LINEAGE BIOS

"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." - Marcus Garvey We travel across the African Diaspora, to recognize Black civil rights activist, Marcus Garvey. Garvey was born in Jamaica in 1887 to a working class family. He entered the working class and after several years began to enter public speaking competitions and traveled abroad. in 1914 he traveled back to Jamaica and formed UNIA, Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey landed in America and continued building his organization. He believed the key to Black liberation was for...

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." Very few people have been able to capture and translate the experience of Black Americans as eloquently as Harlem born, James Baldwin. Baldwin was born in 1924 and grew up in the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and showed an interest in this movement during his school years. Baldwin was not only able to capture his experience as a Black man in America, but he also chronicled his strained upbringing in the...

"People don't pay much attention to you when you are second best. I wanted to see what it felt like to be number one." - Florence "FloJo" Griffith Joyner The fastest woman in the world was born on December 1959. FloJo was raised in California and had a love for sports from a young age. She also had a passion for fashion. Building a record breaking career from elementary school, FloJo entered the Olympics at 25 and would forever be sealed in the history books in America and worldwide. Her custom made track suits and long nails gave her a...