The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey

by Tony Martin (Editor)

Marcus Garvey was many things race leader, journalist, orator and ideologist. He was also a poet, and his poetical works are collected here for the first time. From a purely literary standpoint, he inspired better poetry than he himself produced. Even so, however, he could still justify the attempt, for he saw verse as an important supplementary vehicle for propagating his ideas. And these are the ideas upon which the world's greatest Pan-African movement was built.

Genres: Poetry

123 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

Tony Martin (February 21, 1942 – January 17, 2013) was a Trinidad-born professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. He retired in June 2007 as professor emeritus after 34 years teaching at the Africana Studies Department, where he was a founding member.

He was a lecturer and author of scholarly articles about Black History. His written works about the plagiarism by the Greeks of African philosophy, and statements regarding Jewish involvement in the American slave trade have both been a source of ongoing controversy.

In October 1991, a Wellesley student, Michelle Plantec, while on hall duty, claimed that she saw Martin wandering in a female dorm in a restricted area, in violation of a rule requiring male guests to be escorted. When she asked him about his escort, Martin, she claims, responded using profanity, accused her of racism and bigotry, and positioned himself so as to physically intimidate her. Martin denied all these claims, and declared that a group of women "accosted him rudely, despite circumstances that in his view made the legitimacy of his presence obvious."

In an interview with a campus newspaper, Plantec said: "I stopped him and said, 'Excuse me, sir, who are you with?' He looked at me and said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'What Wellesley student are you with?' and at that point he exploded and called me a fucking bitch, a racist, and a bigot, among other things. ...After all this, he went back into his meeting and said the only reason I had stopped him was because he was black.

Out of this grew Martin's most famous book, The Jewish Onslaught: Despatches from the Wellesley Battlefront. The Chair of Martin's department at Wellesley, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, labelled Martin's book "Gangsta history, meant to demean and to defame others and to bring them into disrepute, rather than to enlighten and to lead us to a more complex and sophisticated understanding of social phenomena. It ought to be labeled anti-Semitic." The majority of the Wellesley faculty signed a statement condemning Martin's work "for its racial and ethnic stereotyping and for its anti-Semitism."

Martin's book was also criticized in a statement by the president of Wellesley College:
[The book] gratuitously attacks individuals and groups at Wellesley College through innuendo and the application of racial and religious stereotype.... Despite Professor Martin's incendiary words, and his attempt to portray Wellesley College as a repressive institution bent on silencing him, we will continue to recognize his right to express himself.

In June 2002, Martin presented a talk entitled Tactics of Organized Jewry in Suppressing Free Speech at the 14th IHR Conference sponsored by the Institute for Historical Review. The Institute for Historical Review is devoted to anti-Semitic literature and especially Holocaust denial and has been linked to neo-Nazi groups. since 1995 it has been headed by a member of the white supremacist National Alliance.

Wikipedia

Reviews

[Born Uhuru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book of poetry by Mwalimu Garvey.

African for Africans

Say! Africa for the Africans,
Like America for the Americans:
This the rallying cry for a nation,
Be it in peace or revolution.


Blacks are men, no longer cringing fools;
They demand a place, not like weak tools;
But among the world of nations great
They demand a free self-governing state.


Hurrah! Hurrah! Great Africa wakes;
She is calling her sons, and none forsakes,
But to colors of the nation runs,
Even though assailed by enemy guns.


Cry it loud, and shout it Ion' hurrah!
Time has changed, so hail! New Africa!
We are now awakened, rights to see:
We shall fight for dearest liberty.


Mighty kingdoms have been truly reared
On the bones of blackmen, facts declared;
History tells this awful, pungent truth,
Africa awakes to her rights forsooth.


Europe cries to Europeans, ho!
Asiatics claim Asia, so
Australia for Australians,
And Africa for the Africans.


Blackmen's hands have joined now together,
They will fight and brave all death's weather,
Motherland to save, and make her free,
Spreading joy for all to live and see.


None shall turn us back, in freedom's name,
We go marching like to men of fame
Who have given laws and codes to kings,
Sending evil flying on crippled wings.


Blackmen shall in groups reassemble,
Rich and poor and the great and humble:
Justice shall be their rallying cry,
When millions of soldiers pass us by.


Look for that day, coming, surely soon,
When the sons of Ham will show no coon
Could the mighty deeds of valor do
Which shall bring giants for peace to sue


Hurrah! Hurrah! Better times are near;
Let us front the conflict and prepare;
Greet the world as soldiers, bravely true:
'Sunder not,' Africa shouts to you.