How Did Marcus Garvey Mobilize Millions of Black People With No Internet?

by | Feb 28, 2017 | DYK | 0 comments

How did Marcus Garvey organize and mobilize millions of people of African descent worldwide with no internet?

With no internet Marcus Garvey assembled millions of black people all around the world with an agenda to improve their own situation instead of waiting for white people to deem them worthy of inclusion. He is referred to as Black Moses because he was so very close to leading thousands of blacks back to the promise land, Africa.

Garvey first recognized classism and racism when he was called a nigger by white friend’s parents. But this event alone did not spark his interest in Pan Africanism. He witnessed the mistreatment of blacks in the labor force (in many different countries) and after reading Booker T. Washington’s book, “Up from Slavery,” he knew he was destined to be a race leader.

How he Mobilized Millions of Black people Worldwide

After traveling to Nicaragua, Columbia, Venezuela and other Latin countries he realized blacks faced same disparities in every country. He believed that if black people from Jamaica, South America, Central America, Caribbean and the United States united and pooled their resources together they could advance themselves economically and put pressure of government institutions to enforce equal rights. So he devised a plan to make this happen.

He started in his country, Jamaica by addressing the needs of Jamaican’s to gain their trust and support. Then he began touring and lecturing in the U.S. in New York when he quickly realized that black people in the United States were not concerned about isses that affected other countries so while fundraising he educated himself on the issues that troubled black Americans.

He then mobilized blacks in the South using a little bit of trickery. While inviting community members to his town hall meetings he would tell them that they didn’t have any REAL community leaders and low and behold the “real” community leaders would be at his town hall meeting. He used that opportunity to discuss his agenda with the United Negro Improvement Association and gain support. “We must remedy our own situations and not wait for the help of others,” was Garvey’s ideology.

Once he built his following in the South he went back to New York for a second opportunity to gain their support. He spoke at church weekly and even opened the United Negro Improvement Association’s International Headquarters there. With everything going well in America, Garvey used his momentum to start Negro World, the internationally distributed UNIA newspaper, which succeeded in carrying his message to the most remote areas in Africa. Following the success of his newspaper, he hit the ground again and traveled the world to recruit more members.

And that was all she wrote, he used his knowledge of the oppression of black people across the world to mobilize millions of black people. He traveled, he spoke, he encouraged, he helped and he showed black people everywhere how powerful we were and could be if we just worked together.

If Marcus Garvey could influence the masses in the 1920’s, why hasn’t this been done in the 21st century?

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