The Final Call

Honoring Jamaica’s struggle and heroes for the Black world

By Richard B. Muhammad | Last updated: Oct 23, 2014 - 9:03:49 AM

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The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan prepares to place a wreath and flowers at the grave of Norman Manley, a Jamaican national hero. Photo: Hassan Muhammad

KINGSTON, Jamaica (FinalCall.com) - National Heroes Park is the place where this island nation pays tributes to its great ones. Memorials and monuments on the grounds of the park range from a remembrance of a fierce Maroon warrior queen to prime ministers and visionaries.

It was on these hallowed grounds that a modern champion for global Black liberation paid tribute to those who gave their lives and talents to the rise of Jamaica and the rise of the Black world.

A memorial to the great Pan Africanist leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey stands in National Heroes Park in Kingston. This powerful son of Jamaica launched and presided over one of the largest movements for global Black liberation in history. His Universal Negro Improvement Association spanned several continents and included millions. His rallying cry called for Black self determination, Black cooperative economics, Black pride, strong ties to Africa and repatriation. He called for the Black Man to be a man of Big Affairs, not trifling matters. "One God, One Aim, One Destiny! Africa for Africans at home and abroad." Photos: Richard B. Muhammad

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan arrived at the park as hordes of school children were escorted by teachers and caretakers. The children stopped at monuments and listened as the adults taught about those who had earned a special place in Jamaican history.

Minister Farrakhan, flanked by his wife, sons, security, aides and Believers, began by laying a wreath at the gravesite of the Honorable Marcus Garvey, a mighty son of Jamaica whose Universal Negro Improvement Association stretched across several continents and breathed life into modern Pan-Africanist and Black nationalist thought. In 1920, the “First Great Convention” of the UNIA was held at Madison Square Garden with 25,000 in attendance with a parade said to be 10 miles long. Mr. Garvey called on the Black man to rise up, create his own economic empire, unite with self and kind and repatriate to Africa. In the same place where Mr. Garvey spoke, Minister Farrakhan heard Minister Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam speak. Later the Minister led the Nation’s historic Mosque No. 7 to great heights and rise as the preeminent representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad patriarch of the Nation.

My teacher always said respect Mr. Garvey, said Minister Farrakhan after placing a wreath at the memorial to Mr. Garvey on Oct. 16, which was four days before Jamaica celebrated National Heroes Day.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his son Mustapha Farrakhan honor the late Jamaican leader and prime minister Michael Manley. The Minister placed wreaths at memorials for heroes of this Caribbean nation on Oct. 16, the date of the 1995 Million Man March.

“It is a great honor to us to lay a wreath at the grave of one of the most significant Black men in recent history,” said the Minister. As he spoke, park employees and visitors, and children started to surround the memorials.

Mr. Garvey was one of the forerunners of what we represent today, said the Minister, whose father was from Jamaica and was a Garveyite. “Mr. Garvey said look for him in the whirlwind and we represent that whirlwind that his memory will never die. And what he started is not yet completed but the children that I saw as we came in here, they probably will be the ones to complete not just that vision but the vision of Norman Manley, the Honorable Bustamante and my dear and beloved friend Prime Minister Michael Manley. I am not a member of the PNP, or the JLP, but these men meant so much to me personally that I had to come and lay a wreath on behalf of all the members of the Nation of Islam and the Black nationalist community in America and the Pan Africanist movement throughout the world,” said the Minister.

Mother Khadijah Farrakhan and Cecile Estrup, widow of the late statesman and lawyer Dudley Thompson.

He pointed to a second wreath that was in honor of Bob Marley, “a prophetic voice from the cultural community.” The trip would not be complete if a wreath was not laid at the grave of the reggae great and Hugh Muhammad, one of the aides to Minister Farrakhan, was to ensure that the wreath was delivered.

The Minister next visited the monument to Norman Manley, who was born in Jamaica in 1893. He was a renown scholar, athlete, soldier, lawyer and labor leader. He founded the country’s People’s National Party (PNP) in 1938 and served as Jamaica’s first premier. He served before Jamaica became independent in 1962.

“His legacy includes sharing with his cousin, Sir Alexander Bustamante, the honour of being one of the two ‘Founding Fathers’ of Jamaica’s Independence, attained peacefully on August 6, 1962,” observed www.jamaica-land-we-love.com. He died in 1969 and was named a National Hero of Jamaica the same year. The country’s airport is named in his honor.

“When you live your life only for yourself that is a life of vanity. But when you live your life to make life better for others that’s what makes you a hero and that’s what makes your life worthy to be remembered. Such a man was the Honorable Norman Manley, whose passion to be free from the slave and colonial masters led him in a fervent struggle to be free,” he said.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan addresses a group of people at the National Heroes Park in Jamaica. Photos: Hassan Muhammad

“Without his noble struggle, Bustamante could not have been the first prime minister, nor his son become a great prime minister. But the work of independence is not yet done, so if you want to celebrate independence you don’t celebrate a flag, a national anthem and a seat on the United Nations. Independence will only come when we are free in deed from our former slave and colonial masters and charting an independent course that is from ourselves and for ourselves and our progeny. It is an honor to be here and honor a man who is really the father of this nation,” said Minister Farrakhan, who next stopped and laid a wreath at the memorial to Mr. Bustamante, who founded the Jamaica Labour Party and became prime minister in 1962. He served time in detention for his bold call for an independent Jamaica and rights for workers.

“What does it mean to those of us who are yet alive to visit the tombs of those who have passed on, whose memory some may forget but whose legacy the wise will always remember? Such a man was Michael Manley,” said the Minister at the black granite memorial to the late prime minister.

Michael Manley led the People’s National Party. He served three terms as prime minister, 1972-1980, 1989-1992. Early on he fought for greater economic fairness and development under “democratic socialism,” building new housing and hospitals, offering free education, and cutting Jamaica’s infant mortality rate in half. He was the second son of Norman Manley. Prior to politics he “gained a reputation as a foremost union organizer in the Caribbean—an energetic, fearless, dynamic, and gifted leader.”

He strengthened ties with Cuba and the Non-Aligned Movement and later battled the International Monetary Fund over loans and austerity programs. He died of prostate cancer in 1997.

Honoring heroes in Jamaica as part of the Million Man March 19th anniversary in Kingston.

“I love him more than the others I have honored today because I knew him personally,” said Minister Farrakhan of the first prime minister to welcome the Nation of Islam to Jamaica. In 1974, Mr. Manley invited champion Muhammad Ali to Jamaica and Min. Farrakhan came with The Greatest. At the National Stadium 20,000 cheering people heard the teaching of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad from Min. Farrakhan, who spoke later at Jamaica House, the official residence of the country’s prime minister. “He was a man that loved the truth, he was a man that loved the common man. He was a man that fought to make Jamaica honored among nations,” the Minister said.

“I thank God for Michael Manley and I thank God that I knew him in life,” he added.

In 1974 the Jamaican dollar was 25 cents more than the America dollar but today the U.S. greenback is valued at 100 to 1 over Jamaican currency, the Minister noted. “Something is happening that we need to take stock of and I pray that the spirit of  Norman Manley, and the spirit of Bustamante, and the spirit of Michael Manley be infused into these children that have a chance to make not only a new Jamaica but a new West Indies, a vibrant Caribbean Community united. As Bustamante killed the idea of the federation, somebody has to bring it back and make it real. Because it is better to be the tail of something than the head of nothing and all of these small nations are being eaten up by the powers in Europe and America. And if we do not unite, the wealth of the Caribbean will be in the hands of the enemy and we will be back in another form of slavery.

“You are more than servants for rich people who come to lay on your beaches. You’re more than just cooks and maids and bed makers for others. You’re brain power for the future of a brand new world and you have to come into your destiny,” said Min. Farrakhan. Jamaica must take its place as the head of a united sovereign Caribbean, he said.

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and his wife Mother Khadijah Farrakhan pose with children during a visit to Jamaica’s National Heroes park. Photo: Marc D. Muhammad

Next the Minister laid a wreath at Hugh Shearer’s grave, who was prime minister when the Hon. Elijah Muhammad wanted to come to Jamaica to get some rest. Due to propaganda, Jamaica’s third prime minister would not allow the Nation of Islam’s patriarch to land, Min. Farrakhan said. Mr. Shearer was a good man but we are only as good as the intelligence from those entrusted with intelligence gathering, the Minister observed.

In Nigeria, he said, false intelligence fed to the government led to the armed forces stopping him from speaking and trying to resolve Muslim-Christian conflicts. The America Embassy had “poisoned” Nigeria’s president with the lie that the Minister was a Communist who came to stir up religious discord. Soldiers with weapons refused to allow the Minister to speak and threatened to shoot. In Ghana, however, leader J.J. Rawlings ignored U.S. intelligence and his own intelligence and allowed the Minister to speak and opened the country for his word and the truth.

After leaving National Heroes Park, the Minister visited the gravesite of the late statesman Dudley Thompson and laid a wreath at his grave. Mr. Thompson was a great freedom fighter and lawyer, who defended Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta when the British prosecuted him for working to overthrow colonial rule. Mr. Thompson was also a Pan Africanist leader. The Minister met him in 1974 in Jamaica and they became friends. Mr. Thompson served as foreign minister in the administration for the Michael Manley government. He was known as one of the great lawyers of his time in Africa and the Caribbean. Mr. Thompson and his wife Cecile would visit the Minister and his wife in the United States.

Mr. Thompson, a life member of the People’s National Party, served as an elected member of Parliament and in several government ministerial positions as well as ambassador to Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Namibia. He died in 2012 and Min. Farrakhan paid for his funeral services.

Mr. Thompson “must always be remembered as a warrior for justice, a warrior for truth. He must always be remembered as a man that would not compromise anything of his personal integrity to gain popularity. … More of us must have that kind of spirit, that Jamaica means more than any party. Jamaica means more than the United Nations or the United States corrupting you with their money to bring policies to Jamaica that make the Jamaican weak. Live for Jamaica and when you cannot live for Jamaica die for her freedom,” said Minister Farrakhan.