GARVEYISM THE CONCEPT THEN
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr was born on the 17th of August 1887. Though Garvey was born in Jamaica he was best known for his Panafricanist movement in the United States which was met with stiff resistance from African-American leaders who condemned his methods.
He was a leader of a mass movement called Pan-Africanism and he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).[2][3] He also founded the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands.(Wikipedia)
Most of all Marcus Garvey advocated segregation from the white power structure which had kidnapped, raped, murdered, enslaved and otherwise visited and still perpetuated genocide on African peoples, advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa known as Garveyism.
Garvey founded and operated the Black Star Liner a passenger shipping line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. Despite attracting huge followings Garvey who would later be recognized as Jamaica’s first National hero saw the demise of his shipping line which went into bankruptcy.
Garvey was eventually convicted on trumped up mail fraud charges and eventually deported to Jamaica where he continued his work.
Garvey’s essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in Negro World entitled “African Fundamentalism”,
On 8 July, Garvey delivered an address, entitled “The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots”, at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was “one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind”, condemning America’s claims to represent democracy when black people were victimized “for no other reason than they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make great”. It is “a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy”.
NOW
Seventy-Eight (78) after the death of Marcus Garvey and fifty(50) years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr the civil rights leader who taught and advocated for a more peaceful non-violent pacifist form of protest, not a great deal has changed.
Dr. King himself cautioned against what he called “the tranquil drug of gradualism” in response to the common refrain from liberal whites to let things evolve gradually.
At the same time, King’s non-violent form of civil disobedience was largely born out of the idea that Blacks by virtue of their numerical strength could not have a military solution to their plight in America.
For Blacks who had not taken the option as others had to leave and resettle on the African Continent, the strategy was inexorably one of appealing to the better angels of the very people who had oppressed murdered, raped, enslaved and otherwise abused them for over four hundred years.
I risk being repetitive by stating that the very issues which plagued the Black community during the 60’s, segregation, racial biases, and abuse from police who sees itself as an institution, as defenders of the white power structure rather than protectors of all citizens are the same issues which plague the community today.
It is important to recognize that culturally, police departments treat black citizens differently than they do whites because they do not see black citizens as full citizens.
Individual police officers and groups of officers may not even recognize the structural biases and disregard, inherent in their responses and behavior toward black Americans as opposed to how they respond to whites.
In many cases, many white officers may otherwise be what one would call “decent people”, the differences in their approaches go to the depth of the implicit biases which are inherent in law enforcement in America.
When there is a juxtaposition of the massive infiltration of white supremacists in law enforcement over the years it demonstrates the level of danger people of color face in their interaction with law enforcement, even when they are the ones who happen to call the police.
In 2017 the Intercept reported.
“Federal law enforcement agencies in general — the FBI, the Marshals, the ATF — are aware that extremists have infiltrated state and local law enforcement agencies and that there are people in law enforcement agencies that may be sympathetic to these groups,” said Daryl Johnson, who was the lead researcher on the DHS report. Johnson, who now runs DT Analytics, a consulting firm that analyzes domestic extremism, says the problem has since gotten “a lot more troublesome.”
The unconscionable and despicable shooting deaths by police of mentally ill family members of black people who call them for help goes to the lack of respect police largely have for black lives.
The continued reprehensible killing and abuse of black men and women even when they are unarmed and have committed no crimes, against the repeated cases of white mass killers being arrested without receiving a scratch from police demonstrates the dangerous bi-fold policing paths in America.
Even in adverse situations where a potential arrestee decides to resist being arrested, the wrongness of how police behave in the mind of the subject cannot be ignored.
Today black Americans are profiled in Starbucks coffee shops, in Waffle houses, in restaurants, clothing stores, and other establishments.
Well over half a century after lunch counter sit-ins, water hoses, having to pay at the front, then exit and go to the back of the bus to sit or stand, the conversations are the same.
And so I wonder whether the path of assimilation and integration taken in the 60’s has been a correct path for American blacks? What would have happened if Blacks had come together as they did during the Montgomery bus boycotts to start community banks, startup and support each other in businesses outside the traditional barbershops and hair salons? In Real Estate, charter schools, and businesses of all kinds would the response to blacks in America be the same had blacks opted for building their own institutions as earlier blacks did?
Black Americans built Institutions of higher learning, they build colleges and Universities which are monuments to black excellence, integrity, and intellect to this day.
Black businesses have been victims of white wrath and hate and have been systematically destroyed under transparent pretexts of wrongdoing.
On January 1, 1923, a massacre was carried out in the small, predominantly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The massacre was instigated by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in a nearby community. Read the story here: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/rosewood-massacre-1923
In 1921, Tulsa had the wealthiest black neighborhood in the country. On Sundays, women wore satin dresses and diamonds, while men wore silk shirts and gold chains. In Greenwood, writes historian James S. Hirsch,“Teachers lived in brick homes furnished with Louis XIV dining room sets, fine china, and Steinway pianos.”
They called it Black Wall Street.
“They had done everything that they were supposed to do in terms of the American dream,” says Carol Anderson, Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. “You work hard, you save your money, you go to school, you buy property. And this is what they had done under horrific conditions.”
Greenwood was strictly segregated from the rest of the city, but still, it flourished. It was home to black lawyers, business owners, and doctors — including Dr. A.C. Jackson, who was considered the most skilled black surgeon in America and had a net worth of $100,000.
Dr. Jackson was killed on the night of May 31st, 1921, along with hundreds of black Tulsans. Thirty-five blocks of Greenwood were razed that night. 1,256 homes and 191 businesses were destroyed. 10,000 black people were left homeless. By morning, Black Wall Street had been reduced to rubble.
In 1890, a group of migrants fleeing the hostile South settled an all-black town called Langston, 80 miles west of Tulsa. Oklahoma wasn’t yet a state, and its racial dynamics weren’t set in stone. The architect of the settlement, Edwin McCabe, had a vision of Oklahoma as the black promised land. He sent recruiters to the South, preaching racial pride and self-sufficiency. At least 29 black separatist towns were established in Oklahoma during the late 19th century.
White homesteaders opposed to the “Africanization of Oklahoma” spearheaded a counter-movement, and the rural black settlements were all but wiped off the map. McCabe himself fled to Chicago in 1908. But black people were in Oklahoma for good, and they moved to the cities — taking that dream of empowerment with them. Tulsa experienced a massive oil boom in the 1900s, and black residents began making good money as cooks and domestic servants to the freewheeling white nouveau riche. They invested that money in their own neighborhood, and by 1920 Greenwood was the most vibrant and affluent black community in the United States.
White residents were disturbed by the growing black wealth in Greenwood and sought to impose official segregation measures. In 1914, the city passed a law that forbade anyone from living on a block where more than three-quarters of the preexisting residents were of another race. In isolation, Greenwood only thrived more. Its main strip boasted attorneys’ offices, auto shops, cafes, a movie theater, funeral homes, pool halls, beauty salons, grocery stores, furriers, and confectioneries. One entrepreneur built an elegant 54-room hotel, likely the largest ever owned by a black person in pre-Civil Rights America. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling in the banquet hall. Its owner, J.B. Stradford, had been born a slave.
That resentment in Tulsa was so intense,” says Carol Anderson, “it was just waiting for a spark in order to ignite it.” That spark was a sexual assault allegation against a black teenager named Dick Rowland. It’s not entirely clear what happened in the elevator of the Drexel Building on May 30, 1921, but one common narrative is that Rowland accidentally tripped against its operator, a white 17-year-old named Sarah Page, causing her to scream. A bystander who heard the scream called the police, and “like a game of telephone, the story became more inflammatory with each retelling, and spread rapidly,” writes Dexter Mullins.
When Rowland was captured, a few black World War I veterans from Greenwood armed themselves in front of the courthouse, prepared to prevent a lynching. They were justified in their fear — a man named Roy Belton had been lynched in Tulsa the year before, after his arrest. “The lynching of Roy Belton,” read Greenwood’s black newspaper The Tulsa Star in 1920, “explores the theory that a prisoner is safe on the top of the Court House from mob violence.”
In front of the courthouse where Dick Rowland was being kept, a group of white men approached the black men from Greenwood. “Nigger, what are you going to do with that pistol?” said one. “I’m going to use it if I need to,” the black man replied. The white man attempted to wrest the pistol from his hands, and a gunshot rang out. It’s unclear whether it was accidental, a warning shot, or an attempt to injure or kill. In any case, all hell broke loose.
The groups of white and black men had a running gunfight all the way to Greenwood. When they got there, the group of whites — which had grown in number — began firing indiscriminately on black bystanders. Black people were shot in the streets and dragged behind cars with nooses tied around their necks. Their houses and businesses were looted and burned down. Greenwood residents fired back, and there were white casualties as well. Ultimately, the white mob was larger and better armed.
Read the full story here: https://timeline.com/history-tulsa-race-massacre-a92bb2356a69
Did Black America lose it’s appetite to startup and own businesses? How many Black Americans today knew about these two examples I outlined here or the countless other instances of white genocide against blacks who decided to create wealth for themselves?
The fact is, not many. So the refusal by blacks to startup and own their own businesses is not rooted in knowledge of what occurred neither should black Americans be afraid or intimidated.
The fate of each and every one of us rests not with the generosity or benevolence of others, [least of all those who hate us] but in the accumulation of wealth and the subsequent empowerment of us as a people.
There is a reason that they chose to burn those businesses and kill the people who dared to defy conventional wisdom by creating their own engines of empowerment. Despite their ignorance, those imbeciles who burned those black businesses were at least intelligent enough to understand the importance of wealth creation as a vehicle to real and sustainable power.
There is an enduring truth which exists in the universe, it is that out of the worst tragedy there are still good possibilities.
The conditions which are the most violent and dangerous creates the lushest, green foliages. (See the areas closest to active volcanoes).
If Black America spends its energies and it’s 1.3 ‑1.5 trillion dollars of spending money each year enriching others. A hundred years from now they will be talking about how they are treated in coffee shops or what obtains in place of coffee shops then.
Why are we having a conversation about waffle houses? What does it take to do startups of waffle houses?
At the risk of being overly simplistic, serving waffles, eggs, bacon, coffee and some orange juice is not exactly rocket science.
How about some black people put themselves at the business end of the cash registers?
As long as we continue to be cash cows to the very people who loathe us we will perpetually be the punching bag for others.
There is no power without economic power.
Those opposed to our existence knows it, they are opposed to it because were we to break through their stranglehold they know they have no more control over us.
Think about it for awhile!