Jamaica to transform boyhood home of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey into heritage site

KINGSTON, Jamaica _ Jamaica’s culture minister says the government will refurbish the boyhood home of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey and make it a heritage site.

Lisa Hanna says her ministry wants people to visit the home in northern St. Ann parish and “pay tribute to a man who left a great legacy.” A timeline for the project was not provided Tuesday.

Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica in 1914. He inspired millions while transforming it into a mass movement while in New York.

He was convicted in the U.S. of mail fraud and was deported to his Jamaican homeland in 1927. He died in London in 1940.

Garvey was the first person named a Jamaican national hero following the island’s independence from Britain in 1962.

The Associated Press