In 1945, the great Jahman Nesta Robert ("Bob") Marley was born on this day in the small village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann, Jamaica. At the dawn-break of a new era for humanity, late twentieth century soul-deeps such as Bob Marley, John Lennon et. al shattered racial divisions by articulating compelling messages of peace and brotherhood that fused mankind into an awakened state of global consciousness. Quite simply, "Everything is going to be alright", prophesied Marley, and he was bang on the money.
Watch No Woman, No Cry

Me dip on God's sideFrom his troubled origin, it would be easy to imagine otherwise, in fact, Marley had every right to hold a very personal sense of embitterment. Because his father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a caucasian-Jamaican of English descent, whose family came from Essex, England. Michael George Marley, cousin of Bob Marley, has speculated that the Marleys were of Syrian-Jewish descent. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old.

"I remember when we used to sit In the government yard in Trenchtown, Oba - obaserving the 'ypocrites As they would mingle with the good people we meet. Good friends we have, oh, good friends we've lost along the way. In this great future, you can't forget your past; So dry your tears, I seh".Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips.In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age sixty.

Marley suffered racial prejudice as a youth, because of his mixed racial origins and faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life.

Marley once reflected "I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white".