Two Giants. One Wound. The Garvey–Du Bois Argument We Are Still Living.

 

In 1916, Marcus Garvey walked into the NAACP office to meet W.E.B. Du Bois. What he found there — a staff so light-skinned he could not tell it from a white office — crystallized a rivalry that has never really ended.

Du Bois believed the talented tenth would lift the race from within the existing system. Garvey believed that was color caste wearing the language of progress. Then Du Bois called Garvey "ugly" in print. Garvey's response named exactly what that word revealed about where Du Bois's standard of beauty came from.

That single exchange contains the entire colorism debate. And it is still the argument Black communities are having today — in professional spaces, in politics, in who gets built up and who gets written off.

I wrote the full piece over at The Garvey Classroom. Four verified quotes from The Philosophy and Opinions. The whole argument, tight and direct.

Read it here: https://thegarveyclassroom.com/black-history-month/garvey-dubois-rivalry-colorism/

12th Annual Marcus Mosiah Garvey Lecture

 

On Tuesday, August 17, 2021 Liberty Hall: The Legacy of Marcus Garvey will host the twelfth (12th) Annual Marcus Mosiah Garvey Lecture. This staging, therefore, will focus on the legacies of the UNIA women. Our guest lecturer, Natanya Duncan PhD., Director of Africana Studies and Research Institute, and Associate Professor of History at Queens College City, University of New York will present on the theme: “We Build Forever”: The Legacies of UNIA Women.

We will stream the event live on the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica /Jamaica Memory Bank’s (ACIJ/JMB) YouTube page from 10 am – 12 pm. To watch the event, please click on the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xth9mtQW-pY

During the presentation, please send your questions to lhannualgarveylecture@gmail.com; questions will be read and answered during the Q&A session.

 

Support the UNIA Sponsored Petition

For the past eight years, I have been campaigning for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey. Although some of my petitions have had some success, others have not yielded the desired results.

The reasons are varied. Some of my critics have said that Garvey’s message is outdated while others have said that Garvey’s exoneration is a waste of political capital. In the words of Mutty Perkins, the irascible Jamaican journalist, both are examples of “arrant nonsense.”

Africans at home and abroad face the same existential threat in Garvey’s time as they do now: the erasure of black lives. In 1914, Garvey rightly diagnosed the threat and offered solutions to our lack of organization and collective ignorance about our history. Garvey’s intellect and intuition led him to realization that movements would only be successful if they could draw on the shared memories of their people while also making public their grievances against regimes that try to silence their legitimate complaints. Against the despair that had numbed his people into compliance, the UNIA created the Pan-African flag, published a newspaper, founded schools, operated several businesses, including the Black Star Line, and proclaimed the “Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World”: The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

This is why I am suspending my current petitions and fully supporting the UNIA sponsored petition because the UNIA has kept alive Garvey’s educational and organizational program while also pursuing legal remedies to alleviate the persecution of Africans at home and abroad.

It is also my hope that members of the Rastafari community, Nation of Islam, #BlackLivesMatter, and other organizations will support this effort. For although there are serious ideological divisions among these organizations, they share a common goal: the redemption of Africans at home and abroad.

Please join me by signing this petition and sharing the petition with at least ten friends. Time is of the essence.

https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-presidential-pardon-for-marcus-garvey?recruiter=3131320&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive

 

Marcus Garvey: A Forerunner of #BlackLivesMatter

Separated by a century of struggle, Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) share striking similarities. 
During this interactive presentation, Professor Geoffrey Philp will discuss the origin stories of the UNIA and #BLM and the historical significance of these movements in the lives of Africans at home and abroad.

“Marcus Garvey: A Forerunner of #BlackLivesMatter.”

Room 1210

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

10: 00 am to 11:00 am

Miami Dade College InterAmerican Campus 627 SW 27th Ave Miami, FL 33135

Petition to exonerate Marcus Garvey moves to the White House

After delivering over 11,000 signatures to Representative Frederica S. Wilson’s office, the Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey is now petitioning President Barack Obama (https://www.causes.com/campaigns/71936-urge-president-obama-to-exonerate-marcus-garvey).  As part of their renewed strategy, Professor Geoffrey Philp will be delivering a series of lectures during Black History Month, “Marcus Garvey: Human Rights Champion.”

“President Obama is an inheritor of the rich human rights legacy that was initiated by Marcus Garvey and the UNIA on August 13, 1920, with the ‘Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,’” said Professor Philp. “The declaration highlighted basic human rights, which were finally included in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights until December 10, 1948. Garvey and the UNIA were ahead of the world body by twenty-eight years!”

The kickoff for the lecture series will be on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, at the Carrie P. Meek Entrepreneurial Center, Miami, Florida, at 12:40 p.m. in Room 1114. The lecture will culminate in a call to action for the exoneration of the Right Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey:

https://www.causes.com/campaigns/71936-urge-president-obama-to-exonerate-marcus-garvey

Join us for a lecture on the Marcus Garvey’s visionary movement which championed the human rights of peoples of African descent in North America and the African diaspora worldwide.

About the Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey

The Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey is a group of activists with members from the Caribbean, North America, and the United Kingdom. Their goal is the public restoration and rehabilitation of the good name and character of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

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Why We MUST Fight To Exonerate The Most Honorable Marcus Garvey

The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Cleophus Miller, Jr.

President-General,

Universal Negro Improvement Association

The campaign to posthumously exonerate the Most Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey is a noble and constructive effort by his family, the UNIA and others to exculpate him from a wrongful conviction while mobilizing public sentiment in support of his life, legacy and the ideals for which he was falsely imprisoned. As an extension of Mr. Garvey's personal quest to repudiate this travesty of justice, we consider it our inherent right and moral  obligation to hold the government accountable for correcting this shameful act of injustice. While we concede that we best vindicate his name by demonstrating the soundness of his ideas and the infallibility of his logic, we must never forsake any opportunity to unequivocally denounce this egregious injustice and demand its judicious redress.

Proper Propaganda
The overwhelming success of the Garvey Movement in organizing post WWI Black America invoked the ire of the insidious Deputy Director of the Bureau of Investigation, J Edgar Hoover. In an effort to discredit Mr. Garvey, decentralize the movement, extinguish his vision and dishonor his memory, Hoover recruited a host of informants and agents to infiltrate, disrupt and sabotage Mr. Garvey's plans. The malicious persecution and prosecution of Marcus Garvey in the court of public opinion as a "notorious Negro agitator" engaged in financial mismanagement and fraud frightened investors, caused dissension among the ranks, emboldened his rivals to join the frenzy and provided an ideal climate to file a trumped up criminal indictment. Ultimately, Mr. Garvey alone was convicted of the conspiracy to commit mail fraud by a coerced jury instructed by an adversarial judge, based upon horribly inadequate circumstantial evidence and the false testimony of an undisclosed government agent and informant, orchestrated by the shamefully desperate and criminally deceptive J Edgar Hoover.
Today, this wrongful conviction continues to mar the legal record and belies the valued reputation of our sainted leader. These unchallenged historic lies become accepted historic facts if they are not corrected. If the purpose of our history is to inspire confidence, fortify our bonds of heritage and offer the benefit of experience in charting our destiny, we must seize every opportunity to deconstruct this dangerous lie and reconstruct truth, for fear we abandon this worthy vision and discard the practicality of this time-honored program from our historic memory. 
The Rt. Ex. Marcus Garvey once declared, "I believe that true justice is to be found in the conscience of the people, and when one is deprived of it by the machinations and designs of the corrupt, there can be no better tribunal of appeal than that of public opinion, which gives voice to conscience and that is why I now appeal to the conscience of the American people for justice." However, despite whatever success we enjoy in reversing this horribly inaccurate narrative, this judicial travesty demands a judicial correction. In fact, the government's refusal to admit and acquit Mr.Garvey of this miscarriage of justice only betrays their concealed interest in extending the harmful effects of this blatant fabrication. No political acknowledgement will suffice, nor veiled admission of misjudgment satisfy our unyielding insistence on full exoneration.

Was Justice Defeated?
In the case of the USA vs Marcus Garvey, the fair administration of justice was denied and irreparable damage rendered Mr.Garvey's enterprise and reputation. The contemptible, government sponsored traducement of Marcus Garvey and the disgraceful court room debacle mandates a full review and reversal of this regrettable chapter in US history, thereby settling any argument of guilt and according the family due relief in restoring dignity to their name. Failing to rectify this wrongdoing compounds the harm afflicted and sets a dangerous precedent of excusing malicious grievances committed by the government.
Mr. Garvey forcefully proclaimed his innocence during the trial and asked, not for mercy, "only justice, justice, justice." The prevailing impression of Mr. Garvey as a criminal demands we hold the institutional perpetrators and perpetrators of this travesty accountable for exonerating him of their treachery. Neither the duration of time nor the death of our Founder will mitigate or assuage our determination to have remedy granted for this gross injustice.
Why We Must Fight 
We are not motivated by the assurance of victory, but obligated by gratitude and integrity to take advantage of every opportunity to defend the honor of our beloved Founder. Exoneration doesn't absolve the government of guilt, marginalize the merit of his martyrdom or invalidate the value of his valor. 'Mr. Garvey was convicted, not because anyone was defrauded, but because he represented a movement for the real emancipation of his race.' We, the beneficiaries of his service and sacrifice, are duty-bound to reciprocate the honor for the exaltation of his name and the dignity of our race.
The probability of success could not undermine our adamance for adjudication when he was incarcerated and it certainly doesn't concern us now. We consider it cowardly to forfeit a noble cause for fear of odds and deem ourselves unworthy of the blessings of true leadership if we allow others to crucify our leader with impunity. We cannot predict what will happen when we fight; we can predict what will happen if we don't. Not fighting unforgivably concedes defeat.
No amount of compensation could ever redeem the wrongdoers or diminish the extraordinary record of accomplishment despite enormous adversity unduly suffered by the Most Honorable Marcus Garvey. Rectification is not reconciliation and justice delayed is still justice denied.
Finally, while his wrongful conviction deserve a rightful exoneration, the best way to vindicate the man is by  continuing his plan and materializing his vision of a unified, sovereign and independent race. Nothing demoralizes the opposition and earns respect like successfully mobilizing millions in support of someone whose legacy they fought to repudiate. Besides, if our campaign to garner greater appreciation and respect for the Rt. Ex. Marcus Garvey reaches the 2 billion Negroes of the world, not only will we have enough power to exact justice on his behalf, we'd exonerate his program by fulfilling its objectives.

Conclusion
The Exoneration Campaign is a fitting response to the nearly 80 year campaign to denigrate and decimate the unimpeachable legacy of the Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey. It is not an effort to solicit sympathy or mercy, rather a moral imperative to contest and a legal entitlement to challenge the malicious prosecution and wrongful conviction of our Founder. We invite all Africans at home and abroad to “Observe Marcus Garvey’s” incredible life and legacy and help us reverse the curse of shame and indignity meted against him by the foes of African Redemption.

Getting Involved
There are no resources involved and a minimal expense of time (1 minute) needed to pay homage to such a deserving ancestor and let the world know we have not forgotten nor forsaken him. Please sign our on-line petition: 
https://www.causes.com/campaigns/71936-urge-president-obama-to-exonerate-marcus-garvey
We thank the Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey, International Foundation for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey, Institute for Caribbean Studies, Marcus Garvey Institute, Cong. Rep. Frederica Wilson and others who've tirelessly fought to correct this historic wrong. We also extend a special thanks to Marcus Garvey III and Dr. Julius Garvey for championing the exoneration campaign and their faithful adherence to these prophetic words of their beloved father:
"Every white man is welcome to put me in jail if it is done in the cause of African freedom. I do not know whether they understand it or not, that if Marcus Garvey dies, Marcus Garvey's son shall revenge every drop of blood and every ounce of flesh and the family record of Garvey shall go on until eternity." 





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The Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey is petitioning Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Frederica Wilson, and the Congress of the United States of America for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey:

http://www.causes.com/actions/1722148-urge-congress-to-exonerate-civil-rights-leader-marcus-garvey

We are also petitioning President Barack Obama to exonerate Marcus Garvey:

http://signon.org/sign/exonerate-marcus-garvey?source=c.url&r_by=4631897

Thank you for your support..