Marcus Garvey Essay -- Garvey biography Biographies bio Essays

Marcus Garvey "We declare to the world that Africa must be free, that the Negro race must be emancipated (p. 137 Altman, Susan. Extraordinary Black Americans.)" are the famous words delivered by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Born a West Indian, he later became a powerful revolutionary who led the nation into the Civil Rights Movement. Garvey dedicated his life to the "uplifting" of the Negro and to millions of Black people everywhere, he represented dignity and self-respect. Like Malcolm X of a later generation, he believed that Negroes could never achieve equality unless they became independent-founding their own nations and governments, businesses and industrial enterprises, and their own military establishments which are the same institutions by which other peoples of the world have risen to power. Marcus Gravey was the eleventh child of Marcus and Sarah Gravey. He was born in 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, a rural town on the north coast of Jamaica in the British West Indies. Garvey learnd at a young age about the differences between the races. Being one of the few Blacks on the island, Garvey often played with the children of his white neighbors. The little girl who lived next to the Garvey’s home informed Marcus that she was being sent away to school in Scotland and that she was instructed by her parents "never to write or try to get in touch with me, for I was a ‘nigger.’" Although he was a good student, financial problems forced him to leave school at fourteen and become an apprentice. After helping organize a strike, Gravey was fired from his job. Garvey’s mind was clearly on politics and the need for organization rather than on his vocation. In 1910 Garvey helped to found a political organization named the Nation Club. He created the Watchman, the first of his many newspapers. The failure of both ventures made evident the need for money to fun his political activities and Garvey joined the stream of West Indian workers migrating to Central and South America in search of better opportunities. He worked briefly on a banana plantation in Costa Rica and for a newspaper in Panama and then went to London, England. While there, he worked for an Egyptian scholar, and learned much of the history of Africa, particularly with reference to the exploitation of black peoples by colonial powers. After reading "Up From Slavery," ... ...her leader had before him. From a more historically viewpoint, Marcus Garvey must be regarded as an incredible visionary. Marcus Garvey was a man who undertook enormous and grandiose ideas and goals to empower and rise Black people all over the world. A man literally driven by the notion that the Negro's sole means for achieving a unique culture in the 20th century was through the foundation of a unified, separatist empire in Africa. Although his ideas, in their ultimate form, may have been rejected by some of the people of his day, it is clear that, since then, these very same ideas in a different perspective have had a favorable influence on the policies of many Negro leaders throughout history. BIBLIOGRAPHY Altman, Susan. Extraordinary Black Americans. ©1989. Childrens Press: Chicago. pp. 137-138 Cronon, David E. Great Lives Observed (Marcus Garvey). ©1973, Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs. Franklin, John H. Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century ©1982, University of Illinois Press: Chicago. pp. 105-138 Ploski, Harry A. The Negro Almanac. ©1971, Bellwether Publishing Company: New York. pp. 135-138 & 232