Unsung Hero Marcus Garvey Celebrates 123rd Birthday

Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights

Festooned in a regal military-style uniform outfitted in bright feathers and gold braid, many pictures of Marcus Mosiah Garvey bear a slightly cartoonish look when viewed today.

But there is nothing funny about Garvey, one of this nation's most important black leaders, who celebrates his 123rd birthday today.

Though Garvey's message of black repatriation to Africa was totally unworkable, unrealistic and doomed to failure, Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association provided a sense of pride in black people barely out of slavery.

Born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica (the same hometown of reggae legend and Garvey devotee Burning Spear) Garvey moved to America during the worst race rioting in this nation's history and used his great gift for oratory to develop a philosophy of racial pride and economic independence.

His message went far beyond America's borders and inspired black people throughout the world. The UNIA had hundreds of chapters around the world in the 1920s and threw a huge scare in to the white power elite. The Negro World magazine Garvey published was banned in some countries.

The UNIA ultimately fell under the weight of government harassment and Garvey's own misguided dream.

Garvey founded a steamship line, the Black Star Line, designed to boost black trade in the Caribbean and Africa and ultimately bring black Americans back to Africa, but the boats needed expensive repairs and Garvey's friends misspent and stole donations.

In 1922, the federal government hit Garvey with trumped up mail-fraud charges. A prison sentence was dropped when Garvey agreed to move back to Jamaica and never to return to the United States. His deportation ended Garvey's days as an major black influence.

Garvey died in 1940 in obscurity. But don't let his sad ending nor the silly ostentatious garb make you doubt the contribution of Marcus Garvey to black people in the early part of the 1900s. He was one serious brother who has never received his due.

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