In 2015, the United Nations (UN) declared a Decade for People of African Descent, (2015-2024) on the triple platforms of Recognition, Justice, and Development. At the time of the declaration, Ban Ki-Moon, then secretary general of the UN, asserted that the initiative was designed to address worldwide systems of racism, which significantly disadvantage black people. Although we are in the final year of its implementation, most black people have never even heard about this Decade.

This invisibility of Pan-African politics is why I have a problem with February, the shortest month of the year, being designated Black History Month. Considering the multiple grounds on which black people are developmentally deficient, remembering black history should be a year-long endeavour. This initiative should start again, on auto-repeat, for consecutive years.

Black history consciousness is what Dr Carter G. Woodson had in mind when he suggested that both white and black folk should critically reflect on African history as a mechanism of decolonising the relations of inequality entrenched in North America due to widespread structures of white supremacy. Woodson intended that whites as well as blacks would be aware of the African links with African-American cultures and societies established in the West. Dr Woodson, who was widely called the “Father of Black History,” was born December 19, 1875, in New Canton, Virginia. Young Woodson’s family was large and very poor.

In 1915, Dr Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History because he wanted to help black historians to research and find the truth about black people in Africa and in North America. He would also publish the Journal of Negro History. In February1926, Dr Woodson launched “Negro History Week” as a national celebration of African heritage. This celebration evolved into Black History Month and has spread worldwide. A prolific author, Dr Woodson wrote The Negro in Our History, The Miseducation of the Negro, The History of the Negro Church, Negro Makers of History, and Early Negro Education in West Virginia.

Short as the month is, it is nevertheless worthwhile to spotlight Amy Jacques Garvey, a special woman-of-the-soil whose achievements embody the central themes of the African development Decade. Her star-studded profile should inspire anyone suffering from Imposter Syndrome to shake off self-doubt and embrace greatness. Amy Jacques Garvey is an excellent example of a 20th-century Caribbean woman with a revolutionary world view.

Garvey was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on December 31, 1895. Frequently overlooked by journalists and contemporary writers, she was the second wife of Marcus Mosiah Garvey and was the mother of his two sons – Marcus Jr and Julius. Amy Jacques embodied 20th-century African Liberation and became the first Queen Mother of the US Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in August 1920.

Amy Jacques, after whom Jacques Road in eastern Kingston is named, was an international organiser and race leader in her own right. Her discourse in words and deeds were trend setting for politically inclined black women of her day. In the cause for African emancipation, her message was the same as her husband’s: ‘The hour of Black resurrection is at hand. Black man, Black woman be up and doing for self … for you can achieve what you will.’ She was genuinely concerned with the plight of her fellow Africans, and for this reason, she toiled unceasingly, from youth to old age, to spread the teachings of African solidarity and independence.

From 1919, when she became the secretary-general of the UNIA, until her death (54 years), her life was intricately bound up with the national liberation struggles of African people. Her activities in Jamaica and the United States from 1919 to the 1940s prefaced the defeat of European fascism and the irreversible disintegration of the colonial system, which led to the upsurge and triumphs of the African National Liberation Movements.

Amy Jacques Garvey contributed financial assistance to the workers’ movement in Nigeria and was instrumental in organising the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in 1945. Twenty-five years later, she visited Ghana at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah. She was also a sponsor of the Sixth Pan-African Congress, which was convened in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974.

Amy Jacques Garvey was one of the most important black female journalists and publishers of the entire 20th century, a fact that is often overlooked by historians. Amy Jacques was the Winnie Mandela of her time and stood by her man, Marcus, throughout his trials, imprisonments, and tribulations. Even after Garvey’s death, Amy Jacques remained true to the ongoing quest for African liberation, championed by her heroic husband, and wrote countless articles and letters.

In 1917, Amy Jacques became involved with publishing The Negro World newspaper in Harlem from its inception in August 1918. The Negro World was a weekly newspaper with worldwide circulation and was created by Marcus Garvey as the official media tool of his Pan-African organisation. The Negro World spread Garvey’s philosophy of Black Consciousness, self-help, and economic independence. Most noteworthy is the fact that because of its positive ‘Black is Beautiful’ stance, the newspaper refused all advertisements for skin lighteners and hair straighteners, which were (and still are) a mainstay of the advertising pages of most African-American newspapers. During her tenure from 1924 to 1927 as a Negro World associate editor, Amy Jacques added a page called ‘Our Women and What They Think’.

The Negro World enjoyed a broad and influential distribution, reaching not only the entire United States and the Caribbean, but also Central America, Canada, Europe, and Africa. At its peak, the publication had a circulation of 200,000 copies and was the most popular black newspaper in North America, the Caribbean, and in colonial Africa. To make The Negro World more accessible to its broad readership, the Garveys initiated a Spanish language section in 1923 and a French language section in 1924.

In addition to all that, Amy Jacques was primarily responsible for the publication in the 1920s of both volumes of The Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, which became the Black Nationalist ‘Bible’ for Pan-Africanists around the world. After her husband’s death in 1940, the Pan-African heroine and Queen Mother became a contributing editor to a black nationalist journal, The African, published in Harlem in the 1940s. Amy Jacques also published her own book, Garvey and Garveyism in 1963.

Amy Jacques Garvey was awarded Jamaica’s Gold Musgrave Medal for her contributions to the Garvey Movement and to the history of people of African descent. She passed on to the ancestors on July 25, 1973. Her work and memory serve the noble cause for which she stood. As a Pan-African patriot, a pioneering nationalist, a political scientist, and as an organiser, a journalist, an editor, a publisher, a philosopher, a mother, a wife, she ably embodied the female essence of Pan-African Liberation.

Imani Tafari-Ama, PhD, is a Pan-African advocate and gender and development specialist. Send feedback to i.tafariama@gmail.com [2].