In February of 1966 Bob Marley left Jamaica for the first time in his life and headed for his mothers modest home in Delaware. His mind was troubled and his emotions deeply mixed as he gazed for the first time on the Earth from the vantage point of the heavens. He had just married Rita Anderson the day before, and was on his way to explore, for the sake of his family, a potentially better way of life. His mother had nagged at him for some time, urging him to give up his foolish musical career and get a good job with regular pay. He was a major star in Jamaica where he and his friends Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh ruled the dancehall with their ska hits and rudeboy attitudes. They were the Wailers, the best from amongst the rest by any test from east to west, but despite their local notoriety and status, they were not making decent wages from the studio work and were getting a mere three pounds each per week as an advance against future royalities. They were stars, but they needed to struggle for their daily existence. Bob told Bunny and Peter that he would check out the scene in America and then send for them if the opportunity arose. Bob had made a lot of decisions to make and there were several people counting on him, so he determined to be a quick study in America. He was soon sweeping floors in the DuPont Hotel in Delaware. In his spare time, he worked on new songs in his mother's basement, and shunned a social life.

The America Bob came to know was a land of conflict, change and confrontationj. He had already learned the third world lessons of racism and poverty in his native Jamaica. Now he would see how these political and moral issues were dealt with in a democratic society in crisis. In 1966, President Lydon Johnson was trying to create the "Great Society" at home, while at the same time attempting to defeat Vietnamese comminist forces abroad. Martin Luther King was taking the non-violent struggle against racism and poverty to the streets and beginning to speak of a correlation between poverty at home and the war in Viet Nam. Muhammed Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world and when asked why he would not allow himself to be drafted, he replied. "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger". Someone pointed out to Bob that if he stayed in America over six months, he could be drafted. Bob was not about to participate in an unjust war, nor was he willing to go to jail. He determined to return to Jamaica after he had saved enough money and written enough good songs, as he wanted to be able to produce the Wailers' music independently and release it on their own label. 

Learn more about Bob, Bunny, Peter, Rita