MANLEY

Norman Manley announced his intent of retiring as President of the People's National Party (PNP) and from active public life on his 75th birthday on July 4, 1968.

In retiring, he threw a challenge to his successors:

"My generation," he said, "had a distinct mission to perform. It was to create a national spirit with which we could identify ourselves as a people for the purpose of achieving independence on the political plane. I am convinced, deeply convinced that the role of this generation is to proceed to the social and economic reform of Jamaica.

It is to conceive a society based on principles of equality, and to remove the duality that splits us so profoundly, and to multiply the points of identification between man and nation, so, slowly, and I suppose it will take another thirty years at least, we can begin to think and feel and live as one people, making one national group."

Seven months later, he was succeeded as the leader of the party he founded in 1938 by his younger son Michael, who also took on the role of Leader of the Opposition. Seven months later, on the day a by-election was held in his former constituency to chose his successor, he died.

An not yet officially designated a National Hero, he was buried on the 'Avenue of Heroes,' in Jamaica's National Heroes Park.

Left: Norman Manley, Leader of the Opposition and president of the People's National Party, leading a demonstration down King Street after addressing a crowd at South Parade in this June 1968 photo. Right: The then Prime Minister, Hon. Hugh Shearer, putting his signature to the agreement reached between the Government and Alumina Partners of Jamaica for a $60-million expansion at the Alpart plant at Nain, St. Elizabeth. Beside him is the Minister of Trade and Industry, the Hon. Robert Lightbourne.