Questions and Answers - The Life of Marcus Mosiah Garvey
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This book may not fulfill everything. It may not cover all the questions and answers, but it is about what it is like to be a Negro in a land where they kept the Negro down. Here is a great Jamaican in the twentieth century, a forceful leader who worked hard to develop a spirit of pride among his people particularly American Negroes. He turned their attention to the birthplace of their foreparents – Africa. He changed many negative attitudes they had about themselves. Marcus Garvey was born in the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, West Indies, in 1887. He learned the printing trade at an early age and became a foreman in a printing plant in Kingston, Jamaica. He also worked at one time in the Government Printing Office. Marcus Garvey was always concerned about race problems thus he had other interests besides printing. He realized that black people needed a new spirit. He started to concentrate and devote himself to help his brother and sisters. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Mr. Garvey then went to England and studied about Africa at London University. In 1916, Garvey came to the United States, where he founded a back to Africa movement. His plan was to develop Africa as a home for Negroes throughout the world. Marcus Garvey was an eloquent speaker. His followers listened intensively. The back to Africa plan offered American Negroes a new vision. It gave them a place where they could rule themselves. It offered them an escape from the poverty and oppression they faced in the world, particularly in America. By 1923, Garvey claimed to have six million followers. In 1929 he founded the Black Star Steamship Line to provide transportation to Africa. He started the Negro Factory Corporation, the Black Cross Nurses, and the newspaper, The Negro World, but the Back to Africa Movement failed because most Negroes did not fully understand the movement and considered America their home. They did not want to leave the country they had helped to build. Unfortunately, the plan did not receive the full support from the majority of the black African nations. And, at the same time, the expenses of all his plans began to burden him. He lost all the monies he collected. His dreams faded, he was black-mailed, and arrested for mail fraud. After two years in the Tombs prison in New York City, he was deported. Before he went to jail, Garvey gave an impassioned address to the jury: "Gentlemen, will you let the tiger loose?" Said to say, he died in London and poor and lonely. Most American Negro leaders of the 1920s did not support the ideas of Marcus Garvey. They felt he had weakened their fight for equal rights throughout the world. How wrong they were! Today, however, Marcus Garvey is respected for his beliefs. He gave American Negroes a feeling of self respect, which many had never felt before. In this book I have presented my paintings that include images of Marcus Garvey and of my feelings about his thoughts and beliefs.
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About the Book
This book takes shape around images and ideas that are centered within the vortex of the black experience, a nitty-gritty ghetto experience resulting in contradictory emotions, anguish, hope, love, despair, happiness, faith, the lack of faith, and dreams: stubbornly holding on to an elusive romantic belief that the people of this world should not be insensitive to the dictates of injustice, but are well attuned to the voice of humanity. Surely, Marcus Garvey was ‘The Father of African Nationalism.’
About the Author
Leonard Morris came to the United States of America in 1968 and was astonished to hear about the marvelous work Marcus Garvey had done to bring pride to Black People. He was inspired by Marcus Garvey's dreams and his leadership of The Universal Negro Improvement Association. Leonard Morris states that this vision which Marcus Garvey had, overwhelms him as he learns more of the depth of this man who had the capacity to think so wisely for the future of the Black man. This was a man of great vision and was surely blessed by God. As a Jamaican artist, he is pleased to state that he has done eighty-five paintings in oil on Marcus Garvey's life story. They were exhibited at The Center for Art and Culture Bedford-Stuyvesant Inc. New York, in 1989, The Federal Building- Jacob Jarvis, New York, in 1980, The Jamaica Progressive League, New York 1976 and The Jamaican Consulate, New York in 1996. They were well received by the public. Leonard Morris would like to invite the readers of this book to take an indepth look at Marcus Garvey's philosophy. He asks the readers to study this philosophy with a mind free of prejudice, and with a righteous desire to find the truth and to help with the friendly and peaceful solutions of a grave world problem. This indeed will be for the betterment of human kind.