Archive for the ‘Marcus Mosiah Garvey’ Category

For man to know himself is for him to feel that for him there is no human master. For him Nature is his servant, and whatsoever he wills in Nature, that shall be his reward. If he wills to be a pigmy, a serf or a slave, that shall he be. If he wills to be a real man in possession of the things common to man, then he shall be his own sovereign. When man fails to grasp his authority he sinks to the level of the lower animals, and whatsoever the real man bids him do, even as if it were of the lower animals, that much shall he do. If he says “go.” He goes. If he says “come,” he comes. By this command he performs the functions of life even as by a similar command the mule, the horse, the cow perform the will of their masters. For the last four hundred years the Negro has been in the position of being commanded even as the lower animals are controlled. Our race has been without a will; without a purpose of its own, for all this length of time.

Because of that we have developed few men who are able to understand the strenuousness of the age in which we live. Where can we find in this race of ours real men. Men of character, men of purpose, men of confidence, men of faith, men who really know themselves? I have come across so many weaklings who profess to be leaders, and in the test I have found them but the slaves of a nobler class. They perform the will of their masters without question. To me, a man has no master but God. Man in his authority is a sovereign lord. As for the individual man, so of the individual race. This feeling makes man so courageous, so bold, as to make it impossible for his brother to intrude upon his rights.

So few of us can understand what it takes to make a man – the man who will never say die; the man who will never give up; the man who will never depend upon others to do for him what he ought to do for himself; the man who will not blame God, who will not blame Nature, who will not blame Fate for his condition; but the man who will go out and make conditions to suit himself. Read the rest of this entry

The Negro now stands at the cross roads of human destiny. He is at the place where he must either step forward or backward. If he goes backward he dies; if he goes forward it will be with the hope of a greater life. Those of us who have developed our minds scientifically are compelled, by duty, to step out among the millions of the unthinking masses and convince them of the seriousness of the age in which we live. From Adam and Eve We are either on the way to a higher racial existence or racial extermination.

This much is known and realized by every thoughtful race and nation; hence, we have the death struggle of the different races of Europe and Asia in the scramble of the survival of the fittest race. As we look at things we see that the great world in which we live has undergone much change since the time of the creation. When God created the world, and all therein, He handed His authority over to the two beings He created in His own image; namely, Adam and Eve. From the time of Adam and Eve the human race has multiplied by leaps and bounds. Where we once had two persons to exercise authority over the world, we to-day have one billion five hundred millions claiming authority and possession of the same world that was once the property of the two.

The Tragedy of Race Extinction When the Colonists of America desired possession of the land they saw that a weak aboriginal race was in their way. What did they do? They got hold of them, killed them, and buried them underground. This is a fair indication of what will happen to the weaker peoples of the world in another two or three hundred years when the stronger races will have developed themselves to the position of complete mastery of all things material. They will not then as they have not in the past, allow a weak and defenceless race to stand in their way, especially if in their doing so they will endanger their happiness, their comfort and their pleasures. Read more of this entry.

I propose here to answer the critical review by Mr. Raymond Mauny, which appeared in the Bulletin de I’I FAN (Bulletin of the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa) in the July-October 1960 issue, relative to Nations negres et culture. . . . We apologize for returning to notions of race, cultural heritage, linguistic relationship, historical connections between peoples, and so on. I attach no more importance to these questions than they actually deserve in modern twentieth-century societies. Only my concern about scientific objectivity compels me to direct attention to these themes so long as certain of their aspects are-challenged.

As will be seen, our account is devoid of any passion and we ask nothing better than to yield to factual evidence. What we shall try to combat in the name of scientific truth, and what forces us to utilize a notion as delicate as that of race, is a group of arguments that have become so habitual as to pass for scientific truths, which they definitely are not. It is the whole body of hypotheses, distorted into factual experiences, that are likely to lead to error and are still more dangerous than outright dogmatism. … * * *

Mr. Mauny’s criticisms begin near the end of his introduction:
What was permissible for the student or the young lycee teacher is no longer allowed the Doctor of Letters, whose title could authorize him tomorrow to teach at the University. And so, despite all my sympathy for the author, whose acquaintance I have made, I consider it my duty, no matter how much it may pain me and him, to say aloud what others are keeping silent out of politeness or for some other motive. Read more of this entry

I look at man in grim dismay;
He tried my virtue all to steal:
My heart is full of joy today,
No sin is on my soul I feel.

The guiling tongue of Adam’s son,
Has left me free to see the light
The Master saw o’er Satan won,
In battles they did often fight.

The white man forced my head to bow,
My chastity to treat with scorn;
But I am queen of self, and now
I feel as pure as I was born.

With firm respect I love my race:
No one shall lead me thus astray,
Of kin to lose the ancient trace
That makes me what I am today.

Source

(1887-1940) leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, first African-American leader in American history to organize masses of people in a political movement.

Garvey was born in Jamaica and immigrated to Harlem in 1916 at the age of 28. In his homeland he had been an admirer of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of self-improvement for people of African descent and had formed the Jamaica Improvement Association. When he arrived in America his ideas expanded and he became a Black Nationalist. For him, Africa was the ancestral home and spiritual base for all people of African descent. His political goal was to take Africa back from European domination and build a free and United Black Africa. He advocated the Back-to-Africa Movement and organized a shipping company called the Black Star Line which was part of his program to conduct international trade between black Africans and the rest of the world in order to “uplift the race” and eventually return to Africa.

Garvey studied all of the literature he could find on African history and culture and decided to launch the Universal Negro Improvement Association with the goal of unifying “all the Negro peoples of the world into one great body and to establish a country and government absolutely on their own”. The motto of the U.N.I.A. was “One God! One Aim! One Destiny.” The Negro World was the U.N.I.A. weekly newspaper founded in 1918. It was published in French and Spanish as well as English. In it African history and heroes were glorified. Read the rest of this entry »