Marcus Garvey

Marcus Mosiah Garvey (August 17th 1887, Holy Ann' S Bay, Jamaica - June 10th 1940, London) is a black leader 20th century and is regarded as a Prophète by the followers of the Mouvement rastafari from where its nickname Marcus “Moses” Garvey or “ The Black Moses ”, Moses being translated by French Moïse.

Precursor of the Panafricanisme, it is made the cantor of the union of the blacks of the whole world through its newspaper The Negro World and the stubborn promoter of the return of the descendants of the black slaves towards the Africa.

Childhood and youth

Born in Jamaica in 1887, one year after the abolition of slavery with Cuba, in the oppressed island, where the Racial segregation ( Apartheid ) reign; the work conditions did not really change since the abolition of slavery. Much Jamaïcains emigrated with Panama to work on the building site of the famous channel. The Africa is in prey with the European Colonisation at that time, but certain Afro-caribéens after a fashion manage to leave there, in particular with the Liberia.

Marcus Garvey is a musician who plays of the Orgue to the church, and although surrounded by illiterate it is impassioned of reading. This Christian going down from the Marrons is employed at a printer and takes part in a trade union which elects it leader at the time of a Grève. He quickly becomes a speaker of foreground, a journalist (he will found soon the newspaper Garvey' S Watchman) and an activist Politique.

Of 1910 with 1914 it travels in Latin America and Europe.

With the the United States

It arrives at the the United States in 1916 where it meets all the movements aiming at émanciper the Afro-Americans.

The following year, in 1917, it founds universal Association for the improvement of the black condition (United Negro Improvement Association, UNIA, always in activity). The currency of this association was God! A Goal! A Destiny! ( One God! One aim! One destiny! ). It becomes one of the first important leaders of the black cause.

Installed with Harlem the shortly after the First World War, of 1918 with 1922, Marcus Garvey is universally known.

While the Russian revolution beats full sound, it adopts the class struggle to its manner. It supports Ho Chi Minh, Gandhi, and greets with respect the work of Lénine and Trotsky. But while Trotsky regards as essential the unification of all the oppressed men, and this without dividing them by the color of their skin, the vision of Garvey passes by the race initially, black “nationalist” doctrines radical which oppose it to the movements integrationists of left. Not believing that the Afro-Americans could live free and respected out of Africa, he wants to unify the Blacks internationally, and claims the right to the " rapatriement" in Africa (with the Liberia generally) of the Afro-Americans of all countries.

This step resembles much that of the Zionists which emigrate then already in Palestine, them having also lost their hope of integration. Fought by the Afro-Americans in favor of integration undoubtedly (carried out by Of Wood), the stature of Garvey will undoubtedly not have an equivalent at the 20th century in the fight for the freedom of “its people”.

Networks of garveyites are organized in the whole world. The father of Malcolm X, Pasteur who according to his close relations would have been assassinated in 1931 by the Black legion , an organization close to the Ku Klux Klan, is one of his the most convinced followers.

He creates in 1919 the Black Starline , maritime company supposed to be used the project as repatriation (wink to the White Star Line, the ship-owner of the Titanic which sank a few years earlier). Its boats, financed by black shareholders, serve all the the Antilles, the the United States, and prepare to take along everyone in Africa.

He makes the round of the country to promote his initiative and to collect investments. He is followed by 250.000 sympathizers. The federal authorities then start to be interested in him.

Garvey founds factories, distribution networks like two newspapers. Most important is the Negro World . It gives news of the UNIA everywhere where it is, of the speeches of Garvey , and of the news which is not reported in the other newspapers. All the colonial governments oppose the Negro World thinking that it encourages people to rebel against them. Thus in several African countries and caraïbéens the newspaper is prohibited.

Decline

Garvey is shown of swindle towards the shareholders of the Black Star Line.

In 1922, after the bankruptcy of Black Star Line, Garvey and three of its associates are continued by the courts. Shown of postal fraud, it remains in release on probation.

In 1925, its judgment is then confirmed. He is imprisoned with the federal penitentiary of Atlanta.

Return in Jamaica

The president Coolidge commutes his sentence to 1927 and Garvey is sent in exile in Jamaica and is prohibited stay in the United States.

Initially although rejected in its country, he becomes the large national hero jamaïcain, and a resounding example in all the island. Jamaïcains listen to with much enthusiasm the meetings of Garvey , organized in the months which follow its return. The political life of the island is some upset.

End-of-life in England

In spite of this environment sympathetic nerve and animated, Garvey is with narrow and, in 1935, it leaves for the England. From there, it supervises the international regression of its movement. He dies of an heart attack the 10 June 1940 with London without never reaching the Africa.

Its prophecy

Garvey , in its speeches, often refers to the Ethiopia. He writes thus in his principal work Philosophy & Opinions: “Let us leave God of Isaac and God Jacob to exist for the race which believes in God of Isaac and Jacob. We, the Negros, believe in God of Ethiopia, God eternal, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, God of all the ages. It is God in which we believe, and will adore we it through the glasses of Ethiopia” .

In 1921, the reverend James Morris Webb makes a speech quoted by the conservative daily Daily Gleaner: “Look towards Africa, where a black king will be crowned, who will lead the black people to his delivery” . Garvey will take again this prophecy which will be allotted to him thereafter.

The colonial press denounces these doctrines ethiopianist " then; vulgaire" that they allot to Garvey. But the November 2nd 1930, in Ethiopia, Tafari Makonnen, the Short-nap cloth Tafari, is capped crowned crown of Négusa Negast (king of the kings) under the name of Haïlé Sélassié Ier (“Power of the Trinity”). He is the chief of one of the first officially Christian nations of the history, the Abyssinie. According to the book crowned Glory Of the Kings (Kebra Nagast), recalling the history of its antique dynasty, Sélassié is downward direct King Solomon and Reine Makeda of Sheba. It will be the Messie rastafaris.

Homage in the music

One of first Rastas to sing its memory is Burning Spear, which dedicates its masterpiece to him, the album Marcus Garvey (1975) where several pieces are devoted to him as well as the version dub album Garvey' S Ghost .

The Mighty Diamonds (Them Never Coils Poor Marcus, 1976) and Culture (Garvey Rock, 1976, Black Starliner Must Like, 1978, Down In Jamaica, 1979) are among its more enthusiastic admirors.

In the song “So much things to say” of Bob Marley and the Wailers (on the album Exodus), this one sings: “ I' L never forget No way: they stole Marcus Garvey for rights. ” (“I will never forget, not means: they dispossessed Marcus Garvey of its rights. ”)

The Negro World

The Negro World is a newspaper diffused by Marcus Garvey, it pronaît a black capacity, this newspaper was interdict in the colonial countries which saw in him a threat.

Liberty Hall

Black Line Star

Black Star Line is a transatlantic maritime company, created by Marcus Garvey in 1919 the purpose of which was of " to be used as bond between the people of color of the world in their commercial reports/ratios and industriels".

It was entirely financed by " the subscription and the issue of shares acquired by ordinary black people, attracted by the idea of an emigration towards the “independent negro nation” conceptualized by Garvey". This momentum of solidarity quickly allowed Garvey the acquisition of four steamers transatlatic (as of 1922).

This spread a shock wave among the international Establishment white: " Here is a man who, not only had understood that the only way towards the accession with the political power passed by the economic power, but used both with an amazing ability. The startup of Black Star Line constituted the crowning of its action and let foresee what a plain black nation could indeed achieve under the influence of a leader undertaking and créatif". It was the water drop which made overflow the vase. There was a tacit law, which stipulated qu'" one can leave the support on the blow of the black people but that if it draws too much on the cord, this one will end up being transformed into node coulant" , so Garvey was discredited, imprisoned, and off-set in Jamaica

Negro Factories Corporation

Black Cross-country race Navigation and Trading Company

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