Bob Marley is the unchallenged king of reggae and one of music's great iconic figures. Rita Marley was not just his wife and the mother of four of his children but his backing singer and friend, life-long companion and soul mate. They met in Trenchtown when he was 19 and she was 18, and she was very much part of his musical career, selling his early recordings from their house in the days before Island Records signed up the Wailers. She shared the hard times and the dangers - when Bob was wounded in a gunfight before the Peace Concert, Rita was shot in the head and left for dead. Their marriage was not always easy but Rita was the woman Bob returned to no matter where music and other women might take him, the woman who held him when he died at the age of 35. Today she sees herself as the guardian of his legacy. Full of new insights, No Woman No Cry is a unique biography of Marley by someone who understands what it meant to grow up in poverty in Jamaica, to battle racism and prejudice. It is also a moving and inspiring story of a marriage that survived both poverty and then the strains of global celebrity.

A memoir by the woman who knew Bob Marley best--his wife, Rita.
Rita Marley grew up in the slums of Trench Town, Jamaica. Abandoned by her mother at a very young age, she was raised by her aunt. Music ran in Rita's family, and even as a child her talent for singing was pronounced. By the age of 18, Rita was an unwed mother, and it was then that she met Bob Marley at a recording studio in Trench Town. Bob and Rita became close friends, fell in love, and soon, she and her girlfriends were singing backup for the Wailers. At the ages of 21 and 19, Bob and Rita were married.
The rest is history: Bob Marley and the Wailers set Jamaica and the world on fire. But while Rita displayed blazing courage, joy, and an indisputable devotion to her husband, life with Bob was not easy. There were his liaisons with other women--some of which produced children and were conducted under Rita's roof. The press repeatedly reported that Bob was unmarried to preserve his "image." But Rita kept her self-respect, and when Bob succumbed to cancer in 1981, she was at his side. In the years that followed, she became a force in her own right--as the Bob Marley Foundation's spokesperson and a performer in her reggae group, the I-Three.
Written with author Hettie Jones, No Woman No Cry is a no-holds-barred account of life with one of the most famous musicians of all time. In No Woman No Cry, readers will learn about the never-before-told details of Bob Marley's life, including:
How Rita practiced subsistence farming when first married to Bob to have food for her family. How Rita rode her bicycle into town with copies of Bob's latest songs to sell. How Rita worked as a housekeeper in Delaware to help support her family when her children were young. Why Rita chose to befriend some of the women with whom Bob had affairs and to give them advice on rearing the children they had with Bob. The story of the attack on Bob which almost killed the two of them. Bob's last wishes, dreams, and hopes, as well as the details of his death, such as who came to the funeral (and who didn't).

Greenwich Village in the 1950s was a haven to which young poets, painters, and jazz musicians flocked. Among them was Hettie Cohen, who'd been born in a Jewish middle-class family in Queens and who'd chosen to cross racial barriers to marry the controversial black poet LeRoi Jones. Theirs was a bohemian life in the awakening East Village of underground publishing and jazz lofts, through which drifted such icons of the generation as Allen Ginsberg, Thelonious Monk, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, Billie Holiday, James Baldwin, and Franz Kline.

"It works, we're in business, yeah Babe!" So begins this remarkable selection from a forty-year correspondence between two artists who survived their time as wives in the Beat bohemia of the 1960s and went on to successful artistic careers of their own. From their first meeting in 1960, writer Hettie Jones-then married to LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)-and painter and sculptor Helene Dorn (1927-2004), wife of poet Ed Dorn, found in each other more than friendship. They were each other's confidant, emotional support, and unflagging partner through difficulties, defeats, and victories, from surviving divorce and struggling as single mothers, to finding artistic success in their own right. Revealing the intimacy of lifelong friends, these letters tell two stories from the shared point of view of women who refused to go along with society's expectations. Jones frames her and Helene's story, adding details and explanations while filling in gaps in the narrative. As she writes, "we'd fled the norm for women then, because to live it would have been a kind of death." Apart from these two personal stories, there are, as well, reports from the battlegrounds of women's rights and tenant's rights, reflections on marriage and motherhood, and contemplation of the past to which these two had remained irrevocably connected. Prominent figures such as Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary appear as well, making Love, H an important addition to literature on the Beats. Above all, this book is a record of the changing lives of women artists as the twentieth century became the twenty-first, and what it has meant for women considering such a life today. It's worth a try, Jones and Dorn show us, offering their lives as proof that it can be done.

A SOUTHERN WOMAN'S STORY THAT HAS NOT BEEN TOLD BEFORE. UNTIL NOW.... Dorothy Hampton grew up as the youngest and unexpected child in a large (White) southern family in the time of Jim Crow and the Great Depression of the 1930's. Her feelings of isolation pushed her to seek her place in the world and she fell into what would become her life's work on doing work on the "inter-racial level." This newfound commitment to "do something" about Racism took her on an unplanned journey where she witnessed several historical moments in history including the founding of major Civil Rights organization, the Detroit Riots, and the observing major figures of the movement well before they were household names. All the while she put off marriage and motherhood trying to learn more about the role Race played in her life. She eventually married a prominent Black missionary several years her senior and moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, a racially diverse town chock full of hidden racism. When a young black boy was shot by a white cop in the 1990's after years of racial profiling was ignored by higher ups, she once again used her experience to make a difference, becoming a major part of the Community Dialogues that were created in its wake. She continued to serve as a Race Relations consultant in the New York area as well as up and down the east coast well until her 70's. Although she had been behind the scenes from the 50's, this poignant and honest memoir proves that those that aren't on the front lines of a struggle often make the greatest contributions. Due to memory loss, her daughter Kaypri finished writing her story, presenting it to her as a surprise on her 80th birthday. The Rave Reviews ...readers will be touched not only by her story but by her daughter's dedication in bringing it to light. How fortunate we are today to be able to read it, that it needn't be hidden away for an occasional scholar to happen upon, but available to all. A vote of thanks to Dorothy for helping to create our new, more open and inclusive American future. - HETTIE JONES Author, How I Became Hettie Jones, New School Professor What life teaches us is that we have the ability to continue to grow. Spring is a season but also a possibility as there is renewal. I Didn't Know What I Didn't Know shows us renewal at its finest, a wonderful insight. - NIKKI GIOVANNI Activist, Author, Racism 101, Distinguished Professor of English, Virginia Tech Dorothy's work models the healing our nation still has to do to fully embrace both our diversity AND the common humanity of us all. - VALERIE BATTS Executive Director, VISIONS Inc. If Blacks and Whites are going to work together to help our nation live out its democratic ideals they will need to move beyond the misunderstandings and denials about our racial differences and similarities. Dorothy Hampton Marcus invites us into the intimacy of her white family circle to allow us to observe what its like to grow up as a Southern girl and how she became one of the unsung heroines of the movement toward becoming a "'somewhat' more perfect union." For years I have said of her "she is a genuine, good white woman." In this book we get to see what helped to make her such a remarkable "human rights activist." - DR. JAMES A. FORBES The Harry Emerson Fosdick Distinguished Professor, Union Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor Emeritus of Riverside Church, New York, NY An interesting account, told by mother and daughter, of the kind of life which often goes unexamined, but which has a place in history." - SUSAN STRAIGHT Author, Professor of Creative Writing, University of California Riverside, National Book Award Finalist KAYPRI - FOUNDER, Priscilla Belle Productions Twitter: @kaypri @kaypribabygirl Facebook: www.facebook.com/babygirl1womanplay Instagram: www.instagram.com/kaypribabygirl LinkedIn: http: //www.linkedin.com/pub/kaypri-actswrite/7/2b0/1bb

The story of Rita Marley's life as the girlfriend, wife, and eventual widow of Bob Marley, the legend of reggae music, whose distinctive sound has been part of the world's popular culture for more than three decades.