Policemen carrying the casket bearing the late Bob Marley into the National Arena in Kingston on May 21, 1980. (Photo: YouTube |Marvin Mulenga)
Bob Marley laid to rest
Today is exactly 40 years since Bob Marley’s funeral was held at the National Arena in Kingston. Jamaica Observer’s senior reporter Balford Henry covered that historic occasion for The Daily Gleaner. Here are his recollections.
The crowd which jammed Independence Park for the funeral service of the reggae legend Bob Marley was perhaps the biggest to ever attend an event at the premier venue.
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The closest crowds that have filled that venue, including the National Arena where the service was actually held, are those who attend the annual party conferences. But, the difference this time was that they were much more compliant and attentive as they said farewell to their musical hero, Bob Marley.
There was no need for the security forces to enforce their mission, nor political allegiance to split the crowd into boos and cheers. It was the general feeling that the crowd, including myself, Desmond Allen and the late Harris Dias, who covered the event for the Daily Gleaner, accepted that we were not only there for the rituals, but also to pay final respects to one of the greatest artistes the world has ever seen.
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Marley actually died on his way home from New York via Miami, days after Jamaica’s then Prime Minister Edward Seaga informed him by telephone that the Government wished to honour him with the country’s third highest honour, the Order of Merit.
The result was that it was his body that was flown into the Norman Manley Airport. But it led to a well-planned engagement, for which no praise would be too great by Rita Marley and the family, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) based at Maxfield Park in Kingston and a Government team led by the current minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange.
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A couple days before the event, it was interesting to note that Marley was hoping to die in Jamaica following that fateful call. It was later revealed that when Seaga told Marley that he wanted to honour him, Bob responded, “Big man, if you can do it, just do it”.
Seaga, whose Government had just come to power almost six months earlier, immediately grasped the opportunity and called in Grange to take charge of the programme. Marley died before he could reach home to collect the honour, but the Government insisted that he should receive a huge Jamaican send off, even if they had to share the opportunity to ensure that the funeral would be memorable.
After the EOC, led by the Diocesan Archbishop, His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq, had a service at the church, the body was taken by road to the National Arena where, by now, thousands flocked the park to get a final look at the dark brown casket covered with the Jamaican and Ethiopian flags and drawn by a large pick-up.
Seaga read the eulogy, which was interspersed with either the harmonies of the I-Three, which included Bob’s wife Rita Marley, singing “Fly Away Home” and backed up by the classical drumming of the EOC team.
In his eulogy, Seaga recalled that Marley learnt the message of survival in his own West Kingston constituency, where Bob lived as boy before moving up to St Andrew South while clearance and rebuilding led residents to move to Bull Bay in St Andrew and Spanish Town in St Catherine.
But, according to Seaga, it was his raw talent, his unswerving discipline and his sheer perseverance that transported him from being another victim of the ghetto to becoming “the top-ranking superstar in the entertainment field in the Third Word”.
However, it was the prime minister’s final quote which not only won him a standing ovation, but earned the noisiest and longest cheer for the evening when he concluded:
“”He immortalised these words in his own song, ‘Fly Away Home; one bright morning when my work is over, I will fly away home’. Now his soul will find contentment in the achievements of his life and rejoice in the greatness of Jah Rastafari.”
Marley’s body travelled by road to his original home in Nine Mile, St Ann, where a mausoleum was eventually built for him.
Bob Marley
