Amandla--Festival of Unity—was a world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

 festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 held at Harvard Stadium

Harvard Stadium

Harvard Stadium is a horseshoe-shaped football stadium in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Built in 1903, the stadium seats 30,323. The stadium seated up to 57,166 in the past, as permanent steel stands were installed in the north end of the stadium in 1929...

 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

Zulu language

Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...

 and means 'power', 'strength' or 'energy'. The headline performance was reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 superstar Bob Marley

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM 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...

 and his band The Wailers. Marley made several short speeches during his encore

Encore (concert)

An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...

 when he powerfully blamed the system

System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

 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 was Jaan Laaman

Jaan Laaman

Jaan Karl Laaman grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts and Buffalo, New York. His family emigrated to the US from Estonia when he was a child. He has a son...

, a member of the United Freedom Front

United Freedom Front

The United Freedom Front was a small American Marxist organization active in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally called the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit, and its members became known as the Ohio 7 when they were brought to trial...

 imprisoned for attempted murder.

Other performers were soul legend Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

, jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri

Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...

, drummer Babatunde Olatunji

Babatunde Olatunji

Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...

, the South African band Jabula

Jabula

Jabula was a musical ensemble made of South African musicians "exiled" in England during the Apartheid Era.Under Apartheid, traditional African music was largely banned from radio and even private play, and groups who performed it were often forced into exile. The four members that became Jabula...

 and comedian Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory

Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....

who gave a speech before Marley's performance.