Cedella Malcolm Marley Booker (July 23, 1926^[1] – April 8, 2008) was the mother of Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley and a singer and writer.

Biography [edit]

Booker was born Sidilla Editha Malcolm in Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, to Albertha Whilby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer, a "bush doctor", and one of the most respected residents of Nine Mile (son of Robert "Uncle Day" Malcolm, who descended from the Cromanty slaves shipped to Jamaica from the African Gold Coast in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries). At 18, Cedella Malcolm married Norval Sinclair Marley, a White Jamaican of English ancestry, when she became pregnant with his son, Robert Nesta (which second given name "Nesta" means prophetically "wise messenger"). Norval Marley was an officer as well as the plantation overseer. His family applied constant pressure however, and although he provided financial support for them, the Captain seldom saw his wife and son.^[2] Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 70.^[2] Cedella and Bob then moved to Trenchtown, a slum neighborhood in Kingston. This was the only place Booker could afford to live at the time, being a young woman moving from the country to the big city on her own.

While living in Trenchtown, Booker gave birth to a daughter, Pearl, with Taddeus Livingston, the father of Bunny Livingston – aka Bunny Wailer – who formed the original Wailers trio with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh in 1963.

Cedella then married Edward Booker, an American civil servant, and resided first in Delaware, where she gave birth to two more sons, Richard and Anthony, with Booker. Anthony was killed in a shootout with Miami police after walking through a shopping mall with a 12 ga. shotgun and opening fire on responding police; Richard Booker survives her. After Edward Booker's death in 1976, Cedella moved to Miami, Florida, where she was present at the deathbed of her famous son who died from cancer in 1981. Booker lived in Miami for the remainder of her life.

Called "the keeper of the flame," Booker grew voluminous dreadlocks, adopted Rohan Marley, Bob Marley's son by Janet Hunt, and occasionally performed live with Marley's children, Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Stephen, Damian and Julian Marley. Later, she released the music albums Awake Zion and Smilin' Island of Song. Cedella Booker participated in the festivities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia commemorating Marley's 60th birthday in 2005. She also wrote two Marley biographies.

Cedella Marley Booker died at the age of 81 in Miami, Florida on April 8, 2008.

The Malcolm house where her parents originally lived was torn down and replaced by the new Bob Marley Foundation building.

Works authored [edit]

Booker wrote two books on the subject of her son, Bob Marley.^[1]

• Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother, which was published in 1997^[1] by Penguin Books Ltd (UK), ISBN 978-0-14-025814-1
• Bob Marley, My Son, which was published in 2003^[1] by Taylor Trade Publishing, ISBN 978-0-87833-298-4

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• The story of Cedella Booker and Bob Marley
• Wailers Discography- Family Tree
• Cedella Marley Booker at the Reggae Kentucky Splash
• Cedella Marley about her son Bob Marley