Foreword Excerpt by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“I grew up in a household where Malcolm X was Jesus, and I guess that would make Garvey God. Garvey was in many ways the inspiration, the forerunner for Malcolm X. Garvey was the most senior—the elder—of the Black power sensibility and Black pride that I was raised on…

Garvey’s words countered what the world was telling me: “Down, you weak creature.” He’s very important in my life. I recited one of Garvey’s speeches during high school. It was ‘Look for me in the whirlwind’ from when he was jailed in Atlanta. I related to that, even at the time, and certainly now. I like the sense of ancestry, his idea that we were part of something bigger. You are not alone. You are never alone. That summarizes how I feel: the idea that the struggle is, in fact, ancestral and not just limited to who you are right now and where you are right now.

Among black people, Garvey is, obviously, quite heroic. He’s a symbol of resistance and a hero. Marcus Garvey’s thought and his work kind of define the world for me. My whole notion of needing to provide a counter narrative really begins there. It’s not a matter of a quotation or a citation, but it defines the world. It’s the colors of my people. Garvey’s legacy, for me, is challenging the narrative of what black folks are to a society trying to reduce us to the subhuman. From Garvey I assert that we come from somewhere, are somebody. I keep going back to this idea of a counter narrative. That’s what lasts for me. You can’t imagine the ‘Black Panther’ without Garvey. It wouldn’t exist without him. The very notion of black folks wearing their hair natural, all that, is Garvey. It all stems from the idea that you don’t have to be ashamed of who you are and how you look. Garvey’s ideas are what we take in, in a world where people wear natural hair as an ordinary thing. But people had the struggle for that, for the basic ability to feel like themselves. We are still struggling with it. It’s very much rooted in Garvey.

He birthed all that.

Garvey’s influence continues today in this generation of creatives. I think about ‘Halftime’ by Nas all the time. There’s ‘Malcolm, Garvey, Huey’ by Dead Prez; ‘The Blacker the Berry’ and ‘HiiiPoWeR’ by Kendrick Lamar; and ‘Exhibit C’ by Jay Electronica. I’m glad you’re reading this book!”