Firstly Garveyism sees the Black problem as having to do with the cultural, economic and psychological degeneration of the Black race by centuries of slavery and racial stereotyping. Garvey himself believed that Blacks lacked knowledge and pride in their African ancestry and therefore were easy prey to the ravages and machinations of white racism. This philosophy gained immense popularity in the early twenties when Garveyism was the most popular form of Pan-Africanism (a movement of union and recognition of cultural similarity and commonality of interests of all of the countries of Africa and Africans in the Diaspora) among Caribbean-Americans and African-Americans. It was an ideology which would find wide acceptance among Black leaders in Africa waging anti-colonialist struggles for independence and freedom.
But central to the teachings of Garveyism is the issue of race. Marcus Garvey felt that the Black man (and woman) was universally oppressed at the hands of the white power structure and that any program of emancipation would have to be developed around the question of race first. By establishing a clear perspective on the racial question Garveyism outlined a comprehensive program of political, social, and economic action aimed at the total liberation of the Black race.
So that in 1916, the same year that he brought the UNIA to Harlem, Garvey convened the First Black Parliament which had an international flavor. In an historical context the principles outlined by Garvey and which form the basis of Garveyism today set the guidelines for all succeeding Pan-Africanist organizations all over the world and throughout the Black Diaspora.
(1) Garveyism's cultural principles. Garvey used the UNIA newspaper "The Negro World" to combat the negative propaganda of white supremacist groups who held that the Black man was biologically inferior and therefore should be happy to remain enslaved. He waged a constant campaign against all forms of racism from whatever quarter they came - white or Black.
Garvey debunked the commonly held white myth about Black people being visited with a biblical Hamitic curse telling Blacks that their history was one of greatness, achievement and pride. UNIA (motto: 'One God! One Aim! One Destiny!') and the "Negro World" sponsored Black beauty contests and published photographs of Black women, Garvey called them "Black Queens of Beauty," and numerous cultural programs aimed at uplifting the Black race and developing racial consciousness.
To the critics who assailed Garvey over the fact that he was placing too much emphasis on the issue of Blackness and race, saying that his focus should have been on the broader problem of humanity, Garvey, in his typical blunt fashion, argued that it was not humanity which was being “lynched, burned, Jim Crowed and segregated” but Black people.
So deep was the issue of race to Garvey that he has left us with a major statement on the primacy of race in all things. This is how he put it:
"In a world of wolves one should go armed, and one of the most powerful defensive weapons within the reach of Negroes is the practice of race first in all parts of the world." It is a lesson which modern-day Black leaders would do well to revisit.
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