ShakaRa Speaks On It: 100 YEARS LATER, WHY MARCUS MOSIAH GARVEY IS STILL RELEVANT!

 For the British Blacklist August 2014

http://www.thebritishblacklist.com/shakara-speaks-it-100-years-later-marcus-mosiah-garvey-relevant/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shakara-speaks-it-100-years-later-marcus-mosiah-garvey-relevant

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On the Sunday 20th July, the Pan-Afrikan World will be celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association & African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) founded upon the vision of Marcus Mosiah Garvey on the 20th July 1914. The UNIA-ACL would grow to become the largest mass Afrikan Liberation movement in history, with a membership of over 11 Million Black men and women world wide.

The success of the UNIA-ACL and the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, would serve as a foundation for many of the Black Power and Afrikan Liberation movements which followed. This lasting significance has inspired world wide celebrations of this 100th Anniversary and prompts us to remind ourselves of why and how Marcus Mosiah Garvey literally shook up the world.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey (affectionately known as Papa Garvey) was born on the 17th August 1887 in St. Anns Bay Jamaica, to Marcus Garvey Snr and Sarah Jane Garvey. His birth would take place in the context of an extremely turbulent time for the Afrikan world. Yes, slavery and the so called “Slave Trade” was said by this time to have ended, but was followed by the everyday reality of Jim Crow and lynchings in the United States. Colonisation in the Caribbean meant that little had changed for Afrikans in the Caribbean who continued to exist in a state of servitude to white masters who dominated their nations is the service of Queen and Country. Most notably, the Berlin Conference from 1884-85 was to be the final act in European nations achieving what they were never able to achieve during slavery – the total domination of the Afrikan continent. Nearly a century of bloody invasions, fierce Afrikan resistance and eventual conquest, left Europe in the position to literally carve up Afrika and install a vicious system of colonialism. The atrocities were many, 10-15 million Afrikans massacred in the Congo alone, not to mention millions more mutilated.

This was the reality the Afrikan world faced in the late 1800’s whilst Papa Garvey was growing; and much of his early adulthood would be dedicated to studying these conditions. His early activism would begin at the tender age of 18, when as a foreman for the P. A Benjamin Printery, he rejected offers for preferential treatment from senior management and lead a strike against low pay and poor working conditions. He would later describe this period of his life thusly:

“I had to decide whether to please my friends and be one of the black-whites of Jamaica and be reasonably prosperous, or come out openly and defend and help improve and protect the integrity of the black millions and suffer. I decided to do the latter.”

“The latter”, would include joining the anti colonial National Club, further campaigns for workers rights and receiving elocution lessons from early Pan-Afrikanist Dr. Robert Love.

Garvey began to travel in 1910. He would visit various countries in South and Central America, leading workers’ strikes wherever he went. In 1912 he travelled to England and would remain in Europe for another 2 years. While working on the docks in London, Cardiff, Liverpool he would meet sea men from Afrika and other parts of the Caribbean. The conditions of British colonialism would be a primary topic of discussion that would allow Papa Garvey to gain first hand knowledge about the continent and the conditions of his people elsewhere.

He would also attend lectures in Law at Birkbeck University, mount the soapbox at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, and even visit the Houses of Parliament to witness debates among British Politicians. He took particular interest in those that concerned the British Empire. Papa Garvey would also find work as a journalist at the African Times & Orient Review, the worlds leading international Black magazine. The publication was concerned with resistance to European colonialism through Afrika and Asia, which was no doubt an educational experience for the young activist and journalist. Its editor Duse Mohammed Ali, also based in London, would become a great influence on Garvey’s life. Duse was an Afrikan of Sudanese and Egyptian parentage and one of the foremost Pan-Afrikanists of his time.

In 1914 while travelling back to Jamaica, Papa Garvey envisioned the organisation that would become the vehicle of his life’s work. He had travelled through South and Central America, he had travelled through the UK and half of Europe, he had studied and read of the conditions in Afrika and Booker T Washington’s “Up From Slavery” (1901) had provided much insight into the condition of Afrikans in the USA. All of the above inspired Garvey to ask the following:

“Where is the Black man and woman’s government? Where are their Queens, Kings and Kingdoms? Where are their presidents, their countries, their ambassadors, their army, their navy their men and women of big affairs? I looked around and I saw none! Then I said
“I will help make them.”

The UNIA-ACL was founded in Jamaica in 1914. One of its earliest members would become Garvey’s first wife – Amy Ashwood Garvey. The organisation fed thousands of impoverished families, began an employment agency to combat the massive levels of unemployment on the Island, begin an agricultural programme and held talks and debates on many issues including world affairs. Papa Garvey was inspired by his reading of “c” to build an educational institution much like Booker T Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. It was this vision that lead Papa Garvey, as elected UNIA President General and Travelling Commissioner, to head for the USA in 1916 in the hopes of raising money for this institution. He conducted a speaking tour that would see the UNIA-ACL mushroom all over the USA so much so that by 1919, the head quarters of the organisation relocated from Kingston, to Harlem New York. Harlem was developing into a hotbed for Black activism and the presence of a Marcus Garvey would propel its significance 10 fold.

In 1920, the UNIA-ACL called for an International Convention of the Negro people of the World. 25, 000 Black Men, Women and children from Afrika, Europe and throughout the Americas would pack Madison Square Garden for the event, with thousands more not able to fit. The convention lasted 31 days and would produce two significant achievements. The first was the drafting of the “Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World”. This historic document was the first of its kind to detail the atrocities and injustices faced by the Black world in all areas of the planet and then declare various rights that the Afrikan people were now affirming in the face of this oppression. The second significant achievement was the election of a United States of Afrika Government in Exile. The principle was simple. Afrika was under illegitimate colonial rule. It was therefore the responsibility of Afrikans to develop a unified government for the purpose of ridding the continent of said exploiters and engaging in self dertermined development. Two men were nominated for the position of Provisional President of Afrika one D. Lewis who had travelled from Nigeria and one Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who won the election. The Provisional President however served under the power of the ceremonial Potentate, who had to be based on the Afrikan continent. The first Potentate, Gabriel Johnson from Liberia, who was later joined by a second potentate from Sierra Leone. The Convention concluded with a parade in which 100, 000 people would stretch 10 miles long, marching under the flag of the Red (For the Blood of our Ancestors), Black (for the people) and Green ( or the Motherland and the prosperity of the future).

But the UNIA-ACL was not mere pomp and pageantry. It developed a myriad of institutions put to the services of the Afrikan people of the world. To begin with, the Negro factories corporation was a business auxiliary of the organization which housed Grocery Stores, Launderettes , a Printing press, Restaurants, Hotels, a trucking company and various factories which manufactured Black dolls, Clothing and accessories, a millinery, and a Printing press. The Negro factories corporation employed over 1000 Black people in Harlem alone.

The Universal Afrikan Legionaires began the making of an Army, they acted as security for UNIA-ACL meetings and also defended the Black community at large from attacks at the hands of the police and the Ku Klux Klan who were responsible for much of the lynching’s faced by Afrikan people at the time. Furthermore, in 1935, when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, many Garveyites travelled to Ethiopia in order to defend the nation. The UNIA-ACL also developed the Universal Motor Corps, which was a military wing comprised exclusively of women.

The women of the UNIA made up 60% of the organization and around half of its leadership at all levels. The Black Cross Nurses were arguable the most prominent arm of the organisation and were responsible for running clinics, midwifery services, investigating sickness, treatments, general health among Black people and other social welfare activities. They also played a key role in running UNIA schools and administered the Juveniles program for the organisation’s young adults. The women of the UNIA-ACL were prime movers in an international movement during a time when women of western societies were not afforded the right to voting and education.

The UNIA’s newspaper the Negro World was arguably the first international weekly newspaper in history. Published in English, French and Spanish, it served as the primary propaganda tool for the movement, providing a much needed social and political connectivity of Afrikan internationally. The Negro World would serve as the main catalyst for the development of the UNIA-ACL in Nigeria, South Afrika, the Congo and other parts of Afrika, despite being banned by colonial authorities in almost every country.

The Black Star Line Steamship Corporation was the UNIA-ACL’s most ambitious endeavor; effectively the equivalent of an airline owned, controlled and put to the service of the Afrikan people of the world. It was designed to facilitate trade between the Afrikan world and with four ships to its name, it did achieve this as far as the USA and South and Central America was concerned.

In 1924 the UNIA-ACL sent a delegation lead by Henrietta Vinton Davis to Liberia, with $50, 000 worth of industrial equipment as a part of a $2, 000, 000 development programme. The idea was to lay the foundations of a power base on the Afrikan continent and relocate the headquarters of the organization there. The programme was aimed at developing agricultural and industrial development towards independent Afrikan infrastructure and nation building. By this point however, the American Government and the British colonial forces were well entrenched in destroying the Garvey movement and this program as well as the Black Star Line became primary casualties of that agenda.

While the UNIA-ACL began to decline as an organization around the 1930’s, the Blackprint which it had laid down in the form of the philosophy of “Afrikan Fundamentalism” continued to grow as many other organisations and movements began to spring up from under its influence. Most notably, the Rastafari Movement and the Nation of Islam have deep roots in the Garvey movement. The Harlem renaissance revolved around the axis of the Garvey Movement during the 1920′s and later inspired the Black arts Movement of the 1960’s. The parents of Omowale Malcolm X met and married in the UNIA-ACL and were leading members within its ranks, leaving a lasting impression on their son who would grow to become the most prominent Pan-Afrikan Black Power activist of his day. Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah is known to have stated that no book “fired my enthusiasm” more than the“Philosophies and Opinions of Marcus Garvey”.

This book was compiled by Marcus Garvey’s second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey and along with her “Garvey and Garveyism” (1963) and later “Race First” (1976) by recently departed Prof. Tony Martin would serve as the primary books behind the maintenance and resurgence of the principles of the UNIA-ACL. These ideas would be the prime driving force behind the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester 1945, which provided the impetus for the entire Afrikan independence movement that followed; many of the leaders of which were inspired by Garveyism.

The UNIA-ACL did not die completely. In 1938, two years before his passing, Papa Garvey began a School of African Philosophy in which he began to train younger members of his organization for leadership. Along with Amy Jacques Garvey, these men and women held the organization together against all odds with an unbroken line of leadership, that included Marcus Garvey Jnr, eldest son of Papa Garvey who assumed the role of President General during the 90’s. Today the President General is Baba Senghor Jaware Baye, who will be travelling to the UK as a part of the UNIA-ACL Centennial celebrations this year.

What we have provided here is but a snapshot of the life and work of The Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the UNIA-ACL. Through the coming year centennial celebrations will be taking place in various countries in Afrika, the USA the Caribbean and right here in Britain. These celebrations will serve not just as a symbolic remembrance, but as a reminder what the spirit of Black self-reliance can produce in all fields of human endeavour. As Marcus Garvey him self said:

“We must elevate to positions of fame and honour, Black men and women, who have made a distinct contribution to our own racial history. We must inspire our literature and promulgate a doctrine of our own without any apology to the powers that be. That right is ours and God’s.”

For more information on UNIA-ACL Centennial Events in the UK, please visit:  www.alkbulan.org.uk

Facebook: UNIA-ACL Centennial: https://www.facebook.com/events/1496685910548315/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Month of Mosiah: https://www.facebook.com/events/1491983621033841/?ref=ts&fref=ts

article by @ShakaRaBKS for the british blacklist