[Ankhor Man]

New book on Amy Ashwood Garvey to be launched in Jamaica

Published onApril 30, 2007


KINGSTON, Jamaica: Renowned Garvey scholar, Professor Tony Martin, one of the most prolific scholars on Marcus Mosiah Garvey and African History, will launch his latest book, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Pan-Africanist, Feminist and Mrs Marcus Garvey no. 1 or, A Tale of Two Amies at Liberty Hall: The Legacy of Marcus Garvey, Kingston, Jamaica,on Tuesday, May 8, 2007.







Amy Ashwood Garvey, Pan-Africanist, Feminist and Mrs Marcus Garvey no. 1
27 years in the making,this is a biography of Amy Ashwood Garvey, the first wife of Black Nationalist and National Hero, the Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey. They married in 1919 and the union ended in 1922, when her husband divorced her without her consent.

Undaunted by this potentially debilitating circumstance, Amy continued her work as an activist, Pan-Africanist and Feminist, who organized women’s organizations in West Africa and the Caribbean. Mrs. Garvey lectured extensively and became an important figure in the anti-racist movement in England.

An important Black leader in her own right, she established links with a number of influential Pan-Africanists of the day, including Kwame Nkrumah, first president of Ghana and Trinidadian C.L.R. James.

In 1947 Amy’s interest in Pan Africanism deepened further as a result of her linking her ancestry to the Ashanti tribe in Ghana. According to Martin, her discovery of her roots happened “in a manner so reminiscent of Alex Haley’s Roots (published three decades later) that one has to wonder whether Haley might have somehow heard of Amy’s story.�

Professor Tony Martin has authored and edited twelve books including: The classic study of the Garvey Movement, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (1976) , Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance (1983), The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond (1983) and The Progress of the African Race Since Emancipation and Prospects for the Future (1998) .

A Trinidadian national, Martin is respected in the academic community for his insightful lectures on Garveyism and Pan-Africanism in the North America, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom, as well as in Africa, Australia, Bermuda, and South America. In 1990 he delivered the annual DuBois/Padmore/Nkrumah Pan-African lectures in Ghana. In 2004 he was one of the principal speakers at the First Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora, which was sponsored by the African Union in Senegal.

Since 1973, Professor Martin has held several academic positions and has been professor of Africana Studies since 1979. He currently lectures at the Wellesley College, Massachusetts and has done stints at the University of Michigan-Flint, and the Cipriani Labour College and
St Mary's College in Trinidad.