Marcus Mosiah Garvey … Pardoned!

What? Why! Why! Why!

A few years ago, I was in New York, and I went to visit the place where Marcus Garvey had the headquarters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). I hold Marcus Garvey in such high esteem that I expected to find a life-size statue standing outside the building. I was sorely disappointed, there were no indications–Marcus Garvey or the greatest organization Africans have known since the start of the diaspora was there. Even though I was disappointed I still had hope. I left there and headed for the park that bears his name. Surely, there will be a statue of Marcus Garvey in the Marcus Garvey park. I had a moment of excitement when I got to the park and saw a life-size statue in the distance. It was too tall to be the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, but I was hoping. I got to the statue, just some random Black athlete sporting his Nike running shoes. My son who accompanied me on this self-guided tour, said to me, “It’s okay, Dad, at least the park is here.” I told you that story because I want you to understand, I want to make it clear what I think of Garvey. While other people go to New York to visit Time Square or to catch a show on Broadway, I go to New York to visit the 100-year-old address of the UNIA, to walk on hallowed ground, the same ground the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey walked on.

Marcus Garvey is more important to us than a white man’s pardon. The pardon is absolutely useless. To us here at the African Cultural Calendar, Marcus Garvey is the greatest leader we have had in over 509 afriyears. In fact, we would argue, with exception of Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey is the only true leader we have had in the Western Hemisphere. The questions Marcus Garvey asked are still relevant today. “Where is the Black man’s government?” “Where is his King and kingdom?” “Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?” How does a pardon almost a hundred years after his death address those questions? Garvey couldn’t find those things, he said, “I could not find them, and then I declared, I will help to make them.” Marcus Garvey is a Beacon of the Way. We should hold him up to our children with the instruction to do as he did. We should tell our children, if they can’t bring white supremacy to heel, then you make it tremble in its boots like Marcus Garvey did. Imagine what a different world it would be if we had spent the last hundred years building our King and kingdom.

I understand if Garvey was pardoned in the year 407 otd (1923 A.D.), that would have been a game changer. Garvey would have come out of prison and continued to fight, in the United States, for the true liberation of the only people he ever loved: African people. Once he was deported and especially after his death, any pardon was useless. Do you think Marcus Garvey wanted us to spend one hundred years begging the white man for a pardon, instead of spending that time trying to build the Black Star Liner, organizing and staffing the Black Cross Nurses and Doctors. How about developing and sending our children to UNIA’s schools and universities and building that country of our own, which could defend us from the oppression of other people. The country, the objective Marcus Garvey sacrificed everything for! Why! Why didn’t we spend our time honouring Marcus Garvey in that way, instead of a useless pardon that is nothing more than a refinement of white supremacy?

Marcus Garvey is not just some guy; he was the kind of man that we should never forget. That is why here at the African Cultural Calendar, we measure time in Garvey’s name. In the African Cultural Calendar there is a month called Garvey. As long as time exist so will the memory of Marcus Garvey. He was our leader, leading our revolution. He knew us better than we knew ourselves. When you talk to people about Marcus Garvey, they love to tell you that Marcus Garvey was the first to say, “Black is Beautiful.” That is true, but Garvey said more pressing things. He was the first to say that “A race that is solely dependent upon another for its economic existence sooner or later dies.” Are we dependent on other people for our economic existence? Which one of our leaders from anywhere in the Black world is at the G7, or the G20, representing us? That is what Marcus Garvey was trying to achieve, an independent nation that can command respect and defend us wherever we are. “Where is the Black man’s army, navy, or men of big affairs?” Why don’t you answer that question for Marcus Garvey instead of telling him, he got a pardon.

One of the first things people are going to say is that I am disrespecting the wishes of Garvey’s family. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the leader of the UNIA does not belong to his blood relatives and he sure as hell does not belong to Jamaica. He does not belong to his family, in the same way Gandhi does not belong to his family, he belongs to the East Indian people, in the same way Fidel Castro does not belong to his relatives, he belongs to the Cuban people. Marcus Garvey belongs to the Garveyites, to his people, to the Africans those at home and those abroad. No! I am not disrespecting their wishes, I understand their feelings but in this revolutionary battle for our freedom and independence, their wishes are misguided.

Marcus Garvey was not an integrationist, he was not W. E. B. Du Bois, he was not A. Philip Randolph, he was not Claude McKay, or God forbid C. L. R. James. Marcus was a warrior leading a war and what he wanted was not equality but independence: “Race independence must be the goal in every field. The race must create its own heroes, write and criticize its own literature, build its own strong nation. And history is on its side, for Africa civilized the world and Africa will be great again.” Marcus Garvey didn’t dream of a pardon; what he dreamed of was: “I have a vision of the future, and I see before me a picture of a redeemed Africa, with her dotted cities, with her beautiful civilization, with her millions of happy children, going to and fro.” Please tell us, how a white man’s pardon is going to create that future.

At the African Cultural Calendar, we may be the last of the Garveyites. We are absolutely appalled at the thought that the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey was dragged in front of the white man, put on his knees to beg the white man for a pardon. Revolutionaries seldom get to live in the world they dreamed of, but they don’t regret the price paid for their people freedom and independence. Marcus Garvey did not even make it to Africa, where he dreamed of our happy children going to and fro, living happy lives, but we doubly failed him. We did not continue to fight to create that future for our children’s sake, and we have stripped him of his revolutionary armor and have turned him into a beggar. How much lower has the Negro fallen?