Samson
Wholesome Black Man
My plan is to go to the library once a week, on Friday, for 3 hours. I started last week. Today, I checked out two books. This was one of them:
The book caught my eye because I do like reggae; however, it touches a lot on Rastafari, Bob Marley, Ethiopia, Black Nationalism, and some on Marcus Garvey. I never fully comprehended his significance and the wrong that was done to him. 
I apologize for any errors in the quotes.
Note: Quotes are snippets out of the book, so just assume "[.....]"
Excerpts from Pages 72-74:
Also, the public library does not have a lot of books that interest me. Does anybody have book recommendations?
I apologize for any errors in the quotes.
Note: Quotes are snippets out of the book, so just assume "[.....]"
Excerpts from Pages 72-74:
It was on hand to help potential black entrepreneurs get going and a central plank of its platform was to promote support of black businesses wherever possible, to the point that black people would actually feel embarrassed to use anything else. As the results of this black self-help stacked up in commer-cial terms, the only place for it to go was back to Africa.
Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line shipping company was financed entirely through shares and subscriptions by ordinary black folk, looking to emigrate to his vision of an Independent Negro Nation. It was an unprecedented show of black solidarity, raising enough capital to purchase outright four ocean liners in 1922, and displaying enough global diplomatic clout to have negotiated a vast tract of Africa from the Liberian government. It sent a shockwave through the white establishment the whole world over. Here was a man who'd not only worked out that economic strength was the only way to achieve political power, but who had utilized each to an astonishing degree. On top of what he'd already achieved, the fact that he had got as far as making the Black Star Line a reality gave notice of exactly what a unified black nation was capable of under a strong, resourceful leader.
However, flexing the kind of muscle that can launch four ships and establish its own republic was something of a step too far. There has always been an unwritten rule — unwritten by the establishment, that is — which states that black people can be given so much rope, but if they take any more than what is deemed their allocation, it will be tied into a noose.At this point, quite simply, Marcus Garvey had to be stopped. Which was never going to be that difficult, either, for with the Black Star Line, his most audacious project to date, he was attempting to function purely ideologically within a capitalist system and as such was always going to be open to attack. A combination of the federal authorities, jealous rival black leaders and corruptibles within his own organization conspired to stitch him up on a charge of mail fraud,
while at the same time diplomatic pressure was put on the Liberian government to sell his promised land to a multinational rubber company. Marcus Garvey was discredited, jailed and then deported back to Jamaica.
Unfortunately, while this astonishing attempt at repatriation was only part of what he achieved and the subsequent charges were obviously trumped-up, these are the aspects of the man that tend to be remembered. Which is to do him an enormous injustice. In real terms there was never before, nor has there been since, a black leader of greater international significance or effect.What he did was to unite the black populations of the entire world — the only time it has ever happened.
A brilliant, fiery speaker, he was as comfortable among working men and women as he was with professors. He understood the importance of the black church while recognizing the new roles of the schools and colleges.
When the deported Marcus Garvey came home to Jamaica it was to a hero's reception. True to form he headed straight back to the dispossessed, but now there was a certain universality to his playing the positive nuisance. While he took his words to both the rural parishes and the gullies and ghettos of Kingston, such was his status that he now attracted the educated as well. Then, thanks to his Jamaican country-boy Christian upbringing and his understanding of the need to incorporate the church and the Bible in what he was doing, he brought religion more to the fore. At the end of the 1920s, Marcus Garvey was telling his enormous Jamaican following, 'Look to Africa when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near'. Hence, events in Ethiopia in 93o were going to be taken very seriously indeed.
Also, the public library does not have a lot of books that interest me. Does anybody have book recommendations?
