Marcus Mosiah Garvey told us to look for him in the whirlwind and the storm. On the 139th anniversary of his birth, we do not have to look very far, for we are living in a storm of our own, a storm of uncertainty, dislocation, political hostility, economic inequality and renewed attacks on the hard-won progress of Black people and people of color.
We are witnessing a period in which diversity and inclusion are being treated in some quarters almost as offenses rather than achievements, and in which the success of Black professionals, students and institutions can too easily be dismissed as the product of DEI rather than acknowledged as the result of preparation, talent, discipline and generations of sacrifice. At the same time, Black men remain disproportionately caught within the criminal justice system, Black families continue to confront persistent disparities in wealth, housing, education, health care and access to capital, and communities that have struggled for centuries for full equality are once again being told, directly and indirectly, to expect less, remember less and demand less.
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This is the kind of moment in which Garvey’s voice should be heard again.
Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, on August 17, 1887, and became one of the most consequential Black leaders of the twentieth century, building an international movement around Black pride, self-determination, economic independence, institution-building and African redemption. His message reached far beyond Jamaica and far beyond his own generation because he understood that the struggle of Black people was not only a struggle against physical oppression, but also a struggle against the captivity of the mind.
Centuries of slavery demonstrated that the body could be chained, and colonialism demonstrated that nations could be controlled, but Garvey understood that the deepest bondage occurs when a people are persuaded to doubt themselves: when they begin to believe that someone else’s history is greater, someone else’s culture more valuable, someone else’s beauty the standard, and someone else’s leadership permanently necessary for their advancement.
It was against that mentality that Garvey rebelled.
He reminded Black people that they were men and women with hopes, feelings, ambitions, talents and human worth equal to those of any other people. He insisted that no race possessed the final word on civilization or culture, and he called upon Black people to turn again toward their own history and heritage, toward Africa and the great civilizations that long preceded slavery and colonialism. He wanted Black people to understand that their story did not begin in chains and that the achievements of Africa, from Egypt and Ethiopia to Timbuktu and the great centers of learning and civilization across the continent, belonged within the human story and within their own inheritance.
That lesson assumes particular importance today, because history itself has become contested ground. When there are efforts to minimize, distort or erase the Black experience, the answer cannot be silence. We must teach our children that Black history did not begin with enslavement, that Africa was not a continent without civilization before European contact, and that the Black experience in the Americas includes not only bondage and suffering but resistance, intellect, invention, entrepreneurship, institution-building, art, scholarship, faith, political leadership and extraordinary resilience.
Garvey also understood that pride without organization would not be enough. A people who wished to be free had to develop the capacity to educate themselves, employ themselves, finance themselves, communicate with one another and build institutions capable of defending and advancing their interests. He therefore spoke not simply about emotional pride but about economic power, independent leadership and the development of institutions strong enough to survive beyond the life of any single leader.
That message remains one of his most urgent lessons.
We need strong Black businesses, financial institutions, educational institutions, media organizations, civic organizations and political leadership accountable to the communities from which they emerge. We need to participate fully in the broader society while understanding that partnership must never become dependency and that cooperation with others must never require surrendering responsibility for our own destiny.
Garvey warned repeatedly about the danger of relying entirely upon leadership outside one’s own community. His argument was not that Black people should reject alliances or withdraw from the wider society, but that no people can safely entrust their future wholly to another group whose interests may eventually diverge from their own. The history of slavery and colonialism had taught him that lesson with terrible clarity. A people without independent leadership, organization and economic strength can too easily find themselves subject to the priorities and decisions of others.
There was another part of Garvey’s warning that deserves renewed attention. He objected to the idea that Black people should seek approval by becoming what others wished them to be, entertainers rather than owners, performers rather than decision-makers, court jesters rather than builders of institutions. He opposed the psychology that taught Black people to despise their own appearance, to bleach their skin, diminish their heritage or measure beauty by proximity to whiteness.
There is nothing wrong with entertainment, athletic achievement or celebrity, but those cannot become the boundaries of Black aspiration. Our children should understand that they may perform on the stage, but they may also own the theater; they may play on the team, but they may also own the franchise; they may appear in the film, but they may also finance the production; they may work for the corporation, but they may also build the corporation. They can become scientists, educators, publishers, investors, judges, physicians, engineers, entrepreneurs and public leaders, and they should be encouraged to imagine themselves in every place where decisions are made and institutions are built.
At the center of Garveyism was therefore an unapologetic insistence upon self-respect. Black people were not required to apologize for their color, their hair, their ancestry, their culture or their presence in the world. Advancement did not require becoming less Black, less African, less Caribbean or less oneself. The challenge was to become more educated, more disciplined, more organized and more confident in the possibilities of one’s own people.
That does not mean that every position Garvey took should be accepted without criticism. Like every major historical figure, he was a man of his time, and some of his strategies and political judgments remain subjects of debate. But we diminish history when we insist that its leaders must either be worshipped completely or discarded completely. The wiser question is what they still have to teach us, and on that question Garvey remains profoundly relevant.
Perhaps the present storm itself will force us to listen more carefully. Perhaps attacks on diversity will remind us that achievement must rest upon a foundation stronger than the approval of others. Perhaps attempts to erase history will awaken a greater determination to preserve and teach it. Perhaps persistent economic inequality will persuade us to become more serious about ownership, investment and enterprise. Perhaps political uncertainty will remind us that organization matters, and perhaps the continuing attempts to divide African Americans from Caribbean people, Caribbean people from Africans, immigrants from the native-born, and one generation from another will finally persuade us that fragmentation weakens all of us.
The storm may yet become the force that brings us back together.
Carib News has long been active in the movement for the exoneration, redemption and proper historical recognition of Marcus Garvey because Garvey cannot be confined to Jamaica alone. He belongs to the Caribbean, to Africa, to Black America and to the global African diaspora. His importance rests not merely in what he accomplished during his lifetime, but in the questions he continues to place before us: Do we know ourselves? Do we believe sufficiently in our own capacity? Are we building institutions that can endure? Are we teaching our children the fullness of their history? Are we developing economic power alongside political representation, and are we building the unity necessary to defend the progress that generations before us struggled to achieve?
Those questions are not relics of another century. They are questions for this very moment.
On Marcus Garvey’s 139th birthday, therefore, the most appropriate tribute is not simply a ceremony, a quotation or a moment of remembrance. It is a recommitment to the principles that gave his movement its enduring power: knowledge of self, pride without apology, education, economic independence, institutional strength, disciplined organization and unity across the African world.
The whirlwind is here, and the storm is around us. In such a moment, Garvey’s voice deserves to be heard again — not as an echo from a distant past, but as a warning, a challenge and a call to action for a people still seeking the fullness of their liberation.
Listen to Garvey. His message is history, but it is also instruction for our time.
