On August 16, 2024, the Iyanola Council for the Advancement of Rastafari (ICAR), organisers of celebrations marking the birthdate of Marcus Garvey, received $EC 20,000 from Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre on behalf of the Government and people of Saint Lucia.
The donation will support activities to commemorate the life of Marcus Garvey.
Aaron Alexander, president of ICAR, received the contribution.
“We make this small contribution to ICAR who continue to promote the history of our people, the history of our country,” Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre said during a brief handover.
“I want to tell all young Saint Lucians, that you should really read the life and teachings of Marcus Garvey. A lot of that is still relevant today and we have said to the Ministry of Education that African history has to be promoted. We cannot be afraid of our past because of the errors or the gains of the past; that’s why we are here today,” the Prime Minister stated.
“So I am very proud to be associated, the Government is very proud to be associated with the observance of the birthday of Marcus Garvey,” Pierre said.
In accepting the contribution, Aaron Alexander thanked the Prime Minister for what he described as “a level of consciousness when it comes to black history and African history.”
“We want to encourage him to keep going down that road because we have to keep telling out story, no more of his story but our story needs to be told and when we tell our story we will realize that colonialism had no conscience,” the ICAR President said.
“So we have to keep telling our children about the slaying of their ancestors and the slave trade and all these things and Marcus Garvey was a tower in that regard coming just after the emancipation proclamation… he supported black enterprise and the teaching of black entrepreneurship,” the ICAR president said.
Alexander later spoke with St. Lucia Times about ICAR’s activities commemorating Marcus Garvey’s life.
“ICAR along with Music Inc. planned three main events as part of our Marcus Garvey celebrations,” Alexander said.
“The first event was a Marcus Garvey market day at the Castries market on August 10 and the second was a Marcus Garvey march and rally in the village of Canaries on August 17, Marcus Garvey’s birthday,” he disclosed.
The ICAR President revealed that the third and final activity would be a grand Marcus Garvey conscious concert on August 31, 2024.
“The event will be held at the Vigie Sports complex and will close off activities marking the observance of Emancipation in the month of August,” Alexander explained.
“We want to ensure that we raise the level of consciousness of our people, while ensuring also that the teachings of Marcus Garvey are being adhered to within our society,” Alexander told St. Lucia Times.
He added that Garvey gave us a sense of pride as a people and caused us to raise our heads high and acknowledge that black is beautiful.
“So we want to ensure that his teachings are being taught, not only among ourselves but also to try to bring those teachings into the mainstream schools system,” Alexander stated.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born on August 17, 1887, in Jamaica.
He is renowned for his leadership in the Black Nationalist movement and for founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
His teachings of black self-empowerment and repatriation are also credited with influencing the founding of Rastafarianism.
