Five (More) Questions With Malachi

GP: Malachi, it's been 14 years since I last interviewed you  How has your work changed since that interview?

Malachi: A lot has changed in my life and career since 2006. I would like to think that I am now a more mature writer and student of life. I'm no longer shackled by the constructs of a 9 to 5 in a system that always forced me to stand firm and uphold my principles. I am my own man. I don't need to beg, bow, or borrow. I am totally liberated.

I have also grown in my writing. My pen is deliberate and concise. Traveling the world and experiencing different cultures has also contributed enormously to my world view and growth. I am also writing more prolifically. I have written some short stories, finished one work on the turbulent era in Jamaica, Blood Fi Blood, Fire Fi Fire: I Was There Too, almost completed another piece on my journey in the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and I’m working on other projects.

The launch of my annual Jamaican Poets Schools Nomadic Tour has been great. Taking poetry into schools and communities and see students, young poets, and academics come alive in real-time.

Finally, I’m hosting a radio show, Strictly Roots dub poetry, and more on WZOP 92.7 and WZPP 96.1 FM. It has always been a dream of mine to take poetry to the people via the airways. It is working magic. Other radio personalities are now playing poetry as part of the shows.

 

GP: On the title track, "Ticked Off," you've expanded the meaning of "I Can't Breathe." Why do you think George Floyd's death has sparked such a worldwide outrage?

Malachi: What the world witnessed was brutal, horrific, and downright disgusting. It is like the officer was saying, "I got this; stand back, this neck is mine." 

It was my neck. It was my people's neck. For 400 hundred years, we have been saying that this is happening, but the truth was always covered up while we suffered and bled and died. In a world with so many intuitions of justice and Christianity, it's perfectly normal to lynch a black man because we are always wrong.

GP: In a collection with so many hard-hitting poems about social justice, I was surprised by the inclusion of "Blacker de Berry." Why did you include this poem in this collection?

Malachi: I'm proud of how my beautiful black mothers and sisters, queens, and empresses, have come into their own. So, this ties into the contemporary narrative. I love to uplift and elevate them, hence the inclusion. I took into consideration too that the original recording could have technically been better. Hopeton Lindo told me recently that it was his favorite poem, and then Taurus Alphonso said I should redo it and change the arrangements.

GP: I've also noticed that you have branched out to tackle the theme of mental health on the track, "In my Head." Why did you think it was necessary to deal with this issue?

Malachi: The song, “Say My Name” by Novel-t kept calling me. I met a young man, Haile Clacken, some years ago at the Talking Tree Poetry Festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. I started a conversation with a librarian, and this young man walked over. She introduced him to me, and we had a nice conversation. He told me he liked my poems. Less than a year later, the librarian sent me a message on What's App with the photo of Haile and asked me if I remembered him. I replied, yes, of course. She responded he was shot and killed.

Well, actually, he was murdered. Haile, a trained teacher, attended college overseas, suffered from mental illness. On the day he was murdered, he set out on foot to visit his only child and suffered a mental lapse along the way.

Haile climbed on top of an armored car, and they drove off with him on top. The driver tried to dislodge him by driving aggressively. To avoid falling off Haile clung to the vehicle's wiper. When the vehicle stopped, Haile climbed down. There was no struggle with the guard. He just blasted him. Many people witnessed the crime. The guard was charged for murder, and in typical Jamaican justice fashion, four years later, the case still hasn’t been tried.

My good friend, Jean Binta Breeze, also suffers from mental illness and has written about it in her poetry. It is a real issue that needs our collective attention. There is also a new branch of study/philosophy that deals with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade post-traumatic syndrome. The way we kill each other too on our streets is a manifestation of this mental illness.

GP: Bob Dylan seems to be an unlikely candidate for your homage in "Beat Down Zion's Door." Why did you choose that song by Bob Dylan?

 

Malachi: I have always been fascinated by this song, but instead of just “knocking,” I am convinced that we need to beat down some constructs that are tied to and justified by religion(s). Many have become prisoners to holy books, and in the process, truths, rights, and justice are trampled.

 Dylan is polite. I am tired, frustrated, angry, uncompromising. I am demanding answers. I want them now. I have no use for propaganda. The way the UN and other organizations that are here to protect the earth's sufferers have manipulated facts, leaves a lot to be desired. So, I want to have a chat with the Father and seek out his reasoning, so I barged in.

 

 

 

About Malachi

 

Malachi Smith is an accomplished Jamaican writer of poetry and plays, and an actor, performing in his own plays and other productions in live theatre and on radio and television. He is a fellow of the University of Miami’s Michener Caribbean Writer’s Institute where he studied poetry under Lorna Goodison and play writing under Fred D’Aguilar.

He was one of the readers at the first Talking Trees in May 2011, and appeared again at the second Talking Trees in 2012, and returns to the Talking Trees stage on May 27, 2017. Malachi's earlier appearances include being the headliner in 2004 at the International Dub-Poetry Festival in Toronto and in 2008 at the Love-In Festival in Miami with Richie Heavens and other greats. He also made three appearances in New York, and toured St. Kitts and Nevis in the summer of 2000 to rave reviews. More recent appearances include: 2012 - International Poetry Festival of Colombia, Medellin, Colombia; 2014 – International Poetry Festival of Nicaragua; 2015 – International Poetry Festival of Taiwan; 2016 – Poetry Africa, Durban, South Africa; 2017 – Polokwane Literary Fair, Limpopo, South Africa - Hon. Louise Bennett-Coverley Reading Festival, Broward Community College; and 501 Café, New York. 2018 – Honduras International Poetry Festival, University of the West Indies, Bookophilia and other locations in Jamaica; 2019 – Festival Contemporanea San Cristobal, Mexico, La Guagua Poetry Festival, Lowell, Massachusetts; 2020 – Toured Jamaica with Judith Falloon-Reid’s, An Awe Inspiring Journey – Down in Antarctica (featured on the team song with Falloon-Reid).

 

His awards include the 2016 Akamedia Award in the Reggae Category for his poem How Yuh Mek Har and the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s (JCDC) 4^th Place Choice Writer (gold and bronze medals) 2018; Best Adult Poet in 2017 and 2014, following earlier JCDC awards: 2009 most outstanding writer in the poetry and 2006 four Literary Awards for poetry and playwriting. Also, in 2006 he won the Joe Higgs Music Award for dub poet of the year, and was nominated for the dub poet of the year in the Reggaesoca Awards, and for the poet of the year in the Martin’s International Music Awards. He has been a nominee in the IRAWMA Award for Best Poet (2012 -2016). Malachi was one of the 50 Jamaicans living in the USA, who were special honored for their contribution to Jamaica on Jamaica’s 50 year of independence.

Launched Jamaican Poets School Nomadic Poetry Tour in 2017. Coordinates the annual, Louise Bennett-Coverley Writer’s Clinic. Featured on the 2020 Yasus Afari produced album, Dub Poetry Ina Yu Face.

The documentary film, Dub Poetry: the life and work of Malachi Smith premiered in 2007. 

Malachi’s CDs include Hail to Jamaica, released in 2011; Scream, released in 2014; and his latest 2017 release, Wiseman. He is awaiting publication of two new poetry collections, The Gathering and Stony Gut, and is currently writing a series of short stories.

An alumnus of Florida International University (M.S.C.J. & B.Sc.), Miami-Dade College (AA) and Jamaica School of Drama, Malachi was one of the founding members of Poets in Unity, a critically acclaimed ensemble that brought dub-poetry to the forefront of reggae music in the late 1970s, and carried it forward for a decade.

In addition to being a poet, Malachi served in the police force in Jamaica and in Florida, retiring from the latter in 2016. He was a freelance writer for the Jamaica Daily Gleaner (Overseas Edition), a board member of the Jamaica Ex-police Association of South Florida, as well as the Caribbean Education Foundation; and the Honorable Louise Bennett-Coverley Heritage Council. Malachi is married to his childhood sweetheart Marcia and has two sons Maurice and Marlon.

 

 

Interview With Chris Daley: "My Name is Marcus"

Marcus Garvey and Intergenerational Trauma

 

 

 

For the past three months, Dr. Marva McClean has been leading a roundtable of writers, scholars, and artists, "Strong in Broken Places," in a discussion of solutions to the effects of intergenerational trauma in Jamaica and the Pan-African community. Writers such as Marcus Woolombi Waters have shared their recovery journey through immersion in indigenous culture, particularly in Aboriginal Australia, and Dr. Opal Palmer Adisa has explored effects on women in the African Diaspora. Using the RIA method (Recognizing, Identifying, and Addressing) pioneered by Dr. Mary Poffenroth, and the work of Marcus Garvey, I have advocated for the teachings of Marcus Garvey to be incorporated in all levels of Jamaica’s educational system and to restore Garvey’s heroic memory within the Pan-African community.

Intergenerational Trauma

According to scholars such as Dr. Vivian M. Rakoff, one of the first psychologists to diagnose intergenerational trauma in the children of Holocaust victims, and Brent Bezo, who followed up with the study of fifteen Ukrainian families that had survived Joseph Stalin‘s pogrom of mass starvation, intergenerational trauma is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in which first victims passed their trauma to their children through a series of problematic behaviors[1]. As Bezo notes, “Each generation seemed to kind of learn from the previous one, with survivors telling children, ‘Don’t trust others, don’t trust the world.[2]” These behaviors, rooted in fear of a reoccurrence of the initial trauma, if left unchecked, are often revealed in symptoms such as learned helplessness, alcoholism, drug addiction, self-harm, and depression.

Fearology and the RIA Method

One of the most exciting developments in psychology has been in Fearology, a “transdisciplinary study of the interrelationship between fear and the human experience.[3]” The conceptual framework developed by R. Michael Fisher has been advanced by Dr. Mary Poffenroth, who, in a recent interview, outlined methods she has used to “teach people about how to create strategies around fear”: “The first step is just recognizing what's going on. And then the second step would be identifying it, kind of like ‘name it to claim it. And then the A is going to be to address. What kind of strategies do you need to manage outcomes for this?[4]”

Now, fear is not necessarily a bad thing. Some have called fear a gift because it is survival-based[5]. However, the instinctive caution in a dangerous situation can become a liability when the threat is no longer present.

Marcus Garvey, who was never a fearful man, witnessed firsthand the effects of fear on his family and the debilitating effects that it had on them and worked hard to remove fear-based behaviors from his life. As he stated in Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, “FEAR is a state of nervousness fit for children and not men.[6]”

By asserting his manhood and humanity, Garvey had taken the first step toward reclaiming his psychic wholeness and healing the psychological wounds that had been passed down to him from his family, especially his overbearing father. Throughout Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Garvey documented the individual affirmations that guided his life and his strategies for sharing his insights with his community.

Recognizing

Although Garvey did not possess the critical vocabulary to classify intergenerational trauma's effects, he was highly adept at recognizing patterns of behavior. Through his extensive reading of Pan-Africans such as Edward Wilmot Blyden, his travels through the Caribbean, South America, Europe, and extensive research at the British Museum, Garvey grounded himself in pre-colonial African history. As David Van Leeuwen explains, "He hammered home the idea of racial pride by celebrating the African past and encouraging African Americans to be proud of their heritage and proud of the way they looked.[7]"

Garvey discovered that one of the most potent methods of ensuring colonial power's longevity was to erase the heroic memory of the enslaved or, as Steven Biko would later state, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.[8]” By a combination of education, enticements, and coercion, the enslaved, as a matter of survival, accepted the innate superiority of their masters. In some cases, the acceptance resembled Stockholm Syndrome. The removal of this inferiority complex, which Frantz Fanon would later explore in The Wretched of the Earth and advocate a model for community psychology, was at the center of Garvey’s message of pride to his community: “Be as proud of your race today as our fathers were in the days of yore. We have a beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.[9]”

Identifying

While he was growing up, Garvey witnessed firsthand the different responses to colonialism in his father, “My father was a man of brilliant intellect and dashing courage. He was unafraid of consequences. He was severe, firm, determined, bold and strong, refusing to yield even to superior forces if he believed he was right[10],” and his mother, “My mother was a sober and conscientious Christian, too soft and good for the time in which she lived.[11]” By the time he was in his late 20s, he had already documented many of the debilitating behaviors within the Jamaican community, and in another speech would lament " Go into the country parts of Jamaica and you will see there villainy and vice of the worst kind, immorality, obeah and all kinds of dirty things[…] Kingston and its environs are so infested with the uncouth and vulgar of our people that we of the cultured class feel positively ashamed to move about.[12]”

Garvey was not content with his triumphs and disavowed personal advancement in favor of betraying his people's interests:

I had to decide whether to please my friends and be one of the "black-whites" of Jamaica, and be reasonably prosperous, or come out openly, and defend and help improve and protect the integrity of the black millions, and suffer. I decided to do the latter, hence my offense against "colored-black-white" society in the colonies and America[13].

Garvey also rejected W.E.B. DuBois’s strategy of redemption by a “Talented Tenth” for Garvey wanted to liberate the entire Black community from the many ills, which he believed could be reversed,  by restoring a sense of pride to his people by changing how they thought about themselves. As Amy Jacques Garvey would explain, “He taught his people to dream big again.[14]”

Addressing

Garvey was a man of action. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who were content to recognize and identify problems within the Pan-African community, Garvey devised strategies to overcome slavery and racism's pernicious effects.

After reading Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery on his journey from England to Jamaica, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), whose goals, in part were as follows:

 To establish a Universal Confraternity among the race; to promote the spirit of pride and love; to reclaim the fallen; to administer to and assist the needy; to promote a conscientious Spiritual worship among the native tribes of Africa; to establish Universities, Colleges, Academies and Schools for the racial education and culture of the people; to work for better conditions among Negroes everywhere.[15]

To put his words into action, Garvey founded the Black Star Line “to facilitate the transportation of goods and eventually African Americans throughout the African global economy.[16]” He also established the Negro Factories Corporation, which at its height “provided jobs by its numerous enterprises, including a chain of grocery stores and restaurants, steam laundry, tailor shop, dressmaking shop, millinery store (clothing, fashion, hats, accessories, etc.), publishing house and doll factory.[17]”

In the forming of the UNIA, the Negro Factories Corporation, and the Black Star Line, Garvey sought to change behaviors that his elders had adopted during slavery to protect future generations from harm and which many of his contemporaries had accepted.  As he often reminded his readers, “Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition, because man is but your companion, your equal; man is your brother; he is not your lord; he is not your sovereign master[18].” Garvey was determined to free himself and his people from the “state of nervousness” that plagued his community and restored their confidence, pride, and purpose. Although slavery had ended approximately fifty years before Garvey's birth, many of his compatriots in Jamaica and the Pan-African community were continuing self-defeating practices that undermined their agency. Garvey would have none of it.

Garvey questioned the status quo and the individuals who were willing to betray the Pan African community's interests for narrow material interests, yet he was not naïve. He realized that anyone who tried to change the status quo would either be murdered by the colonizers or brought down by other tribe members out of a misguided attempt to protect the community.

This combination of enemies without and within that led to Garvey’s conviction on charges of mail fraud regarding the Black Star Line, which he had hoped to be a symbol for the aspirations of Black people.

On June 21, 1923, when Garvey was incarcerated in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, the federal government began the UNIA's systematic dismantling and the erasure Garvey's heroic efforts from the community.

Where are we now?

After he died in England in 1940, Garvey and the UNIA slowly faded from the Pan African community's collective memory. Had it not been for Rastafari's courage to preserve his name, many activists in my generation would not have known about Marcus Garvey. However, singer-songwriters writers such as Burning Spear, Johnny Clark, Fred Locks, and Bob Marley have kept Garvey's teachings alive.

However, a recording of three minutes and thirty seconds, though admirable, is only a starting point and should never be a substitute for the necessary soul work to overcome the psychological wounds of slavery, colonialism, and racism, which have deep roots in the culture of the Pan African community. In other words, many within the Pan-African community in Garvey's time and the present are continuing some of the holdovers from slavery and colonialism even though many of the threats are no longer present. This work has been done individually by many of our heroes, thought leaders, and role models, but we haven't addressed nor acknowledged on a community level, the effects of intergenerational trauma.

In Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Garvey proposed that education was the most effective method for the redemption of the Pan African community: “EDUCATION is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their particular civilization, and the advancement and glory of their own race.[19]”

Unfortunately, since Independence, successive Jamaican governments have failed to incorporate Garvey's teachings into Jamaica's educational system and have continued the colonizers' practices by omission or commission.

What Can We Do?

We have a choice. We can continue with the status quo or attempt to overcome the effects of intergenerational trauma. And make no mistake; there is no way around these issues; they have to be overcome.

 On an individual level, we can overcome the effects by attending workshops and reading self-help books, unlearning harmful behaviors, and putting into practice ideas that restore our sense of agency on a personal level. But our community will remain unchanged unless we confront the lies about our diminishment collectively. As Fanon advocated and as Dr. Freddy Hickling [20]practiced in Jamaica, we can overcome our collective trauma by examining every aspect of our culture and institutionalizing our collective victories so the next generation will have a framework to critique and forge their own path to freedom. As Coretta Scott King admonished, “Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.[21]”

Marcus Garvey outlined in Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey how he overcame intergenerational trauma and the methods he used to erase its effects within the Pan-African community. But only a few within the Pan African community know about Garvey’s teachings and his impact on African leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, and Nelson Mandela[22].

To this end, rather than “curse the darkness," I have decided to “light a candle” in the form of a graphic novel, ‘My Name is Marcus,” which is intended for younger readers between the ages of eight and twelve.

Although I began the process of inscribing Garvey's name and memory in one of my most anthologized short stories, "My Brother's Keeper," and condensed the lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Marcus Garvey in another children’s book, Marcus and Amazons, “My Name is Marcus," has been my first attempt to write a biography which includes many of Garvey‘s teachings. I chose to write a graphic novel to engage the imaginations of young readers through pictures and text.  I am hoping that “My Name is Marcus” like the film Black Panther, can restore the heroic memory within the African Diaspora, so future generations can continue the work that Marcus Garvey proclaimed in 1937, and which Bob Marley repeated in “Redemption Song,” “We must emancipate ourselves the mental slavery…none but ourselves can free our minds.[23]”

 

 

Endnotes

---

[1] “Transgenerational Trauma,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, August 25, 2020), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma.

[2] Tori DeAngelis, “The Legacy of Trauma,” Monitor on Psychology (American Psychological Association, February 2019), https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/02/legacy-trauma.html.

[3] Fisher, R. M. “A Research Agenda to Legitimate the Study of 'Fear':Beginning Fearology.” In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2011. https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/110049/DIFS-2 Yellow Paper.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

[4] Alie Ward, “Fearology (FEAR) Pt. 1 with Mary Poffenroth,” alie ward (alie ward, May 1, 2018), https://www.alieward.com/ologies/fearology-pt-1.

[5] Robert L. Leahy, “The Gift of Fear,” Psychology Today (Sussex Publishers, May 2, 2016), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-files/201605/the-gift-fear.

[6] Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Or, Africa for the Africans Majority Press, 1986, 3.

[7] David Van Leeuwen, “ Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, The Twentieth Century, Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center, accessed September 4, 2020, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/garvey.htm.

[8] “Yes, 'Mind of Oppressed' Quote by South Africa's Steve Biko,” Africa Check, accessed September 4, 2020, https://africacheck.org/fbcheck/yes-mind-of-oppressed-quote-by-south-africas-steve-biko/.

[9] Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Or, Africa for the Africans Majority Press, 1986, 7

[10] Ibid.,123

[11] Ibid.,123

[12] Colin Grant, Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey. London: Jonathan Cape.

[13] Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Or, Africa for the Africans Majority Press, 1986, 3

[14] Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey and Garveyism, Collier Books, 1970, x.

[15] Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Or, Africa for the Africans Majority Press, 1986,

[16] “Black Star Line,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, June 29, 2020), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Star_Line.

[17] “Negro Factories Corporation,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, October 24, 2019), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_Factories_Corporation.

[18] Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Or, Africa for the Africans Majority Press, 1986, 78

[19] Ibid., 17.

[20] Jamaica Observer Limited, “Farewell Dr Freddie Hickling, Psychiatrist to the People,” Jamaica Observer, May 10, 2020, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/Farewell_Dr_Freddie_Hickling,_psychiatrist_to_the_people?profile=1100.

[21] Contributors to Wikimedia projects, “American Author, Activist, and Civil Rights Leader; Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1927-2006),” Wikiquote (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., August 16, 2020), https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King.

[22] “Marcus Garvey: 80 Years On... And The Significance Of August In The Pan-Africanist Calendar,” Black History Month 2020, August 22, 2020, https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/african-history/marcus-garvey-80-years-on-and-the-significance-of-august-in-the-pan-africanist-calendar/.

[23] “Redemption Song,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, August 29, 2020), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_Song.

 

Photograph: Luiz Henrique Evaristo

***

 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lions-and-untold-stories#/

 

 

 

Marcus Garvey Lecture: "Garvey as Literary Muse"

 

Thank you, Liberty Hall for publishing my 2017 Marcus Garvey Lecture, “Garvey as Literary Muse,” a combination of Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth,” Garvey’s biography, and poems from my unpublished manuscript, “Letter from Marcus Garvey.”

 

It was a pleasure to make my pilgrimage to Liberty Hall and the gracious welcome that was extended by Herbert Miller, Shani Roper-Edwards. Faith M. Anderson, and the Liberty Hall team.

Blessed Love.

***

Blue Banyan Books has accepted my graphic novel, "My Name is Marcus" for publication, and they are  currently managing a crowdfunding campaign to defray the publication costs.

For more details, please follow this link:

https://igg.me/at/untoldstories/x/625956#/

I hope that you can join us on this journey. If you can donate, please do. If you can’t, tell a friend or two … or ten. Share our story on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook using the #lionsanduntoldstories.

You can also send out emails and any other means you choose to communicate. Every share counts just as much as every dollar counts. 

A Word from the Publisher of "My Name is Marcus"

Crowdfunding "My Name is Marcus"

 

 

Ecstatic can’t describe how I feel right now. I am so proud to join Blue Banyan Books, as part of their series to educate and delight our children, in the publication of two graphic novels: “My Name is Marcus - the life of Marcus Garvey,” which I have written, and “My Name is Mary - the life of Mary Seacole.”

In the spirit of Marcus Garvey’s vision of self-reliance and entrepreneurship, I’d like to invite you to participate in the crowdfunding of these two books.

I hope that you can join us on this journey. If you can donate, please do.
If you can’t, tell a friend or two … or ten. Share our story on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook using the #lionsanduntoldstories but you can also send out emails and any other means you choose to communicate. Every share counts just as much as every dollar counts.

Crowdfunding:  https://bit.ly/2YumAWP

YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2QpNue1


#lionsanduntoldstories #blackvoicesmatter
#marcusgarvey
#blackhistorymatters
#emancipateyourselffrommentalslavery
#bobmarley
#blackvoices
#BLM

Thank you, my friends

Sheltering in Place? A Few Books About Marcus Garvey

Inspired by the daily series, “A Black History Lesson” by Dr. Marvin Dunn. I’ve decided to compile a list of books about Marcus Garvey. This is by no means a definitive list, but merely a primer for parents who want to teach their children about Marcus Garvey while we are sheltering in place or for anyone who is interested in the work of Marcus Garvey, but doesn’t know where to begin.

Most of the books are available on Amazon and if they’re not, I've included a link so you can download the book.

Happy reading!

Kindergarten

Marcus Teaches Us by Eleanor Wint

A Man Called Garvey: The Life and Times of the Great Leader by Paloma Mohamed.

Middle School

Marcus Garvey by Suzanne Frances-Brown and Jean Jacques Vaysierres

Selected Writing and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey and Bob Blaisdale

The Garveyite Workbook by Kamau Mahakoe

High School

Marcus Garvey, Hero by Tony Martin

Marcus Garvey (Caribbean Biography Series) by Rupert Lewis

A Rastafari View of Marcus Mosiah Garvey: Patriarch, Prophet, Philosopher by I. Jabulani Tafari

College

Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey by Colin Grant

 

Marcus Garvey: Life and Lessons: A Centennial Companion to the Marcus Garvey and Universal 

 

Negro Improvement Association Papers by Marcus Garvey and Robert Abraham Hill

 

Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association by Tony Martin

 

Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa by John Henrik Clarke and Amy Jacques Garvey

 

Garvey and Garveyism by Amy Jacques Garvey

 

Amy Ashwood Garvey by Tony Martin

 

Garvey: His Work and Impact by Rupert Lewis

 

The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey by Ula Yvette Taylor

 

Literary Garveyism: Garvey Black Arts and the Harlem Renaissance by Tony Martin

 

Emancipated from Mental Slavery: Selected Sayings of Marcus Garvey edited by Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney by Horace Campbell

The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey

 

Fiction

Louisiana by Erna Brodber

The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim by Marcia Douglas

Garvey’s Ghost by Geoffrey Philp

Amazon List: Books About Marcus Garvey

https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AETWOYYBRPD5UBEE2MEMLAUOHERQ/83KK84MOLNJX?type=explore&ref=idea_cp_vl_ov_dt

For more information on Marcus Garvey, you can also visit these sites:

https://liberty-hall-the-legacy-of-marcus-garvey.business.site/

https://jamaicans.com/7-things-you-didnt-know-about-marcus-garvey/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/garvey-biography/

https://www.amistadresource.org/plantation_to_ghetto/marcus_garvey.html