NAME: MARCUS GARVEY
COUNTRY: JAMAICA

A black nationalist leader who created a "Back to Africa" movement in the United States. Garvey was born the youngest of 11 children in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He left school at the age of 14 to serve as a printer's apprentice. A few years later, he took a job at a printing company in Kingston, where in 1907 he led a printers' strike for higher wages. Garvey then traveled to South America and Central America. In 1912 he went to England, where he became interested in African history and culture. He returned to Jamaica in 1914 and shortly thereafter founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League. In 1916 Garvey moved to the United States and settled in New  York City.

There he incorporated the UNIA and started a weekly newspaper, the Negro World. A persuasive orator and author, Garvey urged American blacks to be proud of their race and preached their return to Africa, their ancestral homeland. To this end he founded the Black Star Line in 1919 to provide steamship transportation, and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage black economic independence. Garvey attracted thousands of supporters and claimed two million members for the UNIA. He suffered a series of economic disasters, however, and in 1922 he was arrested for mail fraud. Garvey served as his own defense attorney at his trial, was convicted, and went to prison in 1925. His sentence was commuted two years later, but he was immediately deported to Jamaica. Unable to resurrect the UNIA or regain his influence, Garvey moved to London, where he died in 1940.
Among Black Leaders, Marcus Garvey was unique; his popularity was universal; his program for the return of African People to their motherland shook the foundation of 3 Empires. All subsequent Black Power movements have owed a debt to his example and his prophecy has been fulfilled in the independence that brought to being 30 African Nations.
 

NAME: EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ--MALCOLM X -
TIES TO: GRENADA

Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Louise, a native of Grenada, and Earl Little, a staunch Garveyite who was harassed by the KuKlux Klan for his pan-African beliefs and eventually killed by whites. Malcolm dropped out of school and eventually became involved in criminal activities, which led to his arrest and conviction for armed robbery in February 1946. While in prison, he became a follower of Elijah Muhammad,  the then leader of the Lost Found Nation of Islam  and soon discarded his slave name, Little, and took

the new name "X." At the height of his power Malcolm was one of black America's most powerful voices and was said to be the only black man who "could stop a race riot -- or start one." He traveled widely in Europe and Africa attempting to link the black struggle in America with those abroad. At one point he even advocated and prepared to take the United States before the United Nations for charges of "genocide" against its black citizens. In 1964 Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Mecca, obligatory for orthodox Muslims, where upon he changed his name to El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
On February 21, 1964 in front of a crowd in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City, Malcolm X was shot to death by three men. Labeled as angry NOI members, the three were convicted with Malcolm's death. However a host of suspicious events and contradictory information presented at the trial have led many to speculate whether more sinister forcces, namely the US government, may have been behind his death. Thus Malcolm's life, like his death, has remained shrouded in mystery. But even beyond death, El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz inspire generations for decades to come