MARCUS GARVEY SPEAKS, NY, Oct. 16, 1921

ETHIOPIA SHALL STRETCH FORTH HER HAND

MARCUS GARVEY TO MAHATMA GANDHI

VIRGINIA SUPPORTING THE BLACK STAR LINE

MEETING OF THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

PAMPHLET BY MARCUS GARVEY

    EDITORIAL LETTER BY MARCUS GARVEY

This is the time for Black men to make their distinct contribution to this civilization, and let history record it truthfully.  

You have the potential, you have the vast continent--Africa, you have the scattered millions of our race in all the countries of the world coming in contact with science and technical, mechanical devices.  You have the chance, all you want is the will to do, and dare others to stop you.  This is my hope for you, and this is the fear others have for you.  That is why they watch you so carefully that you may not get away with any progressive ideas, which would be a surprise to the world of theirs.  Probably that is why I am dubbed "a dangerous man".  Because I attempt to lead my race to progress, to a consciousness of its powers, from backwardness to usefulness for itself, and who is to tell what that may lead to--a shifting of power, a shifting of position--the man lowest down will rotate to the top position.  It is the will of GOD, because the Black man is not vindictive, but benevolent and kind, the world will be a better place for all to live in and enjoy.  

MARCUS GARVEY SPEAKS

New York, Oct. 16, 1921

My subject for tonight is "The Flight Upward."  We have been discouraged in the past by leaders who had no confidence in themselves.  We were made to feel and to believe that there is no use trying--nothing can be done.  Because of such teaching we have struggled on for fifty-odd years in America and eighty-odd years in the West Indies without being able to evolve an ideal through which we would arrest the attention of serious minded people.  The world has been trained to disregard the Negro as a factor--as a force to be reckoned with.  Universally, races and nations pay no attention to the action of the Negro because they know it means nothing.  They have judged in the past the entire race by the representation of those who have led us, in so much so that the world settled the policy for the Negro, and his limit was industrial education--thus far and no further.  The world held up the great hero, Booker T. Washington, as the only leader, and they looked forward to him and his teachings as the leadership of all times, not calculating that the industrially educated Negro would himself evolve a new ideal, after having been trained by the great teacher--the great sage of Tuskegee.  The world satisfied itself to believe that succeeding leaders--should Booker T. Washington die--would but follow in the teachings of the great sage of Tuskegee, and all that they were to expect from the Negro was industrial serfdom, industrial peonage and all would be well.

THE NEW NEGRO EVOLVING NEW IDEAL

Unfortunately the world is about to have a rude awakening, in that we have started to evolve a new ideal.  The new ideal includes the program of Booker T. Washington, but it does not stop there.  The new ideal does not mean to exclude anything that Dr. Booker Washington did or said, but we have taken in all that and have even gone further.  And it seems that the world has been slow in appreciating the fact that there is a new ideal.  When we started the program of the Universal Negro Improvement Association many of the races and nations of the world impugned the idea and said that it was a crazy dream--it was the work of a visionary who was fit only for the crazy house.  Nevertheless, that same world that said it was an idle dream is now realizing that it might be a serious reality.

THE NEGRO THE BALANCE OF POWER

We occupy today a very favorable position among the races and nations of the world.  As a race we are regarded as the balance of power--the balance of power in political affairs--and politics rules the world; understand that --not religion; not society; not so much industry, although industry has a great part to play in it.  Politics is the science that rules the world; and in politics the Negro is the balance of power.  Nobody wins expect the Negro is there. And gradually the world is getting beyond normal.  Surely we are not living in a normal world.  The world has gone crazy; the world has gone mad; the world is unstable; the world today is next door to chaos, and you form the balance of power between  the contending factors who are endeavoring to rule and dominate this world.  No one factor can rule the world without the sympathy and the assistance of the Negro.  Things have changed wonderfully since Dr. Booker Washington came on the scene.  When we came on the scene fifty-odd years ago his vision was industrial opportunity for the Negro.  I repeat, the sage of Tuskegee passed off the stage of life and has left behind him a new problem--a problem that must be solved not by the industrial leader but by the political leader.  

If Washington had lived he would have had to change his program.  No leader can successfully lead this race of ours without giving a correct interpretation of the new spirit of the new Negro, and the new spirit of the Negro does not seek industrial opportunity; it seeks a political voice, and the world is amazed, the world is astounded that the Negro should desire a political voice, because after the voice comes a political place, and nobody thought the Negro would have asked for a place in the political sun of the world, and we have sent our challenge so far that we are not only asking but we are going to demand--we are going to fight for and die for that place.  (Applause.)  And the world has got to realize it--the world has got to know it, and YOU MUST RISE TO THE OCCASION.

You can only impress this world by demonstrating to it the seriousness of your intention.  And the Universal Negro Improvement Association has for four and a half years been endeavoring to impress upon the world the seriousness--the grim determination of the new Negro; and thank God the world seems to be realizing it--realizing it to the extent that overtures have been made and will be made also in the future for a settling of this great problem and this great desire that confronts the Negro.

Those to whom the overtures have been made have been cheap enough to make an effort to subvert the greater cause by originating and fostering counter propaganda and counter programs calling them all kinds of names: some call them Pan-African congresses, and they call them by other names for the purpose of distracting the mind of the new Negro and preventing him from understanding correctly what he wants.  Leaders here and leaders there have been sought out to turn the tide of Negro hope--of Negro ambition.  But thank God they have not been able to turn the tide of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

INDUCEMENTS BEING OFFERED

Governments have offered inducements to individual members of our race who have for years stood out prominently among us, so that by positions given to them the ambitions of the people could become satisfied that the powers that be are doing everything to be fair to the Negro--to be just to the Negro.  Those are the dangers that we have to avert--the subterfuges that will be handed out as a compromise to prevent your traveling toward the goal you have set for yourselves.  Information has been supplied to me not long ago where certain men have been offered big positions so as to turn the tide of the Universal Negro Improvement Association so that this government and that government may be able to say, "What is the use of your discontent?  Look what we have done for you!  Look what we have done with one of your men! We have made him an attorney general" in the colonies.  In some of the West Indian Islands they have started to make Negroes attorney generals; they have started to make some judges in Africa; they have started to hand out certain concessions to certain natives to placate their spirit of discontent and for them to use it is an argument to satisfy the Negroes everywhere that the powers that be are looking after their interests.  It is a pity they started so late; but it is too late.  They took too long a time to show us what they meant; and now the Universal Negro Improvement Association is not going to be satisfied with a judgeship here and with some Negro occupying a position of attorney general there.  We want hundreds of thousands of judges; we want thousands of men of our own race in our own congresses and parliaments, and since we cannot have that in these parts of the world surely we are going to have it in Africa.  (Applause.)...

Printed in Negro World, 22 October 1921.  The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume IV 1 September 1921 - 2 September 1922, Robert A. Hill, Editor, University of California Press, 1985, pgs.119-122.

ETHIOPIA SHALL STRETCH FORTH HER HAND

It tells us that "Princes shall come out of Egypt and Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto GOD," and if for no other passage but that we will not disarm the Bible. So that while we are not engaged in this disarmament plan we will be glad if other races and nations will disarm, because it will prevent a lot of folks dying later on. (Laughter) Let them throw away their guns; let them throw away their deadly gas; let them throw away all the implements of destruction, and there will be very little dying in Africa when we get there. All that they will have to do is---we will be generous enough to give them some of the ships of the Black Star Line on which we go to Africa to take them back to Europe or back to America to take some more Negroes back to Africa. So we are not against the disarmament plan because it will prevent certain folks dying later on.

Liberty Hall

August 2, 1921

MARCUS GARVEY TO MAHATMA GANDHI

Please accept best wishes of 400,000,000 Negroes through us their representatives, for the speedy emancipation of India from the thraldom of foreign oppression. You may depend on us for whatsoever help we can give.

2nd INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF NEGROES

                MARCUS GARVEY, PRESIDENT

New York City, 1 August 1921

[Address] MAHATMA GANDHI, AHMEBARAD,

BOMBAY, INDIA

VIRGINIA SUPPORTING THE BLACK STAR LINE

Fellowmen of the Negro Race, Greeting:

Away down in Virginia I have been for a few days testing out the sentiment of our people as touching their outlook on things temporal, and I have discovered that the Negro of the South is a new and different man to what he was prior to the war.

The bloody war has left a new spirit in the world---it has created for all mankind a new idea of liberty and democracy, and the Southern Negro now feels that he too has a part to play in the affairs of the world. A new light is burning for our brothers at this end. They are determined that they too shall enjoy a portion of that democracy for which many of their sons and brothers fought for and died for in France.

The New Negro manhood movement is not confined to the North alone, it has found its way far down South and there are millions of black folks here who mean to have all that is coming to them or they are going to die in the attempt of getting same.

I cannot but encourage the spirit of my brothers all over the world who are struggling for manhood and freedom rights.

This is the age of helpful action, and it falls to the province of every Negro to help his brother to a fuller realization of the opportunities of life. Now is the time for all of us, fellowmen, to join in and help in the spreading of the doctrines of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. We have to utilize every energy we possess to redeem the scattered millions of our race. There is no time to waste about East, West, North or South. The question of the Negro should be the only question for us. We have remained divided long enough to realize that our weakness as a race is caused through disunity. We can no longer allow the enemy to penetrate our ranks. We must "close ranks" and make up our minds all over the world either to have full liberty and democracy or to die in the attempt to get it.

The salvation of our race depends upon the action of the present generation of our young men. We fellows who could have died by the millions in battle fighting for the white men, must now realize that we have but one life to give and since that life could have been given in France and Flanders for the salvation of an alien race, we ought to be sensible enough to see and realize that if there is to be another sacrifice of life, we shall first give that life to our own cause.

Africa, bleeding Africa, is calling for the service of every black man and woman to redeem her from the enslavement of the white man. All the sacrifice that must be made, therefore, shall be of the Negro, for the Negro and no one else.

Whether we are of America, Canada, the West Indies, South or Central America, or Africa, the call for action is ours. The scattered children of Africa know no country but their own dear Father and Motherland. We may make progress in America, the West Indies and other foreign countries, but there will never be any real lasting progress until the Negro makes of Africa a strong and powerful Republic to lend protection to the success we make in foreign lands.

Let us therefore unite our forces and make one desperate rush for the goal of success.

And now that we have started to make good by uniting ourselves, let us spare no effort to go forward. The Black Star Line that we are giving to the world calls for the support of every Negro, and it is pleasing for me to say that our people in Virginia are doing most splendidly their part to help this Corporation fly the colors of the Negro on the high seas.

Buy all the shares you can now in the Black Star Line and make money while the opportunity presents itself. You may buy your shares today at $5.00 each; in the very near future you will have to pay more. Write or call on the Black Star Line, 56 West 135th Street, New York, and purchase all the shares you want. With very best wishes for your Success, Yours fraternally,

MARCUS GARVEY

NEWPORT NEWS, OCTOBER 29, 1919

MEETING OF THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

AND THE BLACK STAR LINE STEAMSHIP CO.

PRESIDING OFFICER: H.W. KIRBY (224 ELM STREET, N.W., WASH. D.C.)

...HONORABLE MARCUS MOSIAH GARVEY

I have appeared here more than once---many times---and it would appear that every time I speak to you, you hear me and you go away forgetting all I say. I trust you are not going to forget what I say tonight: otherwise I better not come back to Washington. I will leave Washington out and we will redeem the great cause, I suppose, without Washington.

Now what is this Universal/Negro/Improvement Association? It is a worldwide movement of Negroes having as its purpose the drawing together of every colored man, woman, and child into one great huge body in preparation for a day that is sure to come, a day when the various races of black men will be in one common battleground to settle their differences and to maintain their respective rights. That day threatens as sure as the sun shines every day.

Because this political apportionment of the world means for the people in this age who fail to find a place for themselves, such a people is doomed forever. That is why I waste the time and make the opportunity to come to Washington so often, to speak to you and to make you understand what we are endeavoring to do in other parts of the world. In New York, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in the great eastern states, we have already rolled up an organization of over a million and a half men and women in these United States of America, and the cry is the slogan of AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANS.

Washington, I say to you, 'awake, awake because the world of Negroes around you is asserting itself to throw off the yoke of the white man of 300 years.' We, in the convention of August, have elected leaders, and on the first of November we will send into the District of Columbia the first Negro ever elected by the Negroes of the United States of America to lead them. In August we elected the Hon. J. W. H. Eason as the leader of the 15,000,000 Negroes of America. Eason has proved to be one of the ablest men of the race, and we will send him up here in November to occupy the Black House of Washington. And around him we will have men who will be able to rank in the Diplomatic Circle, just as at the French Embassy they have men. As Provisional President of Africa I hope, also, in a few months, to have a Minister Plenipotentiary as an ambassador in Washington. We are going to have representatives of the Negro in Washington, but after November we are going to have a minister plenipotentiary and ambassador in England, Germany, France, and Italy to protect the rights of the Negro.

The Irish were prepared before the war, and what happened after the war? During the war they were promised certain things which, as is customary, England never kept the promises she made, and will never keep her promise. Because Ireland is depending upon England to keep her promise Ireland lost out, and though they lost out they elected a provisional President of Ireland and declared for the freedom of Ireland. Because [Booker T.] Washington did not prepare us, because [Robert Russa] Moton did not prepare us, there is no Africa for the Negro as there is a Palestine for the Jew, a Poland for the Poles, but what they did not do in the years past we are going to do now. We are contending for the rights of the Negro today, so that when another bloody world war comes it will not be a question of how many Negroes can the United States raise for the Army, or how many Negroes can the British Empire raise for the army, or how many Negroes can France raise for the Army, it will be a question of how many Negroes can the Universal Negro Improvement Association raise for the new Napoleon of the Negro race to march on the battle plains of Africa for the ultimate salvation of this race. I stand and declare to the people of Washington---to repeat what Doctor McGuire said---we are not desirous of asking all the American Negroes or all of the West Indian Negroes to pack up their baggage and go back to Africa. We are asking you to lend your sympathy and your moral and financial and physical support to the building of Africa and the making of Africa a great republic. Make it a first-class nation, a first-rate power, and when Africa becomes a first-rate power, if you live in Georgia, if you live in Mississippi, if you live in Texas, as a black man I will dare them to lynch you, because you are an African citizen and you will have a great army and a great navy to protect your rights.

In concluding I want you to realize this: I am not talking for an untried organization. I am here representing an organization that is a power in the world. The Universal Negro Improvement Association is the only movement among Negroes now that is striking fear in the breast of the nations of the world, and it is no secret. Everybody knows it. They know it in Washington. If you doubt it, go up to the State Department and ask, and they tell you that that movement of Garvey's is hell. They have spent thousands [and] thousands of dollars already, following me all over the country, and who can tell that some stool pigeon is not in here tonight. And I have told them all I have to say with the exception of that part I am keeping back for the next war. They will never hear that part until after the victory in Africa. This is the only movement that has caused the great British Empire to be trembling in its shoes, because they can't tell what the outcome will be. When they elected me Provisional President of Africa the other day, the first thing I did was to telegraph David Lloyd George to tell him we were coming, four hundred million strong, and no one better than David Lloyd George---he knows that sixty million of people can not resist four hundred million of people when they come....

Washington, D.C., September 24, 1920

PAMPHLET BY MARCUS GARVEY

[Kingston, Jamaica, ca. July-August 1914]

A TALK WITH AFRO-WEST INDIANS.

THE NEGRO RACE AND ITS PROBLEMS by MARCUS GARVEY JNR.,

President of The Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League

"Dear Friend and Brother:

I am moved to address you through the great spirit of love and the kindred affection that I have for the race Afric; and I am asking you to be good, loyal and racial enough as to take this address in the spirit of goodwill, and lend yourself to the world-wide movement of doing something to promote the intellectual, social, commercial, industrial, and national interest of the down-trodden race of which you are a member.

For the last ten years I have given my time to the study of the condition of the Negro, here, there, and everywhere, and I have come to realize that he is still the object of degradation and pity the world over, in the sense that he has no status socially, nationally, or commercially (with a modicum of exception in the United States of America) hence the entire world is prone to look down on him as an inferior and degraded being, although the people as a whole have done no worse than others to deserve the ignominious snub. The retrograde state of the Negro is characterized as accidental and circumstantial; and the onus of his condition is attributable to the callous indifference and insincerity of those Negroes who have failed to do their duty by the race in promoting a civilized imperialism that would meet with the approval of established ideals.

Representative and educated Negroes have made the mistake of drawing and keeping themselves away from the race, thinking that it is degrading and ignominious to identify themselves with the masses of the people who are still ignorant and backward; but who are crying out for true and conscientious leadership, so that they might advance into a higher state of enlightenment whence they could claim the appreciation and honest comradeship of the more advanced races who are to-day ignoring us simply because we are so lethargic and serfish.

The prejudices of the educated and positioned Negro towards his own people have done much to create a marked indifference to the race among those of other races who would have been glad and willing to help the Negro to a brighter destiny. Yet these very Negro "gentlemen" who have been shunning their own people do not receive better treatment from the hands of the other races when they happen to meet away from their own sphere of influence. They are snubbed and laughed at just the same as the most menial of the race, and only because they are Negroes, belonging to the careless and characterless race that has been sleeping for so many centuries. In the majority of cases the "aristocratic" Negroes who have refused to identify themselves with the race are thought less of, and they are secretly "talked" and "gamed" at, by individuals of the progressive races who are true to themselves, and who do not believe that environments or position removes one from the tie of blood relationship in race.

In America, Europe, Africa, and Australia the Negro is identified by his colour and his hair, so it is useless for any pompous man of colour to think because his skin is a little paler than that of his brother that he is not also a Negro. Once the African blood courses through the veins you are belong to "the company of Negroes," and there is no getting away from it.

God places us in the world as men, so whether we are of an identical species or not, as far as accidental details are concerned, does not matter, what matters is, that we are all human, and according to the philosophy of human relationship, all of us have one destiny, hence there should be no estrangement between the people who form the groups of mortals scattered in the different parts of the world.

It is true, that by accident and unfavourable circumstances, the Negro lost hold of the glorious civilization that he once dispensed, and in process of time reverted into savagery, and subsequently became a slave, and even and to those whom he once enslaved, yet it does not follow that the Negro must always remain backward. There are is no chance for the Negro to-day in securing a comfortable place with the PROGRESSIVES of mankind, as far as racial exclusiveness protects the achievements of the particular race; but there is a great chance for the Negro to do something for himself on the same standard of established customs among the ADVANCED; and the ADVANCED are eagerly waiting to stretch out the hand of compliment to the Negro as soon as he shall have done the THING to merit recognition.

The Negro is ignored to-day simply because he has kept himself backward; but if he were to try to raise himself to a higher state in the civilized cosmos, all the other races would be glad to meet him on the plane of equality and comradeship. It is indeed unfair to demand equality when one of himself has done nothing to establish the right to equality.

But how can the Negro ever hope to rise when the very men who should have been our props and leaders draw themselves away and try to create an impossible and foolish atmosphere of their own, which is untenable and never recognised.

The appeal I now make is: "Full of God's sake, you men and women who have been keeping yourselves away from the people of your own African race, cease the ignorance; unite your hands and hearts with the people Afric, and let us reach out to the highest idealism that there is in living, thereby demonstrating to others, not of our race, that we are ambitious, virtuous, noble, and proud of the classification of race.

"Sons and daughters of Africa, I say to you arise, take on the toga of race pride, and throw off the brand of ignominy which has kept you back for so many centuries. Dash asunder the petty prejudices within your own fold; set at defiance the scornful designation of "nigger" uttered even by yourselves, and be a Negro in the light of the Pharaohs of Egypt, Simons of Cyrene, Hannibals of Carthage, L'Ouvertures and Dessalines of Hayti, Blydens, Barclays and Johnsons of Liberia, Lewisis of Sierra Leone, and Douglas's and DuBois's of America, who have made, and are making history for the race, though depreciated and in many cases unwritten.

To study the history of the Negro is to go back into a primitive civilization that teems with the brightest and best in art and the sciences.

You who do not know anything of your ancestry will do well to read the works of Blyden, one of our historians and chroniclers, who have done so much to retrieve the lost prestige of the race, and to undo the selfishness of alien historians and their history which has said so little and painted us so unfairly. Dr. Blyden is such an interesting character to study that I take pleasure in reproducing the following passages from his "Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race":

There was, for a long time, in the Christian world considerable difference of opinion as to the portion of the earth and the precise region to which the term Ethiopia must be understood as applying. It is pretty well established now, however, that by Ethiopia is meant the continent of Africa, and by Ethiopians, the great race who inhabit that continent. The etymology of the word points to the most prominent physical characteristics of this people.

To any one who has travelled in Africa, especially in the portion north of the equator, extending from the West Coast to Abyssinia, Nubia and Egypt, and embracing what is known as the Nigritian and Soudanic countries there cannot be the slightest doubt as to the country and people to whom the terms Ethiopia and Ethiopian, as used in the Bible and the classical writers were applied. One of the latest and most accurate authorities says: "The country which the Greeks and the Romans described as Ethiopia and the Hebrews as Cush, lay to the South of Egypt, and embraced, in the most extended sense, the modern Nubia, Senaar, Kordofan, etc., and in its more definate sense, the kingdom of Meroe, from the junction of the Blue and White branches of the Nile to the border of Egypt."

Herodotus the father of history, speaks of two divisions of Ethiopians who did not differ at all from each other in appearance except in their language and hair; "for the Eastern Ethiopians", he says, "are straight haired, but those of Libya (or Africa) have hair more curly than that of any other people." "As far as we know," says Mr. Gladstone, "Homer recognized the African Coast by placing the Lotophagi upon it, and the Ethiopians inland, from the east, all the way to the extreme west." There has been an unbroken line of communication between the West Coast of Africa, through the Soudan, and through the so called Great Desert and Asia, from the time when portions of the descendants of Ham, in remote ages, began their migrations westward, and first saw the Atlantic Ocean.

Africa is no vast island, separated by an immense ocean from other portions of the globe, and cut off through the ages from the men who have made and influenced the destiny of mankind. She has been closely connected, both as source and nourisher, with some of the most potent influences which have affected for good the history of the world. The people of Asia and the people of Africa have been in constant intercourse. No violent social or political disruption has ever broken through this communication. No chasm caused by war has suspended intercourse. On the contrary, the greatest religious reforms the world has ever seen---Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan---originating in Asia, have obtained consolidation in Africa. And as in the days of Abraham and Moses, of Herodotus and Homer, so to-day, there is a constantly accessible highway from Asia to the heart of the Soudan. Africans are continually going to and fro between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. I have met in Liberia and along its eastern frontier, Mohammedan Negroes, born in Mecca, the Holy city of Arabia, who thought they were telling of nothing extraordinary when they were detailing the incidents of their journeyings and of those of their friends from the banks of the Niger,---from the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone and Liberia---across the continent of Egypt, Arabia and Jerusalem. I saw in Cairo and Jerusalem, some years ago, West Africans who had come on business, or on religious pilgrimage, from their distant homes in Senegambia.

Africans were not unknown, therefore, to the writers of the Bible. Their peculiarities of complexion and hair were as well known to the Ancient Greeks and Hebrews, as they are to the American people to-day. And when they spoke of the Ethiopians, they meant the ancestors of the black-skinned and woolly-haired people who, for two hundred and fifty years, have been known as labourers on the plantations of the South (America). It is to these people, and to their country, that the Psalmist refers, when he says, "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." The word in the original which has been translated "soon" is now understood to refer not so much to the time as to the "manner" of the action. Ethiopia shall "suddenly" stretch out her hands unto God, is the most recent rendering. But even if we take the phraseology as it has been generally understood, it will not by any one acquainted with the facts, be held to have been altogether unfulfilled. There is not a tribe on the continent of Africa, in spite of the fetishes and greegees which many of them are supposed to worship---there is not one who does not recognize the Supreme Being, though imperfectly understanding His character---and who does perfectly understand his character? They believe that the heaven and the earth, the sun, moon, and stars, which they behold, were created by an Almighty personal Agent, who is also their own Maker and Sovereign, and they render to him such worship as their own tutored intellects can conceive. ...And if the belief in a common creator and Father of mankind is illustrated in the bearing we maintain towards our neighbour, if our faith is seen in our works, if we prove that we love God, whom we have not seen, by loving our neighbour whom we have seen, by respecting his rights, even though he may not belong to our clan, tribe, or race, then I must say, and it will not be generally disputed that more proofs are furnished among the natives of interior Africa of their belief in the common Fatherhood of a personal God by their hospitable and considerate treatment of foreigners and strangers than are to be seen in many civilized Christian community. Mungo Park "a hundred years ago" put on record in poetry and in prose---and he wished it never to be forgotten---that he was the object of the most kindly and sympathetic treatment in the wilds of Africa, among a people he had never seen before and whom he never could requite. The long sojourn of Livingstone in that land in contentment and happiness, without money to pay his way, is another proof of the excellent qualities of the people, and of their practical belief in a universal Father. And, in all history, where is there anything more touching than the ever memorable conveyance, by "faithful hands" of the remains of the missionary-traveller from the land of strangers over thousands of miles, to the country of the deceased, to be deposited with deserved honour in the "Great Temple of Silence."

And this peculiarity of Africans is not a thing known only in modern times. The Ancients recognised these qualities, and loved to descant upon them. They seemed to regard the fear and love of God as the peculiar gift of the darker races. In the version of the Chaldean Genesis, as given by George Smith, the following passage occurs: "The word of the Lord will never fail in the mouth of the dark races whom he has made." Homer and Herodotus have written immortal eulogies of the race. Homer speaks of them as the "blameless Ethiopians" and tells us that it was the Ethiopians alone among mortals whom the Gods selected as a people fit to be lifted to the social level of the Olympian divinities. Every year, the poet says, the whole Celestial Circle left the summits of Olympus and betook themselves for their holidays to Ethiopia, where, in the enjoyment of Ethiopian hospitality, they sojourned twelve days.

The sire of gods and all the ethereal train

On the warm limits of the farthest main

Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace

The feasts of Ethiopia's blameless race;

Twelve days the Powers indulge the genial rite,

Returning with the twelfth revolving night.

"Luscian represents a sceptic, or freethinker of his day, as saying, in his irreverence towards the gods, that on certain occasions they do not hear the prayers of mortals in Europe because they are away across the ocean, perhaps among the Ethiopians, with whom they dine frequently on their own invitation.

It shows the estimate in which the Ancients held the Africans, that they selected them as the only fit associates for their gods. And in modern times, in all the countries of their exile, they have not ceased to commend themselves to those who have held rule over them. The testimonies are numerous and striking to the fidelity of the Africans. The newspapers of the land are constantly bearing testimony to his unswerving faithfulness, notwithstanding the indignities heaped upon him. But there is another quality in the Ethiopian of African, closely connected with the preceding, which proves that he has stretched out his hands unto God. If service rendered to humanity is service rendered to God, then the Negro and his country have been, during the ages, in spite of untoward influences, tending upward to the Divine.

Take the country,---It has been called the cradle of civilization, and so it is. The germs of all the sciences and of the two great religions now professed by the most enlightened races were fostered in Africa. Science, in its latest wonders, has nothing to show equal to some of the wonderful things even now to be seen in Africa. In Africa stands that marvellous architectural pile---the great Pyramid---which has been the admiration and despair of the world for a hundred generations. Scientific men of the present day, mathematicians, astronomers and divines, regard it as a sort of key to the universe---a symbol of the profoundest truths of science, of religion, and of all the past and future history of man. Though apparently closely secluded from all the rest of the world, Africa still lies at the gateway of all the loftiest and noblest traditions of the human race---of India, of Greece, of Rome. She intermingles with all the Divine administrations, and is connected, in one way or another with some of the most famous names and events in the annals of time.

The great progenitor of the Hebrew race and the founder of their religion, sought refuge in Africa from the ravages of famine. We read in Gen. XII, 10, "And there was a famine in the land; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land." Jacob and his sons were subsequently saved from extinction in the same way. In Africa, the Hebrew people from three score and ten souls multiplied into millions. In Africa Moses, the greatest lawgiver the world has ever seen, was Greece and Rome, to gaze upon its wonders and gather inspiration from its arts and sciences. Later on a greater than Moses and than all the prophets and born and educated. To this land also resorted the ancient philosophers of philosophers, when in infancy, was preserved from death in Africa. "Arise," was the message conveyed by the Angel to Joseph, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word; for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." When in his final hours, the Saviour of mankind struggled up the heights of Calvary, under the weight of the cross, accused by Asia and condemned by Europe, Africa furnished the man to relieve him of his burden. "And as they led him away they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. And all through those times, and times anterior to those, whether in sacred or profane matters Africa is never out of view as a helper...."

The glories of the past should tend to inspire us with courage to create a worthy future. The Negro to-day is handicapped by circumstances; but no one is keeping him back. He is keeping back himself, and because of this, the other races refuse to notice or raise him. Let the Negro start out seriously to help himself and ere the fall of many more decades you will see him a "new man," once more fit for the association of the "gods" and the true companionship of those whose respect he lost.

I am pleading, yea, I am begging, all men and women within the reach of the blood Afric to wake up to the responsibility of race pride and do something to help in promoting a higher state of appreciation within the race. Locally, we are suffering from a marked shade prejudice, among ourselves, which is foolish and distructable. The established truism reigns the world over,---that all people with the African blood in their veins are Negroes. The coloured man who refuses to acknowledge himself a Negro has only to step into the outer world of Europe, Australia, or America, and even South Africa, to find his level and "place" whence he will find it even more advantageous, from a moral point of view, to be a "black nigger." It is so disgusting to hear some foolish people talk sometimes about their superiority in shade of colour. The Caucasian is privileged to talk about his colour for there is a standard in his breeding, and all of us have to respect him for his prowess and his might and his mastery, over established ideals. The Negro can attain a like position by self-industry and co-operation, and there is no one more willing to help him to attain that position than the genuine MAN of Europe, the lord of our civilization, to-day.

The MAN of Europe is longing to see the Negro do something for himself, hence I am imploring one and all to join hands with those millions across the seas, and particularly those in the Fatherland Africa, America, Brazil, and the West Indies, and speed up the brighter destiny of race in the civilized idealism of the day.

Let us from henceforth recognize one and all of the race as brothers and sisters of one fold. Let us move together for the one common good, so that those who have been our friends and protectors in the past might see the good that there is in us."1

1. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume I 1826-August 1919 by Robert A. Hill, Editor and Carol A. Rudisell, Assistant Editor, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1983. Pgs.55-61

*********************

 "THE UNIVERSAL NEGRO IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION"

MARCUS GARVEY held meeting at 8:30 P.M., Wednesday, July 13, 1921, NATIONAL PARK, Corner 3rd and WILLOW STS. (New Orleans)

     "The time has come for the strongest race of people on earth, barring the Chinese, to break the bonds of oppression.  Oppression everywhere clamoring for freedom, I mean no disloyalty to the Government in preaching antagonism of race.  Two Masters cannot rule in one country.  Let the whites rule ENGLAND, FRANCE AND AMERICA, and let the negro rule in AFRICA.  Our ancestors were taken from Africa against their will in chains and sold into slavery.  They have never relinquished their rights to the country, and it is still ours. The negro race is too strong to be whipped.  I am not preaching radicalism.  I advise you to obey the laws of your country, or you wish you had.  Will respect ownership of whites in ENGLAND, FRANCE AND AMERICA, but if all are not our color in AFRICA, we will recognize no one.  We have favored and aided by the hundred, but favor has not been returned.  Time now to pay attention to our own interest.  Look out for yourselves.  We are the most charitable people on earth, but charity begins at home."

     "Propaganda has been circulated by the explorers of Africa for three hundred years.  Propaganda is very valuable.  So valuable that with the aid of the negro it whipped the Kaiser, who, would now have whipped ENGLAND, FRANCE AND AMERICA if it had not been for them.  Propagandists, explorers of Africa calling negroes thieves now.  The thieves in Africa fell out in 1914---Four hundred million negroes now reach to back Africa up.  We have talked enough.  FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS---FOR EQUALITY."

     "There is some great reason for creating some black and some whites.  The bible says that princes will come out of EGYPT.  You are the princes that shall come out of EGYPT. Everything under the sun is possible for you. What the whites have done you can do.  Let not other permit the master to exploit us. Boss with whites 50-50.  Establish the greatest republic in the world in AFRICA.  Call its Leader---PRESIDENT.  You must  do or the negro must die.  Dispute every inch of your right until death.  The world owes you a living. It is your fault if it gets away.  Negroes look out for yourselves. The fittest race is the question of the ages.  Negroes are waking up.  The world is without sympathy.  You must form your own future.  Do for yourselves what others have done for themselves.  You get equal rights with birth.  It is your own fault if you let others take your rights.  We are not organizing to fight the whites, but to protect what is ours if it takes our lives. The next one hundred years means elimination of the weaker race.  It is now to call the surviving of the fittest."

     His closing words were---  

     "Touch one negro and you touch four hundred million.  We live to die together."

"EDITORIAL LETTER BY MARCUS GARVEY"

                                                                                        [[New York, March 27, 1919]]

"Fellowmen of the Negro Race:

     Greeting: ---To you I write this week trusting you are still of good cheer.  Since my last message to you, the revolutionary world has taken on new activities.  The Russian people have issued a proclamation of sympathy and good will towards the laboring peoples of the world."

      "Hungary has declared for a new form of government in alliance with Russia.  All this means revolution among the whites.  They have not yet stopped killing out themselves because the masses are not yet free."

     "We are not very much concerned as partakers in these revolutions, but we are concerned in the destruction that will come out of the bloody conflict between capital and labor, which will give us a breathing space to then declare for our freedom from the tyrannical rule of oppressive over-lords."

     "Egypt has sounded the note of liberty.  All Negroes are allied with Egypt; not for the delivering of Egypt to an alien rule, but to make Egyptians free so that Africa might be redeemed for the Africans."

     "The "Pieces Conference" because of its unholy intent in depriving men of their liberty has made no headway for the restoration of peace; on the contrary, it is fomenting more wars, and in another twenty-five years the dream of the framers of it, whose intent is to shackle the now unliberated peoples of the world, will be regarded as the nightmare of Bolshevism.  Bolshevism, it would appear, is a thing of the white man's making, and whatever it means is apparent, it is going to spread until it finds a haven in the breasts of all oppressed peoples, and then there shall be a universal rule of the masses."

     "Wherever you be today, in America, Africa, Canada, the West Indies, South or Central America, let your cry be "liberty or death."  Prepare your minds, your hearts and your swords for the next world war.  It will come whether it is to be between Asia and Europe, or Europe and Africa, be assured that it will come, and at that time we hope every black man will be ready to take care of himself."

     "Fight the good fight therefore, and be always in readiness for the bugle call of Mother Africa.  Yours fraternally,

                                                                                                                                                                                                     MARCUS GARVEY"

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