Marcus Garvey III, the son of the late Pan-African activist and Black nationalist Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr., died at his home in Wellington, Fla. on Tuesday (Dec. 8) Jamaica’s The Gleaner newspaper, reports. He was 90 years old.
Garvey III reportedly passed away following a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. “The departure of Marcus [III]., whom I had been married to for over 30 years, will leave a void that cannot be filled, and he will be greatly missed by numerous family, friends, and colleagues from all over the world, in many places where he had left indelible footprints,” his wife, Jean Garvey, said in a statement.
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Garvey III was an electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician who hosted lectures around the globe. His father, who was born in the late 1800s, became known for the Back to Africa movement to mobilize Black people to return to the Motherland.
The elder Garvey was an activist and entrepreneur founding the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in Jamaica. He died in 1940.
The oldest of the two boys, Garvey III was born in St. Andrew Jamaica in 1930. He initially followed in his father’s footsteps as an activist becoming president of the United Negro Improvement Association.
He is survived by his wife Jean, his sons Colin and Kyle-Sekou, stepdaughter Michelle Morris, his younger brother Dr. Julius Garvey, and four grandchildren.