Michael Manley remains one of Jamaica's most popular prime ministers.
25 Facts About Michael Manley
2.
Michael Manley was the second son of premier Norman Washington Manley and artist Edna Manley.
3.
Michael Manley studied at Jamaica College between 1935 and 1943.
4.
Michael Manley attended the Antigua State College and then served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.
5.
Michael Manley graduated in 1949, and returned to Jamaica to serve as an editor and columnist for the newspaper Public Opinion.
6.
When his father was elected premier of Jamaica in 1955, Michael Manley resisted entering politics, not wanting to be seen as capitalizing on his family name.
7.
Michael Manley won election to the Jamaican House of Representatives for the Central Kingston constituency in 1967.
8.
Michael Manley then served as leader of the Opposition, until his party won in the general elections of 1972.
9.
Michael Manley instituted a series of socio-economic reforms that produced mixed results.
10.
Unlike his father, who had a reputation for being formal and businesslike, the younger Michael Manley moved easily among people of all strata and made Parliament accessible to the people by abolishing the requirement for men to wear jackets and ties to its sittings.
11.
Under Michael Manley, Jamaica established a minimum wage for all workers, including domestic workers.
12.
In 1974, the PNP under Michael Manley adopted a political philosophy of Democratic Socialism.
13.
In 1974, Michael Manley proposed free education from primary school to university.
14.
Michael Manley was the first Jamaican prime minister to support Jamaican republicanism.
15.
In July 1977, after a march to commemorate the Morant Bay rebellion, Michael Manley announced that Jamaica would become a republic by 1981.
16.
Michael Manley developed close friendships with several communist and socialist leaders, foremost of whom were Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Olof Palme of Sweden, and Fidel Castro of Cuba.
17.
In December 1977, Michael Manley visited President Jimmy Carter at the White House to remedy the situation, and relations improved somewhat.
18.
Michael Manley was Prime Minister when Jamaica experienced a significant escalation of its political culture of violence.
19.
Michael Manley strongly opposed intervention in Grenada after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was overthrown and executed.
20.
In 1980, Michael Manley gave a series of public lectures at Columbia University in New York.
21.
In 1992, citing health reasons, Michael Manley stepped down as Prime Minister and PNP leader.
22.
In 1966, Michael Manley married Barbara Lewars ; in 1972, he married Beverley Anderson, but the marriage was dissolved in 1990.
23.
Michael Manley wrote seven books, including the award-winning A History of West Indies Cricket, in which he discussed the links between cricket and West Indian nationalism.
24.
On 6 March 1997, Michael Manley died of prostate cancer, the same day as another Caribbean politician, Cheddi Jagan of Guyana.
25.
Michael Manley is interred at the National Heroes Park, where his father Norman Manley is interred.