Reggae in Alamar Honoring Marcus Garvey

Regina Cano

HAVANA TIMES — Apparently Alamar residents and everyone else interested will be able to enjoy a reggae concert in honor of the birth of Marcus Garvey.

This tribute, the first to occur in Cuba, will be held at the Alamar Amphitheatre on Friday, August 17, between 8:30 pm and 11:00 pm, with a cover change of 5.00 pesos MN.

This concert will feature a common musical style for groups of musicians from Havana who “have been working in one of the most representative genres in the Caribbean and one of the least promoted in Cuba.”

“Reggae’s influence and contributions to the new generation of popular music are our interests, as well as demonstrating samples of it exponents in Havana,” say the organizers in their promotional materials.

“The homage to the birth of Marcus Garvey” will be performed by “a group of artists and music promoters, and with the collaboration of the East Havana Municipal Department of Culture,” continues the publicity.

Something else…

According to a little known fact, Cuba was included on the route of the ships of the planned Black Star Line, envisioned by Garvey to return of blacks to Africa. This route included Santiago de Cuba and Banes (in Holguin), which were places where lived predominantly Anglo-Caribbean peoples and their descendants. These were places where Garvey’s idea of “Back to Africa” was best accepted when was in Cuba sometime around1921.

Garvey, who created the “Back-to-Africa” movement — a return to the ancestral land — founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the League of African Communities.

The surprising, interesting and good news is that Cuba is celebrating the birthday of Garvey — like in some other countries — to recall the passing through history of an idea, a hope or the illusion which involved blacks from the Americas, both as a protest against those who pulled them from their lands and as a challenge to reconstruct their own destinies.