Photo Credit: “The Garvey Marchers” by Madam Toussaint

To be learned in all that is worth while knowing.

Not to be crammed with the subject matter of the book or the philosophy of the class room, but to store away in your head such facts as you need for the daily application of life, so that you may the better in all things understand your fellowmen, and interpret your relationship to your Creator.

You can be educated in soul, vision and feeling, as well as in mind.

To see your enemy and know him is a part of the complete education of man; to spiritually regulate one’s self is another form of the higher education that fits man for a nobler place in life, and still, to approach your brother by the feeling of your own humanity, is an education that softens the ills of the world and makes us kind indeed. ~Marcus Garvey on education

One day in Harlem I walked into this march to commemorate Mr. Garvey on his birthday in August last year. These people all seemed really proud and committed. Here’s why…

In his time he was referred to as “Black Moses”. Born in 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. is best know for his “Back-to-Africa” movement. Through his organization Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) which connected persons in Africa, the United States and the Caribbean and organized them around basic principals like “Black is beautiful” and Pan-Africanism to get Black people to lift themselves out of oppression.

Garveyism was born. Although Marcus Garvey had many critics, W.E.B. Du Bois among them, he had many followers, including Malcolm X’s parents. He had so many followers to this date Garvey is known as the organizer of the most people of African decent EVER.

Even more participation than the American Civil Rights Movement.

Who says Black folks can’t get along and get organized?

To learn more about the man, his mission and his followers check out
The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, UCLA
American Experience | Marcus Garvey
marcusgarvey.com

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