10 Leaders You May Not Have Known Were Influenced by Marcus Garvey

Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican-born political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements. Garvey’s efforts sparked the first mass movement of Pan-Africanism across the globe.

He left a substantial body of written work and a clear message that has inspired the Nation of Islam, the Rastafarian movement and many individual Black leaders around the world.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

During a trip to Jamaica on June 20, 1965, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King made it a point to visit the shrine of Garvey, where they laid a wreath on his grave.

In a speech King told the audience that Garvey “was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny, and make the Negro feel he was somebody.”