Amandla--Festival of Unity—was a world music festival held at Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 21, 1979. The goals of the concert were to support and celebrate the liberation of Southern Africa as well as the on-going efforts of people in Boston to end racism in their families, schools, workplaces and communities.

The word 'Amandla' is from the South-African Zulu language and means 'power', 'strength' or 'energy'. The headline performance was reggae superstar Bob Marley and his band The Wailers. Marley made several short speeches during his encore when he powerfully blamed the system and urgently claimed Africa's unity and freedom. Those onstage speeches were unusual for Marley, as he normally was threatened with censorship when speaking openly about the system's failure and marijuana smoking, as he did at the Amandla Festival.

Among the Festival's key organizers were Janet Axelrod, Reebee Garofalo, Janine Fay, Shelley Neill, George Pillsbury and Kazi Toure.

Other performers were soul legend Patti LaBelle, jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri, drummer Babatunde Olatunji, the South African band Jabula, the Art of Black Dance and comedian Dick Gregory who gave a speech before Marley's performance. Mel King, a long time Boston community activist and outspoken opponent of apartheid, was the emcee.

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.

Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica. His best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Get Up Stand Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, going ten times Platinum which is also known as one Diamond in the U.S., and selling 25 million copies worldwide.

Melvin H. King (born 1928) is an American educator, activist, and writer.

King has been active across the landscape of neighborhoods and politics of Boston for over fifty-five years, while also being an educator, youth worker, social activist, community organizer and developer, elected politician, author, and an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is responsible for creating community programs and institutions for low-income people in Boston. He is the founder and current director of the South End Technology Center.

King and his wife, Joyce, married in 1951, are parents of six children, ranging in ages from 38 to 53.^{[clarification needed]}

King's mother, Ursula, was born in Guyana, and his father, Watts King, in Barbados. They met and married in Nova Scotia and immigrated to Boston in the early 1920s. King, born in 1928, in Boston's South End neighborhood, was one of eight children born to the Kings between 1918 and 1938. He graduated from Boston Technical High School in 1946 and from Claflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1950 with a B.S. degree in mathematics. In 1951, he received his M.A. degree in education from Boston State College and then taught math, first at Boston Trade High School and at his alma mater, Boston Technical High School.

Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory (born October 12, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur.

Gregory is an influential American comic who has used his performance skills to convey to both white and black audiences his political message on civil rights. His social satire helped change the way white Americans perceived African American comedians since he first performed in public.

As a poor student who excelled at running, Gregory was aided by teachers at Sumner High School, among them Warren St. James. Gregory earned a track scholarship to Southern Illinois University Carbondale. There he set school records as a half-miler and miler. His college career was interrupted for two years in 1954 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. The army was where he got his start in comedy, entering and winning several Army talent shows at the urging of his commanding officer, who had taken notice of Gregory's penchant for joking. In 1956, Gregory briefly returned to SIU after his discharge, but dropped out because he felt that the university "didn't want me to study, they wanted me to run".