Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica a small town on the western side of the island. He was the youngest

of eleven children and some scholars postulate that it was this familial position that drove Garvey to such great heights. At the age of 14 he moved to Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, and found work as a printer. While this may seem quite young to the modern reader, one must remember that many young men began working in their early teens. A young Benjamin Franklin wandered the streets of Philadelphia looking for work in a print shop at a similar age as well.

Garvey found himself thrust into the working class of Jamaicans and the dreadful conditions that accompanied this achieved status. Quite soon after, he involved himself in the working class struggle in Jamaica, participating in the first organized Printers Union Strike (1907) and setting up the Pro-labour newspaper The Watchman. However, Garvey lacked the necessary funding that he needed to run his pro-labor operations so he went to the Panama Canal, British West Indies, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Columbia and Honduras to attempt to raise money and support. Garvey did not find money or support, he found Blacks living in filth, squalor, and where he did not find these, he found oppression at every turn. These experiences would forever shape the man that we study today.