African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic ... - Blackherbals.com

Cont’d from page 1 – Marcus Garvey: Black Champion of
Vision and Destiny
No other Jamaican has had such a profound international
impact as Marcus Garvey has. In an era that
treated the idea of black inferiority almost as a given
fact, Garvey shouted "No!" in a voice heard across the
planet. In Martin Luther King Jr's words, Garvey was
"the first man, on a mass scale, to give millions of
Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny ....He gave us a
sense of personhood, a sense of manhood, a sense of
somebodiness."
Garvey was a foreman at Kingston's largest printery when
the 1907 earthquake devastated the city. Resulting
financial hardships prompted the printers' union -
Jamaica's first - to ask for better wages and working
conditions. When turned down, they went on strike.
Hoping he would keep the plant operating, the owners
offered Garvey a pay increase. He refused and walked out
with his men, who chose him to organise the strike. The
strike was eventually broken and, blacklisted by private
printers, Garvey took a government job.
In 1910, he began travelling across the Americas and
Europe. Though he did not visit Africa, he kept abreast of
African affairs, and made contact with influential
Africans. He conceived the idea of one great international
organisation of proud, educated and financially
independent black people who would take their place as
equals on the world stage.
He returned to Jamaica in 1914, and, on Emancipation
Day, August 1, launched the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA). The UNIA was
dedicated to improving the conditions of black people the
world over. Its famous motto was 'One God! One Aim!
One Destiny!' Seeing a larger stage in the United States,
he moved there in 1916.
At its height, the UNIA had an estimated four million
members with more than 1,000 branches in more than 20
countries, and is generally considered the largest mass
movement in Afro-American history. Many major
African political figures would recall being influenced by
Garvey, including Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Kenya's
Jomo Kenyatta, and Nigeria's Nnamdi Azikiwe. Much of
the African National Congress leadership in 1920s South
Africa belonged to the UNIA. So did Elijah Muhammad,
who, to a large extent, patterned his Nation of Islam
movement on the UNIA. Malcom X's father was a UNIA
organiser, and Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Min attended
UNIA meetings.
Like many visionaries, Garvey was not the most practical
of businessmen. His Black Star Line Steamship
Corporation, conceptualised to transport blacks back to
Africa, proved a financial disaster. It also gave American
authorities, who saw Garvey as a threat to the Jim Crow
status quo, the opportunity to neutralise him. He was
charged for fraud, given a five-year sentence, and deported
back to Jamaica in 1927.
Thousands hailed Garvey's return. The Daily Gleaner
reported that "no denser crowd has ever been witnessed in
Kingston .... Deafening cheers were raised." In 1929,
Garvey formed the People's Political Party (PPP) and put
forward Jamaica's first practical manifesto. It called for
Jamaican representation in the British Parliament, a
Jamaican university, a free government high school and
public library in each parish capital, promotion of native
industries, public housing, land reform, and minimum wage
and eight-hour day legislation.
Garvey also hosted lectures, debates, training courses and
cultural programmes at Liberty Hall, the first meeting hall
in Jamaica owned and operated by blacks. Among those
who benefited from these educational offerings were Sir
Phillip Sherlock, Wesley Powell, Dalton James, Amy
Bailey, and Father Gladstone Wilson.
The planter and merchant elite saw Garvey as a threat to
their privileged way of life, and hounded him mercilessly.
Gleaner editor H.G. Delisser led the vilification campaign,
which was sadly so successful that many still believe
Garvey never had a large following in his native land.
The PPP manifesto also proposed the impeachment of
corrupt judges. This led to a contempt-of-court charge, and
Garvey was jailed for three months, being released only a
month before the national election.
Despite massive crowds, no PPP candidate was successful.
Few Garvey supporters met the stringent property
requirements that restricted the electoral list to less than
eight per cent of the populace. The majority of these voters
were black, but Garvey was not popular with the civil
servants and small proprietors who dominated the voting
list. He was also attacked by conservative black clergymen
and teachers. The PPP defeat was perhaps more about class
than colour.
As Garvey said afterwards, "The thousands who attended
and cheered at the party's meetings indicate that if you, the
poor people, had a vote, our party would have been sent to
the Legislature." He called for full adult suffrage, but never
lived to see it. Harried by the colonial administration, he
emigrated to England in 1935, and died there five years
later.
In 1964, his body was repatriated, and Marcus Garvey was
declared Jamaica's first National Hero.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120803/news/news4.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
-2- Traditional African Clinic – August 2012