Marcus Garvey, “The True Solution of the Negro Problem,” 1922.
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I am also skeptical about the potential for long-term progress and equality for Black people foodle in the Western Hemisphere.
Historical Context: Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica in 1887. After touring around Central and South America, Garvey moved to NYC in 1916.
There, he opened a chapter of his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He also started a newspaper, Negro World, and a shipping company, Black Star Line. By the early 1920s, the group had 700 branches across 38 states. Garvey claimed six million members, although he may have exaggerated.
In 1922, after years of FBI monitoring, Garvey was arrested and sentenced for 5 years for the crime of “mail fraud,” [using mail to unfairly trick money from others]. In 1927, he was deported to Jamaica.
We cannot allow a continuation of these crimes against our race. As four hundred million men, women and children, we are determined to solve our own problem, by taking back our Motherland Africa from the hands of exploiters. We will create there a government, a nation of our own, strong enough to lend protection to the members of our race scattered all over the world, and to compel the respect of the nations and races of the earth.
Who are “we”? Who are the “exploiters”?
Do they lynch Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans or Japanese? No. And Why? Because these people are represented by great governments, mighty nations and empires, strongly organized…. Until the Negro reaches this point of national independence, all he does as a race will count for nothing, because the prejudice that will stand out against him even with his ballot [for voting] in his hand, with his industrial progress to show, will be of such an overwhelming nature as to encourage mob violence and mob rule. He will suffer from this violence and he will not be able to stop it with his industrial wealth and with his ballot.
If the Negro were to live in this Western Hemisphere for another five hundred years he would still be outnumbered by other races who are prejudiced against him. He cannot resort to the government for protection. The government will always be in the hands of the people who are prejudiced against him. The ballot and industrial progress will not help him when he is lynched, burned, jim-crowed and segregated. The future of the Negro therefore, outside of Africa, spells ruin and disaster.
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