Book Review: Negro With A Hat: The Rise And Fall Of Marcus Garvey
by Colin Grant
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Publication Date: Feb 02, 2009
List Price: Unavailable
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Classification: Nonfiction
ISBN13: 9780099501459
Imprint: Knopf
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Parent Company: Bertelsmann
Read a Description of Negro With A Hat: The Rise And Fall Of Marcus Garvey
Book Reviewed by Thumper
I’m not an average reader of biographies. I am now realizing
the older I get, the more biographies and history books my
reading palette finds attractive. I have been curious about
Marcus Garvey for a long time. Granted, not curious enough to
read up on him, but he was always there at the back of my mind
and on my large, ever growing ,’To Read’ list. I vaguely
remember my father and uncles discussing Marcus Garvey but I
knew extremely little about him. His name was always spoken with
scant contempt, if at all during my childhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s name was always mentioned with
reverence. Only in the past 30 years or so had Malcolm X’s name
garnered the type of respect and acceptance he so richly
deserved. To me, Marcus Garvey was found on the outskirts of a
civil rights, black history conversation. I remember hearing
something about taking black folks money on a back to Africa
scheme in which he was jailed and kicked out of the country,
never to be heard from again.
I finally decided to discover Marcus Garvey with Negro with a
Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey by Colin Grant. Negro
with a Hat is one helluva book! Marcus Mosiah Garvey lived one
helluva life. All of the shadows and blank spaces I had
concerning Marcus Garvey, his life and his place in American
history are now completely filled. The author Grant opens the
book with Garvey’s death in London and begins to tell of his
life from his birth on to his early days, as a printer, to his
inevitable journey to Harlem to start the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA), to the rise of the movement,
Garvey’s incarceration, the implosion of his movement, to his
penniless dying days. Grant painstakingly took me through the
building of the UNIA that would boast several chapters
nationwide as well as chapters in several countries. While Grant
covered Garvey’s positive attributes, he did not shy away from
any of Garvey’s negative traits. For instance, Garvey’s ego,
failure to pay attention to the details and lack of
organizational skills were major factors responsible for the
ultimate failure of the UNIA as Garvey’s prison term. When the
last page of this book had been read and turned, the man and his
message of black independence and self reliance remains strong
and inspirational. However, I can not rectify the notion that if
Garvey had the opportunity and education to enter another field,
where the financial gains was attractive, he would have been in
it, the uplifting of the black race be damn.
I appreciate the time and details Grant put into this wonderful
biography, but I have to admit that the portion of the biography
that had me glued to my seat was the constant bickering and
snipping between Garvey and his nemesis
W. E. B. DuBois. *big smile* You all know I love drama. The
battle that Garvey and DuBois engaged in is the stuff movies
should be made of. I loved it! Not only did the two see their
differences from an ideological point of view, which in my
opinion Garvey and DuBois were closer than apart, but it got
ugly. DuBois taking Garvey to task over Garvey’s perceived
uncouthness and his black skin and Garvey attacking DuBois on
his preference for light skin, and his Talented Tenth approach
to race, the barbs the two traded is amusing and sad. I cannot
help but to think that if the two had set both of their egos
aside and worked together, the civil rights movement would have
taken place and succeeded 40 years before.
Negro with a Hat is an excellent read. Frankly, that is da bomb
ass compliment considering I have a phobia for thick books.
Negro with a Hat comes in at nearly 500 pages. Normally, I would
have shied away from the book because of the size but my
curiosity concerning Garvey got the better of me. Grant
satisfied my curiosity. What’s that old adage, curiosity killed
the cat but satisfaction brought it back. Recently on the
discussion board I posed a question about finding a definitive
account/biography. While there were various answers, I will say
that if anyone who is the slightest bit curious about Marcus
Garvey, Negro with a Hat is the place to start.