"We declare to the world that Africa must be free, that the Negro race must be emancipated (p. 137 Altman, Susan. Extraordinary Black Americans.)" are the famous words delivered by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Born a West Indian, he later became a powerful revolutionary who led the nation into the Civil Rights Movement. Garvey dedicated his life to the uplifting of the Negro and to millions of Black people everywhere, he represented dignity and self-respect. Like Malcolm X of a later generation, he believed that Negroes could never achieve equality unless they became independent-founding their own nations and governments, businesses and industrial enterprises, and their own military establishments which are the same institutions by which other peoples of the world have risen to power.
Marcus Gravey was the eleventh child of Marcus and Sarah Gravey. He was born in 1887 in St. Ann’s Bay, a rural town on the north coast of Jamaica in the British West Indies. Garvey learned at a young age about the differences between the races. Being one of the few Blacks on the island, Garvey often played with the children of his white neighbors. The little girl who lived next to the Garvey’s home informed Marcus that she was being sent away to school in Scotland and that she was instructed by her parents "never to write or try to get in touch with me, for I was a nigger. Although he was a good student, financial problems forced him to leave school
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... his ideas, in their ultimate form, may have been rejected by some of the people of his day, it is clear that, since then, these very same ideas in a different perspective have had a favorable influence on the policies of many Negro leaders throughout history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Altman, Susan. Extraordinary Black Americans.
Bibliography: Altman, Susan. Extraordinary Black Americans.