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Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa
Among Black leaders, Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was unique. His popularity was universal, his program for the return of African people to their motherland shook the foundations of three empires, all subsequent Black Power movements have owed a debt to his example, and his prophecy has been fulfilled in the independence that brought into being more than thirty African nations.
This illuminating reader shows Garvey in all his dimensions. Among the many contributors are, in addition to Garvey himself, W. E. B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, William Z. Foster, Amy Jacques Garvey, and the editor, John Henrik Clarke.
This illuminating reader shows Garvey in all his dimensions. Among the many contributors are, in addition to Garvey himself, W. E. B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, William Z. Foster, Amy Jacques Garvey, and the editor, John Henrik Clarke.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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June 14, 2024
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON GARVEY, AS WELL AS HIS OWN WRITINGS
Editor John Henrik Clarke wrote in the ‘Acknowledgements; of this 1973 collection, “This book was researched and compiled with the assistance of Amy Jacques Garvey, who placed at my disposal her extensive files of information about her late husband and the rise and transition of the Garvey Movement. The basic information for most of the commentary was obtained from two extensive taped interviews with Mrs. Garvey during the summers of 1969 and 1970, and a long article that she wrote for this book.”
He says in the Introduction, “It is no accident that Marcus Garvey had his greatest success in the United States among Black Americans. There is an historical logic to this occurrence that seemed to have escaped most of the interpreters of the life of Marcus Garvey and the mass movement that he built. He came to the United States … at a time of great disenchantment among Afro-Americans, who had pursued the ‘American Dream’ until they had to concede that the dream was not dreamed for them… No other dream and no other promise was being held out to them. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner … the most prominent and outspoken American advocate of Black emigration in the years between the Civil and the First World War, had died… There was nothing new about this dream… Marcus Garvey only reintroduced the longing for Africa and gave the dream a new vitality and an organization.” (Pg. xv)
In his Commentary, Clarke notes, “To call the movement he brought into being a ‘back-to-Africa’ movement is to narrow its meaning. Marcus Garvey’s plan was for total African redemption. The crucial legacy of slavery and colonialism helped to produce a Marcus Garvey.” (Pg. 3) Clarke observes, “The main problem of the African in dealing with the Europeans during this early period was the African’s tragic naïveté. He had never dealt with this kind of people. He came out of a society where nature was kind; nature furnished him enough food, enough land, enough of the basic things he needed to live a pretty good life. Old African societies were governed by honor and obligation. Land could be neither bought nor sold; the land belonged to everyone.” (Pg. 16-17)
He points out, “In South America and in the West Indies, the slave masters did not outlaw the African drum, African ornamentations, African religion, or other things dear to the African remembered from his former way of life… Families, in the main, were kept together… This freedom permitted a form of cultural continuity among the slaves in South America, the West Indies, Cuba, and Haiti that did not exist in the United States and that later made their revolts more successful than revolts in the United States.” (Pg. 18)
In a 1916 letter to Major Moton, Garvey admitted, “My Association was founded in Jamaica eighteen months ago… I can only say that the work has been most harassing and heartrending… Whilst we have been encouraged and helped by the cultured whites to do something to help in lifting the masses, the so-called ‘representatives’ of our own people have sought to down us and ever since they have been waging a secret campaign to that end, hence… you will find such men parading themselves as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing,’ who are desirous of destroying the existence of a Negro Society. I am engaged in fighting a battle with foes of my own all around, but I am prepared to fight on with the strength given to me by Almighty God.” (Pg. 67)
Garvey wrote in 1923, “I was openly hated and persecuted by some of these colored men of the island who did not want to be classified as negroes, but as white. They hated me worse than poison. They opposed me at every step, but I had a large number of white friends, who encouraged and helped me… The war helped a great deal… a few of the stiff-necked colored people began to see the reasonableness of my program, but they were firm in refusing to be known as negroes. Furthermore, I was a black man and therefore had absolutely no right to lead… leadership should have been in the hands of a yellow or very light man… There is more bitterness among us negroes because of the caste of color than there is between any other peoples.” (Pg. 75-76)
In a 1916 pamphlet, he acknowledges, “It is true, that by accident and unfavorable circumstances, the Negro lost hold of the glorious civilization that he once dispensed, and in the process of time reverted into savagery, and subsequently became a slave, and even to those whom he once enslaved, yet it does not follow that the Negro must always remain backward. There is no chance for the Negro today in securing a comfortable place with the progressives of mankind, as far as racial exclusiveness protects the achievements of the particular race; but there is a chance for the Negro to do something for himself on the same standard of established customs among the ADVANCED, and the advanced are eagerly waiting to stretch out the hand of compliment to the Negro as soon as he shall have done the THING to merit recognition. The Negro is ignored today simply because he has kept himself backward; but if he were to try to raise himself to a higher state in the civilized cosmos, all the other races would be glad to meet him on the plane of equality and comradeship.” (Pg. 84-85)
W.E.B. Du Bois notes, “[Garvey] appeared in the uniforms of his dream triumphs, in 1921 with an academic cap and gown, weird in colors; in 192 2with cocked hat, gold lace, and sword---the commander-in-chief of the African Legion!... He held court and made knights, lords, and dukes; and yet… he knew he had failed… He grew suspicious, morose, complaining, furious at the ‘fools’ and ‘scoundrels’ who were ‘plotting’ his ruin… With all the provincial backwoods love of courts and judges he rushed into an reveled in litigation figuring in at least fifty suits… while in turn his personal enemies sued him, rioted against him, and one shot him, so that today he dares not stir without a sturdy bodyguard.” (Pg. 114)
Captain Hugh Mulzac observes, “it was clear to me that we had no reason at all to be in these ports. There was no cargo to be loaded or discharged. We had 500 passengers aboard to be fed and cared for. The Yarmouth was simply being used as a propaganda device for recruiting new members to the Universal Negro Improvement Association. It was a helluva way to run a steamship.” (Pg. 134-135) He adds, “when the bubble burst as it had to, upon the jagged rocks of incompetence and venality, the people were left with their dreams of a bright future blighted. They had no steamship line, no newspaper, no successful challenge to white domination, but had instead only monetary losses and… a deep loss of faith in their own capacities.” (Pg. 138)
A 1925 UNIA publication stated, “The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization. They stole our arts and sciences from Africa. Then why should we be ashamed of ourselves? Their ‘modern improvements’ are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected thousands of years ago… to be resurrected and reintroduced by the intelligence of our generation and our posterity.” (Pg. 157)
E. Franklin Frazer suggested, “Garvey was always attributing the misfortunes of the Negro group to traitors and enemies… as a rule they turned out to be Negro intellectuals. The cause for such animosity against this class of Negroes is apparent when we remember that Garvey himself lacks formal education.” (Pg. 239)
In a 1935 essay, Garvey said, “Whilst there may be a few good white men in America, there is no white man in America honest enough, sympathetic enough, humane enough, liberal enough to really take up the Negro’s cause and fight it to a successful conclusion for the race’s benefit, because in so doing it would be creating displeasure to the masses of white men and women who have always claimed superiority over the Negro…” (Pg. 254)
In a 1938 essay, he suggests, “The Negro will never be able to hold up his head as a man and speak as a man until he is able to do the things that other races have done and are doing. This is the urge that forces men on to the accomplishment of those things that are worthwhile, and it is hoped that the African at home as well as the African abroad will work toward that end.” (Pg. 368)
This is a very broad and well-balanced selection of essays, as well as Garvey’s own writings. It will be of great interest to those studying Garvey, or African-American history.
Editor John Henrik Clarke wrote in the ‘Acknowledgements; of this 1973 collection, “This book was researched and compiled with the assistance of Amy Jacques Garvey, who placed at my disposal her extensive files of information about her late husband and the rise and transition of the Garvey Movement. The basic information for most of the commentary was obtained from two extensive taped interviews with Mrs. Garvey during the summers of 1969 and 1970, and a long article that she wrote for this book.”
He says in the Introduction, “It is no accident that Marcus Garvey had his greatest success in the United States among Black Americans. There is an historical logic to this occurrence that seemed to have escaped most of the interpreters of the life of Marcus Garvey and the mass movement that he built. He came to the United States … at a time of great disenchantment among Afro-Americans, who had pursued the ‘American Dream’ until they had to concede that the dream was not dreamed for them… No other dream and no other promise was being held out to them. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner … the most prominent and outspoken American advocate of Black emigration in the years between the Civil and the First World War, had died… There was nothing new about this dream… Marcus Garvey only reintroduced the longing for Africa and gave the dream a new vitality and an organization.” (Pg. xv)
In his Commentary, Clarke notes, “To call the movement he brought into being a ‘back-to-Africa’ movement is to narrow its meaning. Marcus Garvey’s plan was for total African redemption. The crucial legacy of slavery and colonialism helped to produce a Marcus Garvey.” (Pg. 3) Clarke observes, “The main problem of the African in dealing with the Europeans during this early period was the African’s tragic naïveté. He had never dealt with this kind of people. He came out of a society where nature was kind; nature furnished him enough food, enough land, enough of the basic things he needed to live a pretty good life. Old African societies were governed by honor and obligation. Land could be neither bought nor sold; the land belonged to everyone.” (Pg. 16-17)
He points out, “In South America and in the West Indies, the slave masters did not outlaw the African drum, African ornamentations, African religion, or other things dear to the African remembered from his former way of life… Families, in the main, were kept together… This freedom permitted a form of cultural continuity among the slaves in South America, the West Indies, Cuba, and Haiti that did not exist in the United States and that later made their revolts more successful than revolts in the United States.” (Pg. 18)
In a 1916 letter to Major Moton, Garvey admitted, “My Association was founded in Jamaica eighteen months ago… I can only say that the work has been most harassing and heartrending… Whilst we have been encouraged and helped by the cultured whites to do something to help in lifting the masses, the so-called ‘representatives’ of our own people have sought to down us and ever since they have been waging a secret campaign to that end, hence… you will find such men parading themselves as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing,’ who are desirous of destroying the existence of a Negro Society. I am engaged in fighting a battle with foes of my own all around, but I am prepared to fight on with the strength given to me by Almighty God.” (Pg. 67)
Garvey wrote in 1923, “I was openly hated and persecuted by some of these colored men of the island who did not want to be classified as negroes, but as white. They hated me worse than poison. They opposed me at every step, but I had a large number of white friends, who encouraged and helped me… The war helped a great deal… a few of the stiff-necked colored people began to see the reasonableness of my program, but they were firm in refusing to be known as negroes. Furthermore, I was a black man and therefore had absolutely no right to lead… leadership should have been in the hands of a yellow or very light man… There is more bitterness among us negroes because of the caste of color than there is between any other peoples.” (Pg. 75-76)
In a 1916 pamphlet, he acknowledges, “It is true, that by accident and unfavorable circumstances, the Negro lost hold of the glorious civilization that he once dispensed, and in the process of time reverted into savagery, and subsequently became a slave, and even to those whom he once enslaved, yet it does not follow that the Negro must always remain backward. There is no chance for the Negro today in securing a comfortable place with the progressives of mankind, as far as racial exclusiveness protects the achievements of the particular race; but there is a chance for the Negro to do something for himself on the same standard of established customs among the ADVANCED, and the advanced are eagerly waiting to stretch out the hand of compliment to the Negro as soon as he shall have done the THING to merit recognition. The Negro is ignored today simply because he has kept himself backward; but if he were to try to raise himself to a higher state in the civilized cosmos, all the other races would be glad to meet him on the plane of equality and comradeship.” (Pg. 84-85)
W.E.B. Du Bois notes, “[Garvey] appeared in the uniforms of his dream triumphs, in 1921 with an academic cap and gown, weird in colors; in 192 2with cocked hat, gold lace, and sword---the commander-in-chief of the African Legion!... He held court and made knights, lords, and dukes; and yet… he knew he had failed… He grew suspicious, morose, complaining, furious at the ‘fools’ and ‘scoundrels’ who were ‘plotting’ his ruin… With all the provincial backwoods love of courts and judges he rushed into an reveled in litigation figuring in at least fifty suits… while in turn his personal enemies sued him, rioted against him, and one shot him, so that today he dares not stir without a sturdy bodyguard.” (Pg. 114)
Captain Hugh Mulzac observes, “it was clear to me that we had no reason at all to be in these ports. There was no cargo to be loaded or discharged. We had 500 passengers aboard to be fed and cared for. The Yarmouth was simply being used as a propaganda device for recruiting new members to the Universal Negro Improvement Association. It was a helluva way to run a steamship.” (Pg. 134-135) He adds, “when the bubble burst as it had to, upon the jagged rocks of incompetence and venality, the people were left with their dreams of a bright future blighted. They had no steamship line, no newspaper, no successful challenge to white domination, but had instead only monetary losses and… a deep loss of faith in their own capacities.” (Pg. 138)
A 1925 UNIA publication stated, “The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization. They stole our arts and sciences from Africa. Then why should we be ashamed of ourselves? Their ‘modern improvements’ are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected thousands of years ago… to be resurrected and reintroduced by the intelligence of our generation and our posterity.” (Pg. 157)
E. Franklin Frazer suggested, “Garvey was always attributing the misfortunes of the Negro group to traitors and enemies… as a rule they turned out to be Negro intellectuals. The cause for such animosity against this class of Negroes is apparent when we remember that Garvey himself lacks formal education.” (Pg. 239)
In a 1935 essay, Garvey said, “Whilst there may be a few good white men in America, there is no white man in America honest enough, sympathetic enough, humane enough, liberal enough to really take up the Negro’s cause and fight it to a successful conclusion for the race’s benefit, because in so doing it would be creating displeasure to the masses of white men and women who have always claimed superiority over the Negro…” (Pg. 254)
In a 1938 essay, he suggests, “The Negro will never be able to hold up his head as a man and speak as a man until he is able to do the things that other races have done and are doing. This is the urge that forces men on to the accomplishment of those things that are worthwhile, and it is hoped that the African at home as well as the African abroad will work toward that end.” (Pg. 368)
This is a very broad and well-balanced selection of essays, as well as Garvey’s own writings. It will be of great interest to those studying Garvey, or African-American history.
April 25, 2018
So good but has many repetitive chapters on our modern prophet. It’s great that many of the chapters gave insight on Marcus Garvey. It took me awhile to go through this book but the information is just so good.
July 8, 2008
I would have liked it more if the selections weren't abridged and if the supporting essays weren't quite so repetitive.
January 11, 2018
Great insight of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Good amount of history to support the various writers perspectives.
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March 19, 2016rasta
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews