OBITUARIES BEFORE DEATH: FROM MARCUS GARVEY TO RAILA ODINGA.

OBITUARIES BEFORE DEATH: FROM MARCUS GARVEY TO RAILA ODINGA.

History, it seems, has a strange way of repeating itself .

In May 1940, the Chicago Defender, one of America’s leading Black newspapers, published the obituary of Marcus Mosiah Garvey , while the man was still alive. Garvey, already in fragile health after years of political exile and betrayal, read the article from his London home. It declared him “a man whose dreams had died long before he did.” A British newspaper, even printed an obituary, describing him as "broke, unpopular and forgotten." Within days, he suffered a second stroke and passed away for real. It was as if the weight of premature burial , not by earth, but by rumour ,had crushed his spirit.

Fast forward to 2025. Another big name, another generation, the same tragedy.

Raila Amolo Odinga, Kenya’s...