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
Glorious shall be the battle when the time comes to fight for our people and our race.
Ethiopia shall once more arise from the ashes of material ruin to the heights of temporal glory.
If the enemy could only know that Marcus Garvey is but a John the Baptist in the wilderness, that a greater and more dangerous Marcus Garvey is yet to appear, the Garvey with whom you will have to reckon for the injustice of the present generation.
If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.
The thing to do is to get organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized and you will compel the world to respect you.
I trust that you will so live today as to realize that you are masters of your own destiny, masters of your fate; if there is anything you want in this world, it is for you to strike out with confidence and faith in self and reach for it.
History teaches us no race, no people, no nation has ever been freed through cowardice, through cringing, through bowing and scraping, but all that has been achieved to the glory of mankind, to the glory and honour of races and nations was through the manly determination and effort of those who lead and those who are led.
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.
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.
You must not mistake lip-service and noise for bravery and service.
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.
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.