THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY HISTORY NOTES
"UP! YOU MIGHTY RACE: A TRIBUTE TO MARCUS MOSIAH GARVEY (1887-1940)"
BY RUNOKO RASHDI

DEDICATED TO DR. KWAME TURE AND DR. TONY MARTIN

"Up! You mighty race, you can accomplish what you will."
--Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, one of the greatest leaders African people have produced, was born August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, and spent his entire life in the service of his people--African people. He was bold; he was uncompromising and he was one of the most powerful orators on record. He could literally bring his audiences to a state of mass hysteria. Garvey emphasized racial pride. His goal was nothing less that the total and complete redemption and liberation of African people around the planet. His dream was the galvanization of Black people into an unrelenting steamroller that could never be defeated. I consider myself, along with many others, as one of Garvey's children.

As a young man of fourteen, Garvey left school and worked as a printer's apprentice. He participated in Jamaica's earliest nationalist organizations, traveled throughout Central America, and spent time in London, England, where he worked with the Sudanese-Egyptian nationalist Duse Mohamed Ali. In 1916 Garvey was invited by Booker T. Washington to come to the United States in the hopes of establishing an industrial training school, but arrived just after Washington died. In March 1916, shortly after landing in America, Garvey embarked upon an extended period of travel. When he finally settled down, he organized a chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. The UNIA & ACL had been formed in Jamaica in 1914.  Its motto was "One God, One Aim, One Destiny," and pledged itself to the redemption of Africa and the uplift of Black people everywhere. It aimed at race pride, self-reliance and economic independence.

Within a few years Garvey had become the best-known and most dynamic African leader in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps the entire world. In 1919 Mr. Garvey created an international shipping company called the Black Star Line. By 1920 the UNIA had hundreds of divisions. It hosted elaborate international conventions and published a weekly newspaper entitled the Negro World.

No other organization in modern times has had the prestige and the impact as the UNIA & ACL. During the 1920s UNIA divisions existed throughout North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Australia.

 

Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey
Click to order via Amazon

by Marcus Garvey, Bob Blaisdell (Editor)

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (January 11, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486437876
ISBN-13: 978-0486437873
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches

A controversial figure in the history of race relations around the world, Marcus Garvey amazed his enemies as much as he dazzled his admirers. This anthology contains some of the African-American rights advocate's most noted writings and speeches, including "Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World" and "Africa for the Africans."

 

Africa For The 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.

--Marcus Mosiah Garvey