An audio recording of Marcus Garvey as he outlines the goals of the Universal Negro Improvement Association made in New York in July 1921, and adapted from his longer speech “A Membership Appeal from Marcus Garvey to the Negro Citizens of New York

Jamaica’s 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. In his youth Garvey migrated to Kingston, where he worked as a printer and later published a small paper “The Watchman”.

During his career, Garvey traveled extensively throughout many countries and in 1914 he started the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), in Jamaica. The UNIA, which grew into an international organization, encouraged self-government for black people worldwide; self-help economic projects, and protest against racial discrimination.