Civil rights pioneer Marcus Garvey's son speaks about father's legacy

Nearly 80 years after civil rights pioneer Marcus Garvey gave a speech in Cape Breton that would inspire Bob Marley, his son says the message of the speech and song still ring true.

"It's still very appropriate," Julius Garvey said of Marcus Garvey's words:

"We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery … none but ourselves can free the mind."

Marley paraphrased those words in 1980's Redemption Song.

"We have a long way to go in terms of understanding ourselves as human beings and our relationship with the universe."

In 1937, Marcus Garvey visited Cape Breton, where he is still celebrated in local museums and with a summer festival bearing his name.

Dr. Julius Garvey, a vascular surgeon based in New York, spoke at Cape Breton University Wednesday as part of a speaker series for the Decade for People of African Descent. Another speech is scheduled for Thursday at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

'Reconstitute our history'

During his speech at CBU, Garvey said he spoke about how people of African descent need to "reconstitute our history.

"I think one of our problems is that we've been disconnected from our history and our culture as African people, because of the circumstances of slavery and colonialism," said Garvey, adding that he has traced his roots back hundreds of thousand of years.

"My father said people without a knowledge of their origins, history and culture is like a tree without roots."

Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 and influenced a generation of civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and, of course, Bob Marley.

The UNIA location established in Glace Bay in 1918 is the only one left in Canada. 

"I didn't know about it until relatively recently so when the invitation came, I was very thrilled and accepted it very quickly. It was great to see what they preserved," said Julius Garvey.

"It brings back an awful lot of memories and the realization that the work that he did was central to building African communities all over the world." 

He said post-slavery there was little to hold African descendents together, apart from the UNIA.

"This was the only cultural, political, economic organization that was designed just for that purpose. So it was good to see how that affected this particular community," said Garvey.

There were once 1,100 association branches worldwide, but only about 20 remain.

Growing up the son of a legend

Garvey was just eight years old when his father died. 

He said growing up the son of Marcus Garvey felt like a bit of a "burden" at first.

"You grow into it. You realized what it's all about, what the real world is," he said. 

Julius Garvey said he wanted to be a doctor as long as he can remember, not a politician.

However, right now he is campaigning for U.S. President Barack Obama to grant a posthumous pardon for his father, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. After spending two years in prison, his sentence was commuted and Marcus Garvey was deported from the United States.

Julius Garvey said the charges against his father were "trumped-up" and there was perjury during his father's trial.

"There was absolutely no evidence. It was very unfair," he said.

"[This campaign is] to try to remove the stain from Marcus Garvey's name. He was a freedom fighter. He was a civil rights, human rights, anti-colonial champion — that needs to be rectified so he can take his rightful place in history."  

Province to fund UNIA hall renovations

Julius Garvey said Marley read a lot about his father, a fellow Jamaican, and the speech delivered in Nova Scotia in 1937 was likely part of that reading material when Marley wrote Redemption Song. Marley died months after the song was released.

"I consider Bob Marley to be a revolutionary poet and, in the same vein as my dad, used his talents for civil rights," said Garvey.

The tale of how one of Marley's greatest songs was born in Nova Scotia is the subject of a new book by Halifax author and CBC reporter Jon Tattrie called Redemption Songs. The book uncovers why Marley so revered Marcus Garvey, and looks at the roots of Rastafarianism.

The Nova Scotia government has announced it is giving the Glace Bay UNIA hall $25,000 for renovations, including building a stage and interpretive displays. 

It says the renovations will better tell the story of how Garvey has impacted Glace Bay and will also look at the black miners' experiences in Cape Breton.