Back To Africa was not Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanism focus
M
Kwaku is a London-based history consultant and co-editor of ‘African Voices: Quotations By People Of African Descent’
B Y K WA K U
arcus Garvey is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest pan-Africanists. He was born in St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica on August 17 1887 and died in London on June 10 1940. Indeed, the month of his birth, August, has so many Garvey connections, and Garveyites in Britain have taken to referring the month as Mosiah month, after Garvey’s middle name. Not surprising, there are a number of mis-information about Garvey. One such mis-information is the way he, and his UNIA-ACL (Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League) organisation, is often painted with the ‘Back To Africa’ brush. I argue that, despite the prevalent view, the ‘Back To Africa’ agenda was not the focus of Garvey, who’s the inspiration behind The Marcus Garvey Annual Pan-Africanism Presentation, which I organise annually on his birthday, partly to raise awareness of the Garvey bust in Brent Museum. I suggest that Garvey ought to be remembered for much more, such as advocating for African history, confidence and empowerment, rather than “back to Africa”. Indeed, when the January 2019 edition of New African magazine published an article of mine entitled ‘Back To Africa Movement Gathers Pace’, I’m sure it surprised some pan-Africanists, particularly Garveyites, because there was no mention of Garvey.
Yes, Garvey and his UNIA organisation did advocate “back to Africa”. But as we shall see, because of his unsuccessful attempt to resettle diasporic Africans in Africa, this article argues that Garvey’s abiding legacy should be his centrality to 20th century pan-African history and nationalism, and his advocacy for the teaching of African history as a means of uplifting, empowering and encouraging Africans to regain confidence, in an effort to rise to their full potential and let, as he stated: “Africa be a bright star among the constellations.” It’s worth pointing out that the “back to Africa” ideology was neither started by Garvey nor was it his main preoccupation. By the time Garvey and the UNIA were making inroads into the United States and the world stage in the early 1920s, the “back to Africa” movement had had more than a century of history, propelled mainly by church and civil society groups. Garvey’s pan-Africanist thought and “back to Africa” ideology were influenced mainly by two men: Edward Wilmot Blyden, an African Caribbean who emigrated in 1850 to Liberia, where he became a writer, educator and diplomat, and Martin Delaney, an African American medic, military officer, and abolitionist. Delaney was an official of the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, which managed to transport some two hundred African American émigrés to Liberia in 1878. Although Garvey’s Liberian resettlement plan was unsuccessful, his main aim for Africa was to redeem colonial Africa for the African, rather than a quest for all Africans in the diaspora to return to Africa. He did once pronounce on the matter, saying: “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.” Garvey never visited Africa – the speculation was that the Western colonial authorities would not give permission to such a person, whose call for decolonisation would have destabilised the status quo of their colonies. And although the UNIA
had chapters across Africa, Garvey’s direct engagement with the continent was with Liberia, where his plans were to resettle thousands of African families drawn from the Caribbean, and north and south America. However, the hands of the British and French colonial powers, and the United States, were said to have been at play during the four years of UNIA dealings in the 1920s with the government of Liberia, then one of only two nominally independent, sovereign states in Africa. Garvey’s emissary Elie Garcia began discussions in Liberia with Liberian president Charles King from May 1920, in which he outlined Garvey’s plan to relocate the UNIA’s headquarters to Liberia, raise funds to help the chronically financially-challenged
