Africa for Africans: Or, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

by Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques Garvey

Overview

Originally published in two volumes between 1923 and 1925, Africa for Africans: Or, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey is a compilation of letters, speeches and essays by one of the Fathers of Pan-Africanism.

Hailed by Martin Luther King, Jr. as, "the first man of color. . . to make the Negro feel like he was somebody," Marcus Garvey was a polarizing yet influential figure whose legacy continues to be felt today. These philosophies, collected by Amy Jacques Garvey, his second wife and a pioneering journalist, chronicle Garvey's initial impressions and recollections of America, the formation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), his imprisonment and subsequent trial over the Black Star Line, and his scathing opinions of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Including such pieces as, "An Appeal to the Soul of White America," "The Negro's Greatest Enemy," and "Declaration of Rights of the Negroes of the World," Africa for Africans; Or, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey is an essential piece of Black history, professionally typeset and reimagined for modern readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781513136998
Publisher:	Mint Editions
Publication date:	08/16/2022
Series:	Black Narratives
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Marcus Garvey (1887 – 1940) was a controversial yet influential political activist, entrepreneur and journalist. Born in Saint Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, Garvey experienced first hand the ills of colonialism, colorism and racism during his upbringing, ultimately shaping his view of the world. His early adult years were spent learning trades and involving himself in political organizations such as The National Club and going onto create the United Negro Improvement Association and the African Communities League in 1914. Three years after this, he would go onto the United States, with the hopes of further expanding the U.N.I.A and spreading his message of Black brotherhood in an “Africa for Africans,” spilling into the creation of a weekly newspaper, The Negro World in 1918. As Garveyism began to take hold in Black communities in the United States and abroad, Garvey faced increased government surveillance and strife as he attempted to branch out into other ventures like The Black Star Line. Between 1922 – 1925, Garvey was arrested and tried on accusations of mail fraud before his eventual deportation from the United States in 1927. Never one to become settled, Garvey lived out the rest of his life attempting to travel the world and continue to spread his ideology; while often clashing with other Black leaders and organizations of the time. A very complicated and complex figure, Garvey was nevertheless an important piece to the foundation of Black nationalism as it is known today.

Marcus Garvey (1887 – 1940) was a controversial yet influential political activist, entrepreneur and journalist. Born in Saint Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, Garvey experienced first hand the ills of colonialism, colorism and racism during his upbringing, ultimately shaping his view of the world. His early adult years were spent learning trades and involving himself in political organizations such as The National Club and going onto create the United Negro Improvement Association and the African Communities League in 1914. Three years after this, he would go onto the United States, with the hopes of further expanding the U.N.I.A and spreading his message of Black brotherhood in an “Africa for Africans,” spilling into the creation of a weekly newspaper, The Negro World in 1918. As Garveyism began to take hold in Black communities in the United States and abroad, Garvey faced increased government surveillance and strife as he attempted to branch out into other ventures like The Black Star Line. Between 1922 – 1925, Garvey was arrested and tried on accusations of mail fraud before his eventual deportation from the United States in 1927. Never one to become settled, Garvey lived out the rest of his life attempting to travel the world and continue to spread his ideology; while often clashing with other Black leaders and organizations of the time. A very complicated and complex figure, Garvey was nevertheless an important piece to the foundation of Black nationalism as it is known today.

Amy Jacques Garvey (1895 - 1973) was a pioneering journalist in the 20th century. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Garvey enjoyed a life of privilege wherein she was able to receive a formal education and engage in extracurricular activities. An accomplished scholar, Garvey continued her pursuit of worldly knowledge and financial independence until 1917 when she emigrated to the United States and met Marcus Garvey. Taken in by Garveyism and the societal expectations of being a wife, Garvey often took a backseat in her husband’s political pursuits; however despite this, she gained a reputation as a great orator and took on a lead role at the United Negro Improvement Association following her husband’s imprisonment in 1922. During this time she published four books on her husband and his work including The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Volumes I and II,) The Tragedy of White Injustice and Selections From the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey. After his deportation in 1927, the pair moved back to Jamaica with their children and in the wake of his death in 1940 she continued her efforts to support Black Nationalism with two books of her own, Garvey and Garveyism and Black Power in America: The Power of the Human Spirit.

Amy Jacques Garvey (1895 - 1973) was a pioneering journalist in the 20th century. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Garvey enjoyed a life of privilege wherein she was able to receive a formal education and engage in extracurricular activities. An accomplished scholar, Garvey continued her pursuit of worldly knowledge and financial independence until 1917 when she emigrated to the United States and met Marcus Garvey. Taken in by Garveyism and the societal expectations of being a wife, Garvey often took a backseat in her husband’s political pursuits; however despite this, she gained a reputation as a great orator and took on a lead role at the United Negro Improvement Association following her husband’s imprisonment in 1922. During this time she published four books on her husband and his work including The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Volumes I and II,) The Tragedy of White Injustice and Selections From the Poetic Meditations of Marcus Garvey. After his deportation in 1927, the pair moved back to Jamaica with their children and in the wake of his death in 1940 she continued her efforts to support Black Nationalism with two books of her own, Garvey and Garveyism and Black Power in America: The Power of the Human Spirit.

Read an Excerpt

AN APPEAL TO THE SOUL OF WHITE AMERICA

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. Matt. V. 9.

Surely the soul of liberal, philanthropic, liberty-loving, white America is not dead.

It is true that the glamor-of-materialism has, to a great degree, destroyed the innocence and purity of the national conscience, but, still, beyond our politics, beyond our soulless industrialism, here is a deep feeling of human sympathy that touches the soul of white America, upon which the unfortunate and sorrowful an always depend for sympathy, help and action. 

It is to that feeling that I appeal for four hundred million. Negroes of the world, and fifteen millions of America in particular. 

There is no real white man in America, who does not desire solution of the Negro problem. Each thoughtful citizen has probably his own idea of how the vexed question of races should be settled. To some the Negro could be gotten rid of by whole sale butchery, by lynching, by economic starvation, by a return to slavery, and legalized oppression, while others wild have the problem solved by seeing the race all herded together kept somewhere among themselves, but a few—those in whom they have an interest—should be allowed to live around as the wards of a mistaken philanthropy; yet, none so generous a desire to see the Negro elevated to a standard of real progress and prosperity, welded into a homogeneous while, creating themselves a mighty nation, with proper systems of government civilization and culture, to mark them admissible to the fraternities of nations and races without any disadvantage.

I do not desire to offend the finer feelings and sensibilities those white friends of the race who really believe that they a kind and considerate to us as a people; but I feel it my duty make a real appeal to conscience and not to belief. Conscience is solid, convicting and permanently demonstrative; belief is only a matter of opinion, changeable by superior reasoning. On the belief was that it was hit and proper to hold the Negro as a slave, and in this the bishops, priest and layman agreed Later they changed their belief or opinion, but at all times, the conscience of certain people dictated to them that it was wrong and inhuman to hold human beings as slaves. It is to such a conscience in white America that I am addressing myself.

Negroes are human beings—the peculiar and strange opinion of writers, ethnologists, philosophers, scientists and anthropologists notwithstanding. They have feelings, souls, passions, ambitions, desires, just as other men, hence they must be considered. 

Has white America really considered the Negro in the light of permanent human progress? The answer is NO. 

Men and women of the white race, do you know what is going to happen you do not think and act now? One of two things. You are either going to deceive and keep the Negro in your ma until you have perfectly completed your wonderful American civilization with its progress of art, science, industry and politics and then, jealous of your own success and achievements in the direction, and with the greater jealousy of seeing your ra pare and unmixed, cast him off to die in the whirlpool of e nomic starvation, thus getting rid of another race that was intelligent enough to live, or you simply mean by the largeness of your hearts to assimilate filters million Negroes into the so fraternity of an American race, that will neither be white black! Don't be alarmed! We must prevent both consequences. No real race loving white man wants to destroy the purity his race, and so real Negro conscious of himself, wants to hence there is room for an understanding, and an adjustment. And that is just what we seek. 

Let white and black stop deceiving themselves. Let the white race stop thinking that all black men are dogs and not to be considered as human beings. Let foolish Negro agitators and so-called reformers, encouraged by deceptive or unthinking white associates, stop preaching and advocating the doctrine of “social equality,” meaning thereby the social intermingling of both races, intermarriages, and general social co-relationship. The two-extremes will get us nowhere, other than breeding hate, and encouraging discord, which will eventually end disastrously to the weaker race.

Some Negroes, in the quest of position and honor, have been admitted to the full enjoyment of their constitutional rights. ng. Thus we have some of our men filling high and responsible government positions, others, on their own account, have established themselves in the professions, commerce and industry. This, the casual onlooker, and even the men themselves, will say carries a guarantee and hope of social equality, and permanent racial progress. But this is the mistake. There is no progress of the Negro in America that is permanent, so long as we have with as the monster evil—prejudice.

Prejudice we shall always have between black and white, so long as the latter believes that the former is intruding upon their rights. So long as white laborers believe that black laborers are taking and holding their jobs, so long as white artisans believe that black artisans are performing the work that they should do; so long as white men and women believe that black men and women are filling the positions that they covet; so long as white political leaders and statesmen believe that black politicians and statesmen are seeking the same positions in the nation's government; so long as white men believe that black men want to associate with, and marry white women, then we will ever have prejudice, and not only prejudice, but riots, lynchings, burnings, and God to tell what next will follow!

It is this danger that drives me mad. It must be prevented. We cannot allow white and black to drift along unthinkingly it was toward this great gulf and danger, that is nationally ahead of us. It is because of this that I speak, and now call upon the soul of thereat white America to help. 

It is no use putting off. The work must be done, and it must be started now. 

Some people have misunderstood me. Some don't want to understand me. But I must explain myself for the good of the world and humanity.

Those of the Negro race who preach social equality, and what are working for an American race that will, in complexion, be neither white nor black, have tried to misinterpret me to the white public, and create prejudice against my work. The white public, not stopping to analyze and question the motive behind criticisms and attacks, aimed against new leaders and their movements, condemn without even giving a chance to the criticized, to be heard. Those of my own race who oppose me because refuse to endorse their program of social arrogance and social equality, gloat over the fact that by their misrepresentation and underhand methods, they were able to have me convicted and imprisoned for crime which they calculate will so discredit me as to destroy the movement that I represent, in opposition to their program of a new American race; but we will not now consider the opposition to a program or a movement, but state the facts as they are, and let deep souled white America pass its own judgment.

In another one hundred years white America will have double its population; in another two hundred years it will have treble itself. The keen student must realize that the centuries ahead will bring us an over-crowded country: opportunities, as the population grows larger, will be fewer; the competition for bread between the people of their own class will become keener, and so much more so will there be no room for two competitive races, the one strong, and the other weak. To imagine Negroes as district attorneys, judges, senators, congressmen assemblymen, aldermen, government clerks and officials, artisan and laborers at work, while millions of white men starve, is to have before you the bloody picture of wholesale mob violence that I fear, and against which I am working.

No preaching, no praying, no presidential edict will control the passion of hungry unreasoning men of prejudice when the hour comes. It will not come. I pray, in our generation, but it is of the future that I think and for which I work. 

A generation of ambitious Negro men and women, out from the best colleges, universities and institutions, capable of filling to their own the highest and best positions in the nation, in industry, commerce, society and politics! Can you keep them back? If you so they will agitate and throw your constitution in your faces. Can you stand before civilization and deny the truth of your constitution? What are you going to do then? You who are just will open the door of opportunity and say to all and sundry, “Enter in.” But, ladies and gentlemen, what about the mob, that starving crowd of your own race? Will they stand by, suffer and starve, and allow an opposite, competitive race to prosper in the midst of their distress? If you can conjure these things up in your mind, then you have the vision of the race problem of the future of America.

There is but one solution, and that is to provide an outlet for Negro energy, ambition, and passion, away from the attractions of white opportunity and surround the race with opportunities of its own. If this is not done, and if the foundation for same is not laid now, then the consequence will be sorrowful for the weaker race, and disgraceful to our ideals of justice, and shocking to our civilization.

The Negro must have a country and nation of his own. If you laugh at the idea, then you are selfish and wicked, for you and your children do not intend that the Negro shall discommode you in yours. If you do not want him to have a country and a nation of his own; if you do not intend to give him equal opportunities in yours, then it is plain to see that you mean that he must die, even as the Indian, to make room for your generations. 

Why should the Negro die? Has he not served America and the world? Has he not borne the burden of civilization in this Western world for three hundred years? Has he not contributed of is best to America? Surely all this stands to his credit. But there will not be enough room and the one answer is “find a place.” We have found a place: it is Africa, and as black men for three centuries have helped white men build America, surely generous and grateful white men will help black men build Africa.

And why shouldn’t Africa and America travel down the ages as protectors of human rights and guardians of democracy? Why shouldn’t black men help white men secure and establish universal peace? We can only have peace when we are just to all mankind; and for that peace, and for the reign of universal love, I now appeal to the soul of white America. Let the Negroes have a government of their own. Don’t encourage them to believe that they will become social equals and leaders of the whites in America, without first on their own account proving to the world that they are capable of evolving a civilization of their own. The white race can best help the Negro by telling him the truth and not by flattering him into believing he is as good as any white man without first proving the racial, national, constructive metal of which he is made.

Stop flattering the Negro about social equality, and tell him to go to work and build for himself. Help him in the direction of doing for himself. Help him in the direction of doing for himself, and let him know that self-progress brings its own reward.

I appeal to the considerate and thoughtful conscience of white America not to condemn the cry of the Universal Negro Improvement Association for a nation in Africa for Negroes, but to give us chance to explain ourselves to the world. White America is too big and when informed and touched, too liberal, to turn down the cry the awakened Negro for "a place in the sun."

Table of Contents

A Word on The Philosophies of Marcus Garvey

VOLUME I
Preface

Part I
Epigrams

Part II
Propaganda
Slavery
Force
Education
Miscegenation
Prejudice
Radicalism
Government
Evolution & the Result
Poverty
Power
Universal Suspicion
Dissertation on Man
Race Assimilation
Christianity
The Function of Man
Traitors

Part III
Present Day Civilization
Divine Apportionment of Earth
Universal Unrest in 1922
World Disarmament
Cause of Wars
World Readjustment
The Fall of Governments
Great Ideals Know No Nationality
Purpose of Creation
Purity of Race
Man know Thyself
A Solution for World Peace in 1922
God as a War Lord
The Image of God

Part IV
The Slave Trade
Negroes’ Status Under Alien Governments
The Negro as an Industrial Makeshift
Lack of Cooperation in the Negro Race
White man’s Solution for the Negro Problem in America
The True Solution of the Negro Problem
White Propaganda about Africa
The Three Stages of the Negro in Contact with the White Man
Booker T. Washington’s Program
Belief that Race Problem will Adjust Itself a Fallacy
Examples of white Christian Control of Africa
The Thought behind their deeds
Similarity of Persecution
Shall the Negro be exterminated?
Africa for the Africans
The Future As I see it

Part V
Emancipation Speech
Christmas Message
Easter Sermon
Convention Speech
Statement on arrest

VOLUME II
Preface

Part I: An Appeal to White America
An Appeal to White America
Racial Reforms and Reformers
The Crime of Injustice
World Materialism
Who and What Is a Negro
An Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race
Christ, the First Great Reformer
The Negro’s Place in World Reorganization
Aims and Objects of Movement, etc.
Will Negroes Succumb to the White Man’s Plan, etc.
An Analysis of Warren G. Harding
An Expose of the Caste System Among Negroes
Africa’s Wealth
The Negro, Communism and His Friend
Capitalism and the State
Governing the Ideal State
The “Colored” of Negro Press
What We Believe
History of the Negro
The Internal Prejudices of Negroes
A Tribute to the Late Sir Isaiah Morter
A Speech on the Principles of U.N.I.A
A Speech Delivered at Carnegie Hall
A Speech on Disarmament Conference, Telegram Sent and Reply
A Speech Delivered at Madison Square Garden
The Negroes Greatest Enemy
Declaration of Rights of the Negroes of the World

Part II: United States of America vs. Marcus Garvey
Was Justice Defeated?
Brief for Plaintiff-in-Error
Testimony of Mailing Clerk
Decision of Circuit Court of Appeals
Stripping the Effect to Show Crime
Last Speech Before Incarceration in Tombs Prison
Address to Jury at Close of Trial
Statement to the Press on Release From the Tombs Prison
First Speech After Release From the Tombs Prison
First Message From Atlanta Prison
Using the Government, etc., to Defeat Justice
Application for Pardon and Reply
A Strange Comparison
Salaries to Officers of U.N.I.A & Oaths They Took
A Race That Steals From and Double Crosses Itself
Eight Negroes vs. Marcus Garvey
W.E.B. Dubois—A Hater of Dark People
Why I Have Not Spoken in Chicago
A Message From Atlanta, August, 1925
Statement of Conviction
How Alleged Crimes Are Disposed Of
The Ideal of Two Races
An Answer to the Appeal (Speech by Mr. John Powell)

Part III
The Plot
Scene Africa
Scene Liberia, W. Africa, etc.
Letter From Com. Garcia to Pres. King and Reply
Liberian Committees, Suggestions, etc.
Petition to Liberian Senate
Robbing the Negro’s Values
Scene Aboard Ship “Paris”
Eli Garcia’s Confidential Report
Scene League of Nations
Scene Harlem
The Betrayal of a Struggling Race