Marcus Garvey
should be pardoned

The reputation of Marcus Garvey should have been officially rehabilitated by the United States Government a long time ago.

He was a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and it is unlikely that without his philosophical influence, that such legal benchmarks as Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have been achieved.

Both of these legal developments occurred after Marcus Garvey had been deported from the United States but they both reflect Garvey’s essential idea that a black man was as good as a white man.

Marcus Garvey did not, as he was accused, engage in Securities Fraud or Mail Fraud. He exercised his right as a free man to raise capital for the 'Black Star Line', a steamship company. This fact alone made Mr. Garvey a threat to the inflexible white establishment in both the United States of America and Jamaica, W.I.

Marcus Garvey canvassed black people in the poisonous environment created by Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). That case establishes the separate but equal doctrine and cemented into Negro consciousness the difference between the races.

The FBI and a white Jury considered Garvey guilty; however, all that Garvey was guilty of was proclaiming that “all men are created equal”. Marcus Garvey was certainly guilty of being black, prominent, well spoken and confident. This combination of qualifications still may lead to persecution and prosecution in the United States today.

Garvey’s reputation has not been properly rehabilitated; in the same way that his criminal record remains unaltered.

He is still a very well kept secret in his native Jamaica despite the fact that the Jamaican Government has declared him to be a National Hero.

Garvey’s picture is not seen in official Government buildings in Jamaica, W.I. neither is it seen in schools or commercial offices. It is sometimes seen as part of a collage of other National Heroes but there are few, if any, pictures of Garvey himself.

Marcus Garvey stands invincibly for the concept of African pride and Black Nationalism.

Jamaica’s motto is ‘Out Of Many One People’ but Jamaican rural folk will tell you that not one of the ‘Many One People’ who own property in Jamaica, W.I. is black. But what did Garvey stand for which makes him continuously controversial?

Garvey and Garveyism was essentially about ‘Self Reliance’. He sought to teach black people to rely on themselves for future progress.

The motto of the Universal Negro Improvement Association was ‘One God One Aim One Destiny’. The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Garvey’s seminal organization, established the Negro Factories Corporation. The UNIA also established the African and Orient Review, an independent black newspaper.

UNIA meetings would sometimes draw well over one hundred and fifty thousand people to the streets of New York, much to the collected chagrin of Federal officials. They would hear the collective exhortation of Marcus Garvey - "Up, up, you mighty race! You can accomplish what you will".

Garveyism was always about the possible not the impossible. Without Garvey’s vision, there would have been no Martin Luther King, no Malcolm X, no Stokely Carmichael and no Nelson Mandela.

The rehabilitation of Garvey is to be accomplished at two levels for Garvey to be effective:

• The first level is the factual one; Garvey was not engaged in any type of misappropriation.
• The second level is the restatement of the economic aspects of his philosophy, which frequently are not focused upon.

Garvey’s reputation will not be rehabilitated by the Bush administration. Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice are not ‘Garveyites’. They are considered by many to be ‘Uncle Toms’ who do not deserve the benefits that they have received because of the sacrifices of Garvey.

Rosa Parks, Angela Davis and Malcolm X are close in both thought and deed to Garvey. Rosa made the tough decision not to go back to the "back of the bus". Marcus Garvey made the tough decision to condemn lynching. Extra-judicial killing was in ‘vogue’ in the 1920s. Will Jamaica make the tough decision to return the national airline to black hands?

We can all admire Marcus Garvey’s personhood. Garvey’s attitude was a confrontational one. It was because of his confrontation with the American authorities that he lost his freedom; while fighting for the rights of black people.

I hope that in the near future, I will see photographs of Marcus Garvey in Government of Jamaica offices including the Consulate of Jamaica in Miami, Florida.

By Professor David P. Rowe, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law