Garveyism and Rastafarianism Essay

During the 19th and 20th century African Americans faced Discrimination in the United States. Three African Americans took roles of leadership and began trying to uplift the lives of blacks in society. Those who took control of this movement were Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B Dubois. These activists wanted the same result and implemented different techniques to follow their similar hopes for blacks in America. Each of these leaders has allowed America to develop in extensive ways for several years and those yet to come. Alternate pathways were taken by each leader to resolve the overall issue of racism. These issues include things such as not having the right to vote,own property and prevent lynchings. This paper will argue that had Garvey's theory of the new negro and Dubois’ ideas of education been implemented, racism in America would have been reduced because the allocation of education would allow for their to become a new negro. The application of Marcus Garvey's theory including thoughts of W.E.B Dubois’ on racism would have brought white power to an end.

Soon after World War I, Garvey concluded that the anger that engulfed many Black communities after the war could be used as a catalyst to end both imperialism in Africa and discrimination in the United States. He combined the economic nationalist ideas of Booker T. Washington with various Pan-Africanist idealists of the time. Garvey’s goals were modern and urban. He wanted to end imperialist rule and create modern societies in Africa. He formed black communities on three continents with his newspaper the “Negro World ,” and in 1919 he established the Black Star Line, an international shipping company to provided transportation and encourage trade among the Blacks in Africa and Blacks in the United States. In the same year he founded the Negro Factories Corporation to establish such

By 1919 the UNIA reached its peek with about 2,000,000 members and hundreds of branches worldwide. Marcus also founded the Negro Factories Corporation (NFC) which its purpose was to promote black economic independence by providing money and labor to black business owners. It also helped to build factories in the United States, Africa, Central America, and the West Indies. He also founded the first and, to this day, the largest black-owned multinational businesses, the Black Star Line (BSL), which focused on purchasing boats and serving an international shipping triangle that would return black people to their homeland of Africa. The shipping triangle revolved around the United States, West Indies, and Africa. Marcus Garvey not only founded companies or groups, but he also founded the Negro World in 1918, which was the leading black weekly and soon had 50,000 readers in the United States, Latin America, the West Indies, and Africa. Due to it’s content of black equality and freedom, the British and the French banned it from their African colonies. Even leaders who did not agree with Garvey’s ideas appreciated his efforts to build black pride and political independence (Kranz, Koslow 86).

Christianity and Rastafarianism are both rooted in Judaism and draw from the Hebrew sacred scriptures. Rastafarianism evolved as a reaction to the Christianity that was imposed upon African-American slaves and their descendents. There are several other aspects in which these two religions are similar, the purpose of this paper is to explore some of those similarities.

Marcus Garvey used structure to expose the hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence to make the African Americans realize they would never be treated equally in America and they should start a separate black-led nation in Africa. The Declaration of the Rights of the Negro People of the World included demands that the colonist had and the blacks had. The reason for doing this was to show the Declaration of Independence did not help the blacks because they still had the same issues. He wanted to prove to the black people that they deserved better and that America could not offer the blacks what they deserved. When the Declaration of Independence was written the colonists were treated poorly by the King of Great Britain now the black people

The 1920’s were a time of change for African Americans. They were beginning to retain a sense of pride in their background and culture, were becoming more independent socially and economically, and were becoming more militant. Part of this was because of the Great Migration, in which a proliferation of African Americans moved from the Southern states to the Northern states, and the excessive levels of racism and prejudice they faced during the process. African Americans were really starting to make their voices and identities prevalent, especially through movements like the Harlem Renaissance and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This mentality of independence and militance that African Americans adopted which is represented through the actions of Ossian Sweet is what makes up the 1920s cultural construct of the “New Negro” which allowed me to understand the realness and effectiveness of cultural constructs.

This thesis seeks to examine the manner in which the interaction between the NAACP and Haiti unfolded between 1915 and 1922 by posing for central question: in what context has the NAACP, through figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson, voiced its concern in a question of American foreign policy which dealt specifically with a “coloured” nation? This thesis will argue that while the NAACP’s activism might have been predicated by feelings of racial solidarity, the association utilised the occupation of Haiti both as a mean to bring broader attention to domestic issues affecting black Americans but also, to itself.

Established in 1909 as an attempt to combat the racial hatred and discrimination that plagued the era the NAACP emerged. By supporting such cases such as Moore V Dempsey, Guinn V United States and Brown v Board Of Education, the group’s influence in both modern day and past civil rights movements is irrefutable. With this in mind this group has also had its pitfalls and has not always, still to this day, have the support of the entire black community for varying reasons. Marcus Garvey was a major activist voice that vehemently disagreed with the goals and tactics of the NAACP.

After the end of slavery, blacks were free and had the right to vote, but they were oppressed by white supremacist and state laws that restricted their voting rights. Many great minds rose from the shadows and spoke against these injustice, but the one that stands out the most is Marcus Garvey. Garvey created a huge impact in the African-American history, but his stubbornness and ignorance lead to his self-destruction. As a young boy, in Jamaica, Garvey was inspired by the works of Booker T Washington especially by the book “Up from Slavery”. From a young age, Garvey believed that is was his destiny to speak in front of millions this was one of the many reasons why he became an activist. Throughout his lifetime he made enemies with other African- American activist, like W. E. B Du Bois, who criticized Garvey and his ideology. The first American branch of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was established by Garvey in September 1917; the main causes of this association was to improve the lives of African Americans around the world and to take back Africa from the grasps of the white men and claim it for the Africans that were scattered around the world. Marcus was put on trial on May 18 1923 this marked the beginning of the downfall of Garvey’s empire. In general, Marcus Garvey was an activist who wanted the best for his people but his downfall was cause by his own stubbornness and because he surrounded himself by incompetent people and his enemies.

This idea has taken on many different forms over the past century and a half, and its discourse has evolved alongside the major works of prominent figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, and Marcus Garvey. A common theme among these thinkers is the notion of historicizing the development of black culture relative to diasporic movements in the preceding centuries. However, they differ significantly in their visions and aspirations for the culture at large, as well as in their interpretations of how peoples of African descent should behave with respect to the dominant (primarily white) societies in which they live and function. In particular, earlier scholars like Du Bois tended to “sustain their faith in a partnership with white allies, wagering that [their] commitments to ‘civilization building’ ... would hasten the day when they and their race would be respected as equal partners” (Ewing 16). In contrast, Garvey, a contemporary of Locke, supported a radical agenda for African independence, and a mass migration to bring peoples of African descent back to Africa (Ewing 76).

“If you want liberty, you yourselves must strike the blow.” Taken out of his 1921 speech, Marcus Garvey, leader of the largest organized mass movement in black history, advocates the notion of “black nationalism”, the movement to integrate blacks into the dominant white society. As a civil rights activist, Garvey played a prominent role in influencing the culture and social movements of the 1920s by raising racial concerns and offering resolute solutions as well.

In many ways it could be argued that Marcus Garvey was the most significant African American civil rights leader of this time because of his role in tackling the social issues African American’s faced. He aimed to improve the lives of African Americans by encouraging them to take control of their own affairs and education. His role surrounding this issue is illustrated by his founding of the UNIA. This Universal Negro Improvement Association was an organisation dedicated to racial pride, economic self sufficiency and the formation of an independent black nation in Africa. Through this and the magazine the ‘Negro World’ he urged African Americans to be proud of their race, and argued “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. It has been said that through Garvey’s dedication to social improvement for his race he managed to capture the imagination of many blacks for whom the American Dream was a dirty joke.

     My research focuses on the history of Rastafarians and the birth of Rastafarianism. I will reflect our

Pan Africanism, in its fundamental definition, implores the black population to pursue self-dignity and self-determination in bettering their situation and becoming equal to the majority population; W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey, while both active Pan-Africanists in theory, have different goals and perspectives on the ways in which the racial problems should be approached. The central differences between Dubois and Garvey lie in their adolescent upbringings, and permeate through adulthood to form opinions about the history of colonialism and imperialism that separated society as a whole. In many ways, class structure ultimately shapes the views of a person towards themselves as well as society in general — as we compare and contrast

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr was a Jamaican political leader who accomplished many things within his lifetime. He was a well-known publisher, entrepreneur, journalist, Black Nationalist, as well as Pan-Africanist. Pan Africanism is the idea that all African American people possess a common cultural legacy extending from Africa. In saying this, all African Americans should work together in maintaining the culture and removing expatriate power.