Discover the boy from St. Ann’s Bay who loved books the way other boys loved cricket. A printer who organized workers. A traveler who crossed Central America and the Atlantic and came back with proof: Black people had built great civilizations, and the world had spent a century burying that fact.

Marcus Garvey built the largest Pan-African movement in history. He gave Black families a flag, a shipping line, and a declaration of rights. He was the first to say that our lives matter and that how we think about ourselves determines whether we will remain in “mental slavery.” The United States government heard him. They said he was dangerous. They sent spies into his organization, convicted him on the testimony of an empty envelope, deported him, and kept his name out of the curriculum for one hundred years.

Chapter by chapter, readers follow Garvey from Jamaica to Central America to London to Harlem and back, learning what he built, what was done to stop him, and why his three great teachings, the power of the mind, the importance of purpose, and the strength of perseverance, are as urgent now as they were then.

The Story of Marcus Garvey is written for readers ages 8 to 14 by Jamaican-American author and Garvey scholar Geoffrey Philp.

Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican-American author, educator, and Garvey scholar. Founder of The Garvey Classroom LLC and the Mabrak Books imprint, he teaches at the Marcus Garvey Education Academy, founded by Dr. Julius W. Garvey. His courses and resources have earned the endorsement of Dr. Julius W. Garvey and Professor Rupert Lewis of the University of the West Indies, Mona. A recipient of the Silver Musgrave Medal in Literature from the Institute of Jamaica, the Marcus Garvey Excellence Award in Education from the Consulate General of Jamaica in Miami, and the Marcus Garvey Community Service Award from the Rootz Foundation, Philp has spent more than three decades building the books, courses, and educational resources that place Garvey’s philosophy in the hands of the next generation.