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African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 7, Issue 9 NEWSLETTER August 2012
FEATURED ARTICLES
Marcus Garvey
By RaceandHistory.com
Marcus Garvey
"I do not speak carelessly or recklessly but with a definite
object of helping the people, especially those of my race,
to know, to understand, and to realize themselves." --
Marcus Garvey, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1937
In several ways, and certainly from political and cultural
standpoints, we are still weighing the monumental impact
of Marcus Garvey around the world. His clarion call of
"One Aim, One God, One Destiny," and "Africans for
Africans at home and abroad," still resonate, having an
especially significant value in the spiritual and
psychological outlook of Black people wherever they
reside.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, in
1887, descended from the fiercely proud Maroons. He
founded the newspaper The Negro World, which took as
its motto his nationalist cry, "One God, One Aim, One
Destiny."
Garvey was virtually self-taught, reading voraciously
from his father's extensive library. By 1910, and then
residing in Kingston, he quickly established himself as a
orator, a skill that was the hallmark of his illustrious
political career.
For the next four years or so Garvey traveled throughout
the West Indies, Central America and Europe, primarily
working as a printer and an editor. In England he worked
briefly at the prestigious Africa Times and Orient
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Review, where he came under the estimable influence
of Duse Muhammad. Upon his return to Jamaica, he
was convinced of a need for an organization to uplift
the downtrodden people of his island. Thus was born
the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
In 1917, he founded UNIA (Universal Negro
Improvement Association) in Harlem. Its aims were
described in a speech delivered by Garvey in 1924 at
Madison Square Garden, New York: The Universal
Improvement Association represents the hopes and
aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a
place in the world, not to disturb the tranquility of other
men, but to lay down our burden and rest our weary
backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our
songs and chant our hymns to the God of Ethiopia.
Two years later, after being completely captivated by
Booker T. Washington's autobiography "Up From
Slavery," Garvey wrote to the great man and was soon
thinking of building his own institution modeled after
Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Through the
correspondence with Washington, Garvey made plans
to visit the United States. Unfortunately, when he
finally arrived in America, Washington had died the
previous year in 1915, but a visionary like Garvey was
not deterred by this setback. As part of his introduction
to the states, Garvey toured the country, lecturing and
establishing contacts. It took the energetic Garvey only
a couple of years to place the UNIA on the political
map, and this notoriety was ushered along by his
extremely potent weekly the Negro World.
At its peak, some historians have written, the UNIA
boasted a membership of more than four million, with
almost as many sympathizers. How it rose to this
prominence and its ultimate eclipse which has been
insightfully discussed in the works of Robert Hill and
Tony Martin. What is apparent in their exhaustive
studies is the powerful impression Garvey left on our
spiritual and mental health. His fervent nationalism, his
belief in self-reliance is an indelible stamp that marks
our progress as a people. We salute the magnificent
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