In
this present era of economic and educational onslaught
against the African Community in America,
it is important that we understand that the rise of the
African Centered Education Movement should be linked to
our quest for economic independence. 
We
must free the �African mind� through African Centered
Educational activities so that we might better understand
the importance of economic self-reliance.
One
model from which we draw strength in pursuing economic
and educational liberation is the model established by
the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s.
The
more I read and study about Marcus Garvey, the more I
am amazed at the great contributions he made to African
people to become a self reliant and self sufficient people.
At the core of Marcus Garvey�s program was his urging
of African people to acquire education and economic power.
As he always started, �A race without power is a race
without respect.�
When
we examine the economic condition of Africans in America, and throughout
the world, we find one glaring
problem - African people do not control our economic resources
at the level we should. This is primarily due to our miseducation
as a people. In a disproportionate manner,
African people depend on the European and Asian world
for food, clothing,
and shelter. More often than not,
the European and Asian worlds are the producers,
processors, distributors, and wholesalers. African people
are the consumers.
This
was one of the major problems the Honorable Marcus Mosiah
Garvey addressed during his lifetime and that Minister
Louis Farrakhan continues to address.
As
Dr. Tony Martin writes in his book, Race
First, which is one of the best books written
on the works of Marcus Garvey, �Marcus Garvey, unlike
his major rivals in the United States, built a mass organization
that went beyond civil-rights agitation and protest and
based itself upon a definite, well thought out program
that he believed would lead to the total emancipation
of the race from white dominion.�
To
implement his program, Garvey set up the Negro Factories
Corporation (NFC). Its objective was to build and operate
factories in the big industrial centers of the United
States, Central America, the Caribbean,
and Africa. The NFC established a
chain of cooperative grocery stores, a restaurant, a steam
laundry, tailor and dressmaking shop, a millinery store,
and a publishing house.
Mr.
Garvey also established a steamship company, The Black
Star Line. He envisioned a fleet of steamers carrying
passengers and establishing trade among African people
of the United States,
Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa.
In
the summer of 1920, Garvey launched his full blown program
at the First Annual Convention of the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA) of which he was the founder
and first President General.
On
August 2, 1920, after a massive parade of thousands of
well drilled, uniformed ranks of the UNIA, 35,000 delegates
from all over the United
States and some twenty-five countries
convened at Madison Square Garden,
in New York City. It was, according to the New York Times, one
of the largest gatherings in the history of the hall.
Dr.
Martin explains that, �Central to the ideological basis
underpinning Garvey�s program was the question of race.
For Garvey, the Black man was universally oppressed on
racial grounds, and no matter how much people try to shy
away from this issue, the fact is, this is still true
today.�
As
Malcolm X used to say, it was our Blackness �which caused
so much hell not our identity as Elks, Masons, Baptists
or Methodists.� If we are ever to become a liberated people,
this idea must be deeply rooted in the day-to-day organizing
and mobilizing of our people, as we seek economic and
educational liberation. Far too many Africans in America
have abandoned this idea in their organizing projects.
Mr.
Garvey understood that the foundation of our liberation
is economic and educational independence based on racial
solidarity. There are numerous lessons we can learn from
the legacy of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Without
economic independence tied to the acquisition of political
power, African people in America
and African people everywhere will continue to be the
subjects of the whims of other people.
In
this regard, Garvey said, �...you can be educated in soul,
vision and feeling, as well as in mind. To see your enemy
and know him is a part of the complete education of man...
Develop yours and you become as great and full of knowledge
as the other fellow without entering the classrooms.�
BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill,
PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National
Black United Front (NBUF).
Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.
