The highlight of the 2011 Marcus Garvey Rootz Extravaganza
will be “An Evening with the Family of Heroes”, featuring Dr. Julius W. Garvey
MD, son of Pan-African Patriarch Marcus Garvey, together with Dr. Umar Abdullah
Johnson, great, great, great grand nephew of African-American Abolitionist and
Statesman Frederick Douglass.
The Black Heroes Family Affair takes place at the Joseph
Carter Park, 1450 West Sunrise Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, on Saturday August
20, 2011, starting at 7:00 pm and will be under the patronage of the Jamaican
Consul General in Miami, Mrs. Sandra Grant-Griffiths.
Dr. Garvey will be the special guest of honor and the
keynote speaker at the 2011 Rootz Extravaganza, where the South Florida
community will be celebrating the 124th anniversary of his father’s birth. Dr.
Garvey is a board certified surgeon who specializes in the diagnosis and
treatment of vascular diseases and he is an attending surgeon on staff at Long
Island Jewish Medical Center in New York.
Dr. Garvey is a Fellow of the African Scientific Institute
and has served on the Boards of various organizations including the Marcus
Garvey Committee International, Inc., the Board for the Education of People of
African Ancestry, and the Read Across Jamaica Foundation. Over the years, he
has worked in conjunction with various Ministries and the University of the
West Indies in Jamaica, where he has built a school.
Dr. Garvey has also built a school and medical clinic in
Senegal where he was recently named a Goodwill Ambassador for that West African
country by its President, Abdoulaye Wade. Dr. Garvey has planted some
50-thousand trees in Northern Ghana and has visited South Africa, Uganda,
Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Senegal on a variety of missions.
In addition, Dr. Garvey has been on a number of relief
missions to Haiti since the devastating earthquake in January 2010 and works
closely with the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad. He continues to
combine a busy surgical practice with community service, lecturing throughout
the United States, Canada and the Caribbean about the legacy of his father
Marcus Garvey and also about African history and culture.
Also in attendance will be educator, psychologist, therapist,
and historian, Dr. Umar Johnson, who will be the special guest speaker at the
Marcus Garvey Rootz Extravaganza. His main focus will be on the relevance of
Marcus Garvey’s philosophy in the 21st century and on how Garvey’s emphasis on
self-sufficiency can help Black children perform better in public schools and
become more competitive in tomorrow’s world.
Dr. Johnson is a nationally certified School Psychologist
who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is President of the
National Movement to Save Black Boys and is also a former Minister of Education
for the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League
(UNIA-ACL), the organization founded by Marcus Garvey.
Dr. Johnson is an established authority on the education of
African-American children and on mental health in the Black community. He is
considered a national expert on learning disabilities and their effect on Black
children, as well an expert on helping schools and parents modify challenging
behaviors that can ultimately lead to disruptive behavior disorder diagnoses,
especially in Black boys. Dr. Johnson is a highly sought after motivational and
informational speaker who has lectured at workshops, conferences, award
ceremonies, graduations and expert panels throughout the North America.
“An Evening with the Family of Heroes” is being hosted by
the Rootz Foundation Inc. in association with the City of Fort Lauderdale Parks
& Recreation Department. The annual Marcus Garvey celebration kicks off at
Carter Park on Friday, August 19, with a Marcus Garvey Art, Craft and
Pan-African Book Fair. The Kinad Mobile Museum showcasing five-thousand years
of African history, will also be on location at the park during the Art, Craft
& Book Fair, which runs from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm.
Dr. Johnson, who will be arriving in Fort Lauderdale a few
days before the Rootz Extravaganza, is scheduled to conduct a special free
workshop at the Book Fair on Friday evening for parents with school aged children.
He is also booked to make a presentation at the Broward County branch library
in Miramar at 11:00 am on Saturday August 20, 2011.
For more information about the Marcus Garvey Rootz
Extravaganza and about when and where Dr. Umar Johnson will be appearing while
in Florida, call 954-981-1176 .
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