, too, his esential message of self-help succumbed to globalist, neocolonial memes. All of this is reflected in the utter disregard for Garvey heritage in the town of his birth.

My hope is to make Garveyism reflect in the way St. Ann's Bay sees itself. I argue that if we want to interpret Garvey's early influences, we must preserve the physical, visible infrastructure that he grew up with, and not just allow it to be demolished for easy short term gain by National-Chinese economic imperialism that has already devastated that "material culture" remaining from Garvey's time.

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