Wer war Marcus Garvey?

Ethiopianism includes the appreciation of Ethiopia's ancient civilization as well as its role in the Bible. To blacks, Africa (interchangeable with Ethiopia) became a glorious, Biblical homeland equated with Zion. The recognition of African roots and the desire for repatriation has been a central theme in New World black religion before and since emancipation. Ethiopianism became a "black religious reaction to pro-slavey propaganda."

Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement developed the spirit of Ethiopianism to its fullest extent.

...since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we have only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let him exist for the race that believe in the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God -- God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia.

A. J. Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

Garvey's words planted the seeds for most "Black Cod" movements in the US and Caribbean. Stressing the superiority of the ancient Africans and the dignity of the black race, he inspired many successful nationaiist movements and numerous African leaders from Kenyatta to Nyerere.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, in 1887, descended from the fiercely proud Maroons. He founded the newspaper The Negro World, which took as its motto his nationalist cry, "One God, One Aim, One Destiny." In 1917, he founded UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) in Harlem. Its aims were described in a speech delivered by Garvey in 1924 at Madison Square Garden, New York:

The Universal Improvement Association represents the hopes and aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a place in the world, not to disturb the tranquility of other men, but to lay down our burden and rest our weary backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and chant our hymns to the God of Ethiopia.

Garvey's goal of repatriation was expressed in his famous slogan "Africa for the Africans." His well-known Black Star Line steamship company was established to trade and eventually carry New World blacks to Africa. This prophet of African redemption was not always successfull in his countless business ventures, but by the 1920s Garvey was the most powerful leader among the black masses in the United States.

In 1916, before he left for his US campaign, Garvey's farewell address to Jamaicans included the words "Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king; he shall be the Redeemer."

Letzte Änderung von Vialli: 05.03.1998
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