Chris has a friend who discovered Bob Marley around the time her mother died, when she was fourteen. She, too, credits Marley's music with giving her the hope she needed to hang on at a time when the person she needed most in life was gone. She will passionately defend Bob Marley from all detractors.
My boyfriend and his friend are not alone in the reverence they hold for Robert Nesta Marley. Around the world, people think of Bob not just as a musician but as a prophet, a hero, and a freedom fighter. His belief that all people of all colors should unite to dispel oppression-"one world, one love"-resounds still today, in 2005. His struggle for justice unites people around the globe while his arguments against war and for peace, formed during the turbulent 1960s, are messages still needed today.
Bob Marley spent the first half of his life in Jamaica. As a youngster, he lived with his mother and maternal grandfather, a farmer in St. Ann, the same part of Jamaica which Marcus Garvey called home (Davis, 1-2). His father was Norval Marley, a white Jamaican who met Cedalla Malcolm, Marley's mother, when he was positioned as overseer of Crown British West Indian Regiment in the districts near Cedalla's home. Though Norval married Cedalla when he learned she was pregnant, his family never accepted the marriage, since Cedalla was black. Norval named his son Nesta Robert Marley. "Nesta" has never been explained and remains a mystery to the family, but Robert was the name of Norval's brother (Davis, 12).
For a few years after Bob's birth, his father visited. Then his visits stopped altogether. When Bob was six, his father took him to Kingston, explaining to his mother that he should be "educated." Instead, he left Bob with an old woman, hoping she would adopt him and give him the money that Norval could not give his son, since his family had disinherited him after his marriage to Cedalla.
