JNF-The-Working-Class-Struggle-of-Half-a-Century

When he made man he said, ‘By the sweat of your brow ye all eat.’ from
that time man has been on his own responsibility - on his own legs. If he
does not think out his own way of life, he will fail, and who do you think
is to shed a tear for him, when by his own ignorance he has reduced
him self to disgrace? It is not necessary to envy the other man because
whatever he has done, you can do, if you go about it in the right way.
Those who stoop to envy, steal and kill and commit crimes, breaking the
civil law and the law of nature are upsetting everything. But that is not
the way to get things. You must and get things for yourself…
A Man among Men
The black man who threw a bombshell into the white domination of the
Negro during the first quarter of the 20 th Century gave his own life as an
example when he addressed his fellow men in St. Kitts in November
1937. His newspaper The Negro World was banned in Trinidad, in
parts of Africa and in several other parts of the world. He was not permitted
to enter certain countries, as he was considered a public danger.
But Marcus Garvey was not in the least deterred. In his speech at the
M.I.S. Hall he said, When we cringe and commit crimes we bring down
God. We must live up to the dignity and Honour of His intelligence by
possessing our souls and using our minds. It is no excuse to say you are
too poor and down-trodden.
I put myself before you as an example. I refuse to be in rags. I
am determined to be a man among men. I was born fifty years ago in
the West Indian Country town of Jamaica where black men have no
special advantages but disadvantages; where you are slated to be a
cowherd or labourer, a blacksmith or shoemaker, etc. I looked at the
system that man fixed up for me and I said it did not suit me. If you have
not the ability to fix yourself up, the other man is going to fix you up -
and some of you are darned well fixed up right now. (Prolonged laughter
and cheers.) And you will stay fixed up until you change your minds.
God has given every man a mind with possibilities for development.
It does not matter what your father and mother were before you.
You can retrieve yourself and be a man although your parents may have
been criminals. God has not made you with a criminal mind. Don’t
allow anybody to use your mind. I do not mean, by that, that you must
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