The Editor, Sir:

In his column of October 19 headlined 'Heroes and errors' Dr Orville Taylor stated that if Marcus Garvey had been able to make a greater appeal to blacks of all classes, he might not have lost the 1929 municipal elections. He also claimed that Garvey did not take his message for Jamaica beyond the barriers of race.

But the assumptions by Dr Taylor are false and ahistorical. Garvey did not lose the municipal elections in 1929. He won a seat for the Allman Town division, another Garveyite also won another local-government division.

As far as I know, the party which Garvey started, the People's Political Party, did not run a slate of candidates for the municipal elections in 1929. They did run a slate for the general election of 1930 and this was lost, not because of a lack of appeal to middle-class voters, but because there was no Universal Adult Suffrage.

The upper and certain middle-class Jamaicans had the vote, but the working class who supported Garvey did not. Only 7.75 per cent of the population was registered to vote for that election.

An examination of the manifesto which Garvey's party put forward for the 1930 general election would prove that.

This manifesto dealt with political representation, labour issues (12 out of 26 planks dealt with this), education, health, industry, culture and justice, among other things.

I am, etc.,

BEVERLY HAMILTON

P.O. Box 368

Kingston 10