Hon. Marcus M. Garvey

[TShango]

The Honorable Marcus Moziah Garvey

One of the Greatest Visionaries and Freedom Fighters in the History of the World: A Man Who Created an Empire

© Created by T’Shango Mbilishaka all rights reserved

•Marcus Garvey created the largest mass movement of Black people in the history of the modern world with over 1,200 branches of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) world wide in over 40 countries.
•Before e-mail, television, airplane (for travel), cell phone, text message or overnight delivery existed Garvey organized 70 Chapters in the USA which included 74 in Louisiana, 45 in Pennsylvania, 48 in Virginia. He had chapters in Puerto Rico (1), Dominican Republic (5), Cuba (52), Haiti (1), Trinidad (30), Jamaica (11), Honduras (8), Nicaragua (5), Costa Rica (23), South Africa (8), Liberia (2), Namibia (2)
•Garvey created several magazines and newsletters but most importantly the Negro World (1918) which was the most widely distributed Black newspaper in the world. This literary paper was distributed once a week and the UNIA owned its own printing press and did a large part of its own distribution. In many countries the Negro World was banned because its ability to empower Africans.
•UNIA Owned banks, hotels, beauty parlors, Laundromats, gas stations, a movie theater, lecture halls, furniture stores, Black doll manufacturing companies, stocks, ships, trucks, farms, grocery stores, and other completely Black owned businesses employing over 250,000 Black people around the world.
•Garvey created his own army called the African Legion and his own nurses, the Black Cross Nurses that went door to door in the community checking on people’s health and bringing food.
•Most notably Garvey created the Black Starline Trading and Shipping Company in 1916 the first and only Black owned Ships that were used to carry goods to the Caribbean and South America as well as up and down the Mississippi river.

Quotes from Garvey and Members of the UNIA:
(note: word Negro has been replaced by African meaning people of African descent around the world)
The African is dying out . . . There is only one thing to save the African, and that is an immediate realization of his own responsibilities. Unfortunately we are the most careless and indifferent people in the world! We areshiftless and irresponsible . . . It is strange to hear an African leader speak in this strain, as the usual course is flattery, but I would not flatter you to save my own life and that of my own family. There is no value in flattery. . . . Must I flatter you when I find all other peoples preparing themselves for the struggle to survive, and you still smiling, eating, dancing, drinking and sleeping away your time, as if yesterday were the beginning of the age of pleasure? I would rather be dead than be a member of your race without thought of the morrow, for it portends evil to him that thinketh not. Because I cannot flatter you I am here to tell, emphatically, that if we do not seriously reorganize ourselves as a people and face the world with a program of African nationalism our days in civilization are numbered, and it will be only a question of time when the African will be as completely and complacently dead as the North American Indian, or the Australian Bushman. [Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, II:101-102] . . .

This is the danger point. What will become of the African in America and around the world in another five hundred years if he does not organize now to develop and to protect himself? The answer is that he will be exterminated for the purpose of making room for the other races . . . [P&O, I:66]

“African producers, African distributors, African consumers! The world of Africans can be self-contained. We desire earnestly to deal with rest of the world, but if the rest of the world desire not, we seek not.”

You can’t just tell Black people you have to do it!

“Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.”

“The days of slavery are not gone…Slavery is threatened for every race and nation that remains weak”

“If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started.”

“That Back to Africa movement was nonsense. It was coined by enemies. Mr. Garvey had no intention that all Black people would go back to Africa. But he did want to wake up the consciousness of Black people, to make them know from whence they came.”

-Arnold L. Crawford High Commissioner of the UNIA

“We are not preaching any doctrine to ask all Negroes to leave for Africa. The majority of us will remain here, but we must send our scientist, our artisans and let them build railroads, great educational institutions and other buildings necessary. We must have a nation of our own. The Irish have Ireland, The English have England. Africa for the Africans at home and abroad!

“To free Africa, we must first free ourselves mentally, spiritually and politically.”

“Why should you want political freedom when Victoria of England gave it to you 84 years ago and Lincoln of America gave it to you 57 years ago? I am tempted to answer for you and to say that the present day African does not believe in hypocrisy and camouflage. He believes in truth and honesty and in justice.”

“The Universal Negro Improvement Association existed but in name four years ago, today it is known as the greatest moving force among Negroes. We have accomplished this through unity of effort and unity of purpose, it is a fair demonstration of what we will be able to accomplish in the very near future, when the millions who are outside the pale of the Universal Negro Improvement Association will have linked themselves up with us.”

“My work has just begun, and as I lay down my life for the cause of my people, so do I feel that succeeding generations shall be inspired by the sacrifice that I made for the rehabilitation of our race. Christ died to make men free, I shall die to give courage and inspiration to my race.”

Work Cited/ Suggested Reading
•Clarke, John Henrik My Life in search of Africa. Third World Press, Chicago 1999 (p. 96)
•________________. Marcus Garvey: Man of Vision. Third World Press. Chicago
•Garvey, Amy Jacques Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey or Africa for the Africans. Majority Press Dover, MA. 1923
•Harris, Robert. Carlos Cooks and Black Nationalism from Garvey to Malcolm. Majority Press. Dover, Massachusetts. 1992
•Hill, Robert A. Marcus Garvey Life Lessons. University of California Press, Los Angeles CA. 1987
•Martin, Tony Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Negro Improvement Association. Majority Press, Dover, MA 1976
•__________. Marcus Garvey: Message To the People The Course of African Philosophy. Majority Press, Dover MA 1986.
•Smith-Irvin, Jeannette. Foot Soldiers of The Universal Negro Improvement Association. Africa World Pres, Inc Trenton, NJ 1989