Garvey (2007)

Before Africa Unite, there was Garvey (August 28, 2007)

By Dream Hampton / BobMarley.com

Before Bob Marley became Jamaica's best-loved son and voice for Pan-African unity, there was Jamaican national hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey.
Born August 17, 1887 in St. Ann Parish to middle income parents, Garvey was organizing his fellow workers by the time he was 18. Like many early twentieth century Jamaican men, Garvey left his beloved island early and often, working on fruit and sugar plantations in Costa Rica, Panama and Colon. In search of work, Garvey joined his sister in London the summer of 1915. Inspired by his travels and convinced workers of African decent the world over were being discriminated against, he founded the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association), the first Pan-African organization.

Garvey's dream of a Black Nation that would unite Africans on the continent with those spread throughout the Diaspora by slavery remains an important inspiration to the Rastafarian movement, including Bob Marley, who penned classic song, "Africa Unite." Garvey is credited for the red, black and green flag that symbolizes a Black Nation. His war cry, "Up you mighty people," lays the groundwork for Marley's most revolutionary thinking, his dreams of unity and self-sufficiency inform Marley's best writing, and his ideals form the foundation for Rita Marley's annual Africa Unite conference.

After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, an African-American leader who began Tuskegee Institute, Garvey sailed from England to the United States in 1916 to spread his message of African unity and self-determination. The organization grew rapidly and his weekly newspaper, Negro World began circulating a million copies across America. By 1919, Garvey's plan to begin a shipping business was realized with the establishment of The Black Star Line, a direct challenge to the White Star Line, the British shipping company whose most famous ship was the Titanic. The ship the UNIA purchased was christened S.S. Frederick Douglas after the 19th century abolitionist and orator. Money was raised in small donations, often nickels and dimes, donated by Negro World readers and UNIA supporters. The Black Star Line is often erroneously described as a boat that would return recently freed slaves "back to Africa." In fact, it was the beginning of the UNIA's entrepreneurship as there were plans to purchase additional ships and compete in the billion dollar fruit and sugar trade. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who, some fifty years later, would create COINTELPRO to disarm the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, led an investigation to have Garvey convicted of mail fraud and deported. Hence, Marley's lyrics in "So Much Things to Say:" "…they sold Marcus Garvey's rights…"

Garvey died June 10, 1940, at age 53, but his promise to posthumously continue the struggle for Pan-Africanism has proved prescient prescient ("Look for me in the whirlwind…I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have dies in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life."). His philosophy is the basis for thinkers as varied as Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammed and Caribbean intellectual CLR James and continues to inspire everyone from rapper Mos Def to actor Danny Glover. The red, black and green flag he created is one color off from the adopted 19th century Ethiopian flag that has become synonymous with Rastafarians, but the colors carry the same meaning: the red is for the blood of the people, the green for the land, the black for Africa's children.

In 1964 Jamaica proclaimed Marcus Garvey its first national hero.