Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH, was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a proponent of the Pan-Africanism movement, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. He also founded the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands...
NationalityJamaican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth17 August 1887
CitySaint Ann's Bay, Jamaica
CountryJamaica
Lose not courage, lose not faith, go forward.
Being satisfied to drink the dregs from the cup of human progress will not demonstrate our fitness as a people to exist alongside of others, but when of our own initiative we strike out to build industries, governments, and ultimately empires, then and only then will we as a race prove to our creator and to man in general that we are fit to survive and capable of shaping our own destiny.
If the Negro is not careful he will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it.
That we suffer so much today under whatsoever flag we live is proof positive that constitutions and laws, when framed by the early advocates of human liberty, never included and were never intended for us as a people. It is only a question of sheer accident that we happen to be fellow citizens today with the descendants of those who, through their advocacy, laid the foundation for human rights.
I pray God that we shall never use our physical prowess to oppress the human race, but we will use our strength, physically, morally and otherwise to preserve humanity and civilization.
You must not mistake lip-service and noise for bravery and service.
Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.
Rise up Black Men, and take your stand. Reach up black men and women and pull all nature’s knowledge to you. Turn ye around and make a conquest of everything North and South, East and West. And then we you have wrought well, you will have merited God's blessing, you will become God's chosen people and naturally you'll become leaders of the world.
A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman is exact.
The Greatest Weapon Used Against the Negro is Disorganization.
Let us not try to be the best or worst of others, but let us make the effort to be the best of ourselves.
Slavery is a condition imposed upon individuals or races not sufficiently able to protect or defend themselves, and so long as a race or people expose themselves to the danger of being weak, no one can tell when they will be reduced to slavery.
They subjugate first, if the weaker peoples will stand for it; then exploit, and if they will not stand for SUBJUGATION nor EXPLOITATION, the other recourse is EXTERMINATION.
I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.