robin brown

The News Journal

As the 21st annual Peoples Festival 4 Peace & Tribute to Bob Marley approaches, work is moving forward on a year-round community tribute in Wilmington to the man behind the reggae music.

Both are part of growing recognition for Marley's global impact and legacy in the first place outside Jamaica that he ever called home.

And kudos to Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington, for working to get a much-deserved historical marker through the Delaware Public Archives.

The festival

The family-friendly festival will bring live music, drum and dance, and spoken word entertainment to Wilmington's Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday, July 25.

The event was started in 1984 by Ibis and Genny Pitts, who were Marley's friends when he was here. Ibis, 69, died in 2013, but his wife and friends kept the festival going.

This year's performers include Romain Virgo, The Itals, Jah9, Alika, Dubtonic Kru, DJ Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Stepwise. The festival is bringing back its popular Children's Village and International Market Place, with cooling and relaxation in its Holistic Wellness Pavilion and Bamboo Rain Hut, along with Caribbean and international food and a beer garden.

Tickets are $25 and free for age 10 or younger, with discounts available for groups of 10 or more and VIP tickets at $75. Tickets may be bought at the gate, via eventbrite at http://bit.ly/1HwBleq, through www.oneluvparty.com or www.facebook.com/peoplesfestde and Delaware stores of ShopRite, one of the sponsors.

Ever-so-mellow, the festival is one true way to celebrate Marley's message of "One Love."

The Park

Wilmington City Council rightfully gave unanimous support to Council President Theo Gregory's inspired idea, cosponsored by Councilmen Nnambdi Chukwuocha and Trippi Congo, to rename a small park at 24th and Tatnall streets as "One Love Park."

A mural of Marley with his lyrics, "I feel so good in my neighborhood," was painted across the street from the park, less than a block from what was the Marley home in the 2300 block of Tatnall St.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the park in May for improvements including new playground and exercise equipment, resurfaced basketball court, improved lighting, gated entrance and landscaping.

As the renaming was considered, Gregory talked about the Marley song's meaning, saying, "We all need a reminder from time to time about the importance of love in our hearts for our children and for each other."

Sponsor Henry appropriately has called Marley's having lived in Delaware "historic" and a state historical marker is long overdue.

The new name, improvements and marker are good not only for the park, which had become somewhat rundown and known for drug activity, but also the neighborhood, city and state.

Fans also may add tributes. The 2nd District Neighborhood Planning Council is offering engraved pavers for $55 to $175 for the park entrance. For details or orders, see Friends of One Love Park at www.facebook.com/friendsoftatnallplayground or call the council at (302) 655-2839.

Its President Kathleen Patterson said Sunday that proceeds will be used for community projects and events at the park.

"Our hope is that people will feel good about the park, to bring their kids there and the more people who come, we hope, the more it will become a hub of activity – a positive hub – for the community."

The Delawarean

Years after his father died, Marley moved to Delaware with his mother, Cedella Malcolm Marley Booker, from Kingston, Jamaica, when she remarried.

Outside Jamaica, Wilmington was the first place Bob Marley called home.

His mother owned her house on Tatnall Street and ran the "Roots" Jamaican music shop on Market Street. For a time, Marley and his wife lived nearby.

Accounts vary of when the family came to Delaware and just how long Bob Marley lived here full-time – from a few months to many years. By some reports, Cedella moved here in 1962, after her son had begun recording as a teen with The Wailers, but he moved back in the mid-1960s to resume his music.

When he returned and is said to have stayed longer, he worked at the Chrysler Assembly Plant in Newark, where fans bemoan the lack of a sign or other formal tribute. "Night Shift," which he wrote in 1976, is said to have been inspired by his forklift driving job in Chrysler's parts warehouse. He also worked as a DuPont Co. lab assistant, but is said to have been paid under the name of Donald Marley.

Even the family's foundation avoids specifying his Delaware time, saying he lived here "off and on from 1965 to 1977," News Journal files say.

Marley's son Stephen was born in Wilmington in 1972. He and siblings lived with Marley's mom, went to city schools and stayed with her when he toured.

Among his many awards and honors, Marley's "One Love/People Get Ready," with the Wailers, was named Song of the Millennium by the BBC.

Robert Nesta Marley, whose middle name meant "wise messenger," died of cancer at in 1981, at age 36, with his mother at his side.

She lived in a home he had bought her in Miami, where she moved after closing her Wilmington store following a burglary in the late 1970s. She went on two write biographies of him and perform with his children Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Stephen, Damian and Julian Marley – described as a star in her own right.

Booker, who died in Miami in 2008 at 81, had declined memorials for her reggae-star son. But she surprised Ibis and Genny Pitts at a birthday party they gave her, giving her blessing for them to hold the Peoples Festival for Peace in his honor.

Do you have a Delaware Backstory? Tell robin brown at (302) 324-2856, rbrown@delawareonline.com, on Facebook and Twitter or The News Journal, Box 15505, Wilmington, DE 19850.