(2) Garveyism's economic program. Garveyism places economic emphasis on the development of Black-owned businesses. That is because although Garvey believed that the racial consciousness of Black people was of paramount importance, he also understood that without economic power Blacks would still be the targets of exploitation, oppression and discrimination. Garveyism has left a practical approach to the issue of Black economics which is more than applicable in today's troubled times of economic scarcity and uncertainty.
Marcus Garvey was not just an excellent orator. He was a Pan-Africanist revolutionary who believed in positive action. The Black Star lines (an international commercial and passenger steamship line), the African Commercial league and African Factories Corporation (formed in 1922) were economic organizations developed by Garvey aimed at the economic liberation of the Black race.
And although many reactionary scholars pushing a Eurocentric line have tried to ridicule the idea of the Black Star Line, the powerful example of a great visionary can never be smeared. Garvey understood the importance of international trade and Black self-reliance. It was this self-reliance which led him and his followers to form Black-owned laundries, Black-owned restaurants, and Black-owned grocery stores. Garvey encouraged Blacks to buy from Black businesses and even went so far as to have Black-factories manufacture Black dolls for Black children.
Undoubtedly these principles of Garveyism should be dusted off by the leaders of Black America and the Caribbean today and used as a guide to positive action in these days when the Black Diaspora is coming under attack and the gains of past years are being threatened with erosion.
(3) Garyevism's education program. Garvey stressed the importance of education beginning from the position that white educational values had completely contaminated the Black mind. In this Garvey was right. For one of the first and most lasting forms of slavery, is infact "mental slavery." Garvey saw that it was fundamentally important to re-educate the Black race using Black history and African heritage as the building blocks. To this end Garvey formed the Liberty University, a vocational training school in Virginia which was modeled after Washington's Tuskegee Institute. This school was part of a wider program of ongoing education which the UNIA launched to combat the years of white conditioning of Black minds.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was a giant of his time. No Black leader has so completely dominated the Black liberation struggle since his ministry. The sad thing is that the ideology and philosophy which bear his name is not used as a major tool today by present day Black leaders. But history is full of the successes of Garveyism.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party of South Africa began as a Garveyite organization and many of its guiding principles today have been developed using the tenets of Garveyism. Malcolm X's father was a Garveyite who was killed by the Ku Klux Klan and the famous African and Ghanian anti-colonialist and pro-independence leader Kwame Nkrumah was also a Garveyite. They understood the necessity to "go armed in a world of wolves."
Today, Garvey's contribution to Black history stands out as a monumental work of sacrifice and dedication. It is a pity that as the Black Diaspora suffers at the hands of international reaction in the form of white supremacists here in the United States and neo-Nazi skinheads in Europe Black leaders are still failing to go armed among the wolves. For the world of wolves have become much more sophisticated, but the same problems which confronted Garvey more than half a century ago, still plague the Black community and race today. The wolves have become more sophisticated, more organized, and have traded in their white hoods, masks and sheets for Armani business suits.
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