Marcus Garvey
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Marcus Mosiah Garvey (August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940) was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, crusader for black nationalism and founder of the UNIA-ACL. He was born in Jamaica. Garvey is best remembered as a champion of the "back-to-Africa" movement, which was interpreted as encouraging people of African ancestry to return to their ancestral homeland. He is also recognized as the most important prophet of the "back-to-Africa" Rastafari movement. Garvey said he wanted those of African ancestry to "redeem" Africa, and for the European colonial powers to leave it. Although Garvey was raised Methodist, he became a Roman Catholic.
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Early life
Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, the capital of the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, where he attended grammar school. He also received private instruction from his godfather Alfred Burrowes, who ran a printery. At 14, Garvey was apprenticed to Burrowes to learn the printing trade.
Garvey inherited a love of books from his father, a skilled mason who had a private library. This was further encouraged during his apprenticeship with Burrowes, where he came into contact with people who stopped at the printery to discuss politics and social affairs.
Around 1906 Garvey left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston in search of brighter prospects. He worked at first with an uncle, then moved elsewhere, where he worked as a printing compositor. By 1907 he had become a skilled printer and foreman. His first experience in organized labor came in late 1908 when printers, represented by the Typographical Union, went on strike for better wages. Garvey joined the strike in spite of being offered increased wages. The strike was unsuccessful and Garvey lost his job. He was blacklisted from private industry but found employment at the Government Printing Office.
Travels abroad
Garvey left Jamaica to work in Costa Rica as a time-keeper on a banana plantation about 1910. Observing the working conditions for blacks, Garvey became determined to change the lives of his people. He left Costa Rica and traveled throughout Central America, working and observing.
He visited the Panama Canal Zone and saw the conditions under which the West Indians lived and worked. He went to Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela. Everywhere, he saw blacks experiencing great hardships and suffering prejudice.
Garvey returned to Jamaica, distressed at the situation in Central America, and appealed to Jamaica's colonial government to help improve the plight of West Indian workers in Central America. His appeal fell on deaf ears.
Publishing activities
Garvey's journalistic experience began with a newspaper called The Watchman which he started in 1910. This newspaper was short-lived and was succeeded by others, also short-lived, which Garvey published during his early Central American travels. They were:
- La Nación, Costa Rica;
- La Prensa, Colón, Panama; and
- The Bluefields Messenger, Costa Rica.
Garvey was also associated with other publications: The African Times and Orient Review, The Daily Negro Times, Harlem, 1922-1924; The Blackman, Kingston, Jamaica, 1929-1931; The New Jamaican, Kingston, 1932-33; The Black Man Magazine, which was started in Kingston in 1933 and continued in England until 1939.
Founding of the UNIA-ACL
Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1914. Convinced that uniting blacks was the only way to improve their condition, Garvey launched the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League (UNIA), becoming president. The association sought to unite "all the people of African ancestry of the world into one great body to establish a country and Government absolutely their own."
After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, Garvey went to the United States of America in 1916 to give a lecture tour. By 1920 the association had over 1,100 branches in more than 40 countries.
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Convinced that blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey's movement sought to develop Liberia. In response to suggestions he wanted to take all Americans of African ancestry back to Africa he said, "I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa, there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there." He further reasoned, "our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa." The Liberia program, launched in 1920, was intended to build colleges, universities, industrial plants and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate, but was abandoned in the mid 1920's after much opposition from European powers with interests in Liberia.
Charged with mail fraud
After an FBI investigation Garvey supporters called fraudulent, Garvey was tried, sentenced and imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Prison in 1925. To this day, efforts to exonerate him from the charges continue. His sentence was eventually commuted, and on his release in November 1927, Garvey was deported from New Orleans to Jamaica, where a large crowd met him at Orrett's wharf in Kingston. A huge procession and band marched to the UNIA headquarters.
Later years
He travelled to Geneva in 1928 where he presented the "Petition of the Negro Race" to the League of Nations. The petition outlines the abuse of blacks around the world and sought redress.
In September 1929, Garvey founded the People's Political Party (PPP), Jamaica's first modern political party, mostly centered around workers' rights, education and aid to the poor.
Garvey was elected Councillor for the Allman Town division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) in 1929. He lost his seat, however, because of his absence from council meetings while serving a prison sentence for contempt of court. In 1930 he was re-elected, unopposed, along with two other PPP candidates and he agitated for the adoption of some of the points in the PPP's manifesto.
In April 1931, Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company, which Garvey used to help artists make a living from their work, including putting on plays. Several Jamaican entertainers who went on to become popular locally, received their initial exposure there. These included Kidd Harold, Ernest Cupidon, Bim & Bam and Ranny Williams.
Garvey left Jamaica for London in 1935. He lived and worked there until his death in 1940. During these last five years in London, he remained active, keeping in touch with events in Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) where war was being waged, and also with events in the West Indies. In 1938, he gave evidence before the West Indian Royal Commission on conditions in the West Indies. In that year also, he set up a School of African Philosophy to train the leadership of the UNIA. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.
Due to difficulties in travel resulting from World War II at the time of his death, he was interred in the Kensal Green Cemetery, London. In November 1964, the Government of Jamaica had his remains brought to Jamaica and ceremoniously reinterred at a shrine dedicated to him in National Heroes Park, Garvey having been proclaimed Jamaica's first National Hero.
Influence
Worldwide, Garvey's memory has been kept alive in many ways, including schools and colleges, highways and buildings in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States have been named for Garvey; the UNIA's red, black and green flag has been adopted as the Black Liberation Flag; a bust of Garvey was unveiled at the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes, located in Washington, DC in 1980.
Garvey and Rastafari
Rastafarians consider Garvey to be a religious prophet, and more specifically the reincarnation of John the Baptist. This was partly because Garvey said in the 1920's, "Look to Africa, for there a king will be crowned" which they then took as a prophecy about the crowning of Haile Selassie. The rasta founders were a part of Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement in Jamaica, and in its doctrines the Rastafarian movement can definitely be seen as an offshoot or development of Garvey philosophy. His beliefs have fundamentally shaped Rastafarianism.
Memorials to Garvey in Jamaica
Jamaica has honoured Garvey in many ways:
- a statue of Garvey erected on the grounds of the St. Ann's Bay Parish Library;
- a Secondary School in St. Ann named for him;
- a major highway in Kingston bearing his name;
- a bust of Garvey unveiled at Apex Park, Kingston in 1978;
- his likeness appears on the Jamaican 50 cent coin and 20 dollar coin;
- the building housing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (New Kingston) bears his name.
Quotes
"Up You Mighty Race, Accomplish What You Will..."
"Whatsoever things common to man, that man has done, man can do."
"One God! One Aim! One Destiny!"
"Africa for the Africans...At Home and Abroad!"
"A people without knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots."
"Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm."
"A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman is exact."
"There shall be no solution to this race problem until you your selves strike the blow for liberty."
External links
- Marcus Garvey website (http://www.marcusgarvey.com/)
- UNIA website (http://www.unia-acl.org/)
- Hear Marcus Garvey speak (http://www.rastafarian.nl/vips/garvey.asp) in his only known voice recording. 4:45 minutes. Archived on Netherlands Rastafarian website (http://www.rastafarian.nl). Retrieved May 19, 2005.
Marcus Garvey bibliography
Works by Marcus Garvey
- The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Edited by Amy Jacques Garvey. 412 pages. Majority Press; Centennial edition, November 1, 1986. ISBN 0912469242. Avery edition. ISBN 0405018738.
- Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy by Marcus Garvey. Edited by Tony Martin. Foreword by Hon. Charles L. James, President General, Universal Negro Improvement Association. 212 pages. Majority Press, March 1, 1986. ISBN 0912469196.
- The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Compiled and edited by Tony Martin. 123 pages. Majority Press, June 1, 1983. ISBN 0912469021.
- Hill, Robert A., Editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Vols. I-VII, IX. University of California Press, ca. 1983- (ongoing). 1146 pages. University of California Press, May 1, 1991. ISBN 0520072081.
- Hill, Robert A., Editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: Africa for the Africans 1921-1922. 740 pages. University of California Press, February 1, 1996. ISBN 0520202112.
Books
- Burkett, Randall K. Garveyism As A Religious Movement: The Institutionalization of A Black Civil Religion. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press and The American Theological Library Association, 1978.
- Campbell, Horace. Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1987.
- Clarke, John Henrik, Editor. Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. With the assistance of Amy Jacques Garvey. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.
- Cronon, Edmund David. Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and The Universal Negro Improvement Association. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955, reprinted 1969.
- Garvey, Amy Jacques, Garvey and Garveyism. London, England: Collier-MacMillan Ltd., 1963, 1968.
- Hill, Robert A., Editor. Marcus Garvey, Life and Lessons: A Centennial Companion to the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987.
- —. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Vols. I-VII, IX. University of California Press, ca. 1983- (ongoing).
- James, Winston. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso, 1998.
- Kornweibel, Jr., Theodore. Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy 1919-1925. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998.
- Lemelle, Sidney and Robin D. G. Kelley. Imagining Home: Class, Culture, and Nationalism in the African Diaspora. London: Verso, 1994.
- Lewis, Rupert. Marcus Garvey: Anti-Colonial Champion. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1988.
- Lewis, Rupert and Bryan, Patrick, Editors. Garvey: His Work and Impact. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1988.
- Lewis, Rupert and Maureen Warner-Lewis. Garvey: Africa, Europe, The Americas. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1986, 1994.
- Manoedi, M. Korete. Garvey and Africa. New York: New York Age Press, 1922.
- Martin, Tony. Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggle of Marcus Garvey and The Universal Negro Improvement Association. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976.
- —. Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts, and the Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983.
- —. African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey's Harlem Renaissance. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983, 1991.
- —. Marcus Garvey: Hero. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983.
- —. The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983.
- —. The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Dover, MA: Majority Press, 1983.
- Smith-Irvin, Jeannette. Marcus Garvey's Footsoldiers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1989.
- Solomon, Mark. The Cry was Unity: Communists and African-Americans, 1917-1936. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
- Stein, Judith. The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
- Tolbert, Emory J. The UNIA and Black Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA: Center of Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1980.
- Vincent, Theodore. Black Power and the Garvey Movement. Berkeley, CA: Ramparts Press, 1971.
Theses
- Taylor, Ula L. The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey. (Unpublished Dissertation).de:Marcus Garvey