Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was a Jamaican political activist, Pan-Africanist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator whose words raised the level of self-respect, motivation, and action of a people and the world. He urged people to emancipate themselves from mental slavery, declaring that though others might free the body, none but themselves could free the mind. He also taught that a people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.