Marcus Garvey

Garvey, Marcus. "Africa for the Africans and Liberty Hall Emancipation Day Speech." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 17-28. Print.

These two pieces – an essay and a speech – are the first two in this sequence of readings that I found myself disagreeing with. Although Marcus Garvey obviously cares very much for his fellow black men and women, I do not think that his solutions to the problem of racism in America are solutions at all, but rather a way to bypass the problem. In essence, he is advocating running away instead of staying and fighting for equality. I understand where he is coming from, and that many people shared his views, but it still seems like the cowardly way out of a bad situation.

The concept of an African Empire is not one I disagree with, however. As I read Garvey’s essay I kept wondering what ever happened to this proposal; Africa today is so poor and desperate, yet Garvey speaks of it as if it were the next up-and-coming world power. I honestly wish that Africa was a wealthy, great country; watching videos of starving children during commercial breaks on TV is heartbreaking, and I wish there was more I could do than send a couple of dollars every month. What I do not wish for, and what I am happy did not happen, is all of the African Americans abandoning America in favor of building up an African empire. Not only would this have injured present-day America’s diversity and culture, it would have left the movements for racial equality in stasis – without people of color present, of what use is a fight for equality? Other than an academic interest, it would have been abandoned, and racist inclinations would be far more prevalent than they are today. Yesterday in class, during the lecture on women’s rights, I kept thinking about how far we’ve come in such a relatively short amount of time; the class about racial and gender inequality is being taught by an African American woman, and not a single person in the classroom thought twice about it. Had Garvey’s ideas about retreating the black race to Africa come to fruition, there is no chance that Professor Winand would be teaching this class, or that the class would exist at all.

Further, Garvey’s statements about not allowing elitist black people into the African empire struck me as wrong. Although, again, I can understand his sentiments – he didn’t want his proposed African empire to be ruled by a product of white society and, once again, pushed down to second class status – it almost felt like he was arguing for ignorance. Without some African intellectuals, where would an African empire be today, had it arisen? My guess is the Africa of today is a close representation of what it would be today had it become Garvey’s African empire. I actually was confused during lecture yesterday when the discussion of B.T. Washington noted that he was against education African people in academia; I thought that Garvey and Washington were the same person, until I looked up Garvey’s name again. Their philosophies are so similar, and so oppositional in my mind, that I inadvertently lumped the two men together.

As for Garvey’s short speech, I felt it didn’t say anything new or interesting, but was rather an attempt to get black people mad and ready for a fight. In no way can I see the productive side of a speech that demonizes white people and divides the races even further. Garvey is hypocritical – he’s advocating black superiority over the ignorant white men in a way that, were one to replace “white man” with “black man” and vice versa, would sound much the same as the mantra of leagues such as the KKK. I understand that he was mad and wanted a fight for his equality, but such a method is simply not the way to peace. Becoming your enemy only makes you worse off. Men like Garvey are the reason racism is still around to this day; instead of pointing out our differences and using them to generalize the “other”, we need to focus on our similarities and how we can better help each other understand life.