By Zoran Zoltaneus, a Fascist writer whose original article and writing can be found on his Substack https://fascio.substack.com/p/marcus-garvey-the-black-moses
Republished by Black Hammer Party on 4/17/2023.
Typically when people think of Black History Month they only think of Martin Luther King or organizations like the National Association For The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). However, there is a man who should be looked into more like Malcolm X or Louis Farrakhan – Marcus Garvey. Despite being relatively obscure, Garvey is arguably the greatest Black American leader to rise up and give a voice to African peoples. Garvey was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven siblings and was of Jamaican/African descent. His early life was marked by poverty and hardship. He left school at an early age and worked as a printer’s apprentice. In 1910, he traveled to Central and South America, where he witnessed the mistreatment of black workers and became determined to improve the lives of black people.
In 1914, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica, which aimed to promote economic and social independence for black people. He moved to the United States in 1916 and established UNIA branches in several cities, including New York, where the organization’s headquarters were also located. Garvey also opened a chain of Black-owned businesses, including a Black-owned newspaper and even an all-Black-run steam ship under the title of “Black Star Line” (the first of its kind). Furthermore, unlike groups like the NAACP, which were created with the backing of non-Black Jewish finance, Garvey’s organizations were built from the ground-up largely by small donations from the Black community.
Garvey speaking on pan-Africanism
Garvey did not want Blacks to adopt “Liberalism” because it was White. He wanted his people to be Black Nationalists instead. He understood the Black race has been spread throughout the world due to slavery and were all different in one way or another due to their regional distinctions and cultural evolution, but he also knew they had come from the same root. That root (Africa) was what he thought should be used to forge a path forward for the Black race, alongside the other races of man. For that reason he did not want to chase after the dream of becoming a Liberal “White man’.” And that displeased, and even put fear in people like J. Edgar Hoover and W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois (head of NAACP) simply (much like MLK) just wanted to be a White man, which was just the desired economic status of the time. Du Bois for this reason considered Garvey the most dangerous Black leader in America, likewise Garvey criticized Du Bois as a racially mixed mongrel.
Garvey, to his credit, did not want to go through the process of becoming ‘White’ in America, simply to be able to partake in the materialism at an equal level; instead he wanted to organically build his people up by their own merit. Inspired by the Irish Sinn Feiners, Garvey encouraged in his people the possibility of a homeland under self-rule. He called for a complete upheaval similar to the Soviet revolution headed by Lenin. Not because he was a Communist but because he wanted Black revolution. As we can see in these two statements.
“If the Englishman claims England as his native habitat, and the Frenchman claims France, the time has come for 400 million Negroes to claim Africa as their native land.”
“The world has reached a crossroads of humanity, when each race will travel in its own direction, when each national group will travel its own avenue. Let the Anglo-Saxon go the way he desires to go. Let the Frenchman go the way he desires; let the Teuton go the way he desires to go; we are now organizing the 400,000,000 Negroes so that they can go the way they desire to go.”
— Marcus Garvey
To achieve the separations of Blacks from Whites, Garvey advocated collaboration with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In June 1922 Garvey met with KKK Imperial Wizard Edward Young in Atlanta, Georgia. The black race, and instead claimed that his organization believed America to be a “white man’s country… that the Negro should have a country of his own in Africa.” Garvey’s ideology was more concurrent with the goals of the KKK for this reason. Garvey was now able to travel into the South with no interference, due to his organization’s message being agreeable to the KKK. Garvey also made many inflammatory speeches leading up to this meeting, such as:“I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.”
— Marcus Garvey
Moreover besides finding shared interest with the KKK, Garvey also denounced Jewish power and Communism. Garvey was critical of what he saw as the undue influence of Jewish people in the media, finance, and politics, and he believed that this influence was detrimental to the interests of Black people. Garvey was also one of the first Blacks to point out the prominent role of Jews in the North Atlantic slave trade. He was also critical of Communism because of how Jewish it was in his view. He said that Communism did not adequately address the specific needs and interests of Black people too. Garvey believed that it was too focused on class struggle and did not take into account the unique challenges facing Black people in the United States and around the world.
Garvey was vehemently against interracial relationships and the existence of mixed-race individuals. He believed that racial purity was particularly important to maintain the Black identity, and that mixed race people were “race traitors.” He stated that the UNIA stands for “the pride and purity of race.” One of his goals for an African state was “to assist in civilizing the backward tribes of Africa,” and another was to “promote a conscientious Christian worship among them.” In this context, we can even talk about his admiration of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Garvey would declare Hitler a patriot and said “We admire him as a German nationalist.” Garvey even went so far as to compare Hitler to Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. All with dreams of an empire, something he wanted for African people. As for Mussolini, Garvey made this profound statement that has echoed decades later:
“We were the first Fascists.… When we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown, [and] Mussolini copied our Fascism.”
— Marcus Garvey
His economic philosophy was informed by his advocacy for Black self-determination and his belief in the importance of economic cooperation and solidarity among Black people. Garvey believed that Black people needed to establish their own independent businesses and industries in order to create job opportunities and build wealth. He also encouraged Black people to pool their resources and work together to achieve economic independence and self-sufficiency. With him saying a future Pan-African State would follow the economic principles of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Although, his view towards Mussolini changed during the invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 due to him regarding Haile Selassie as being a messiah-like figure. But, in 1937 Garvey would still proudly proclaim, “We were the first Fascists.” With this passion and rhetoric, through his military-like parades of blueshirted uniforms. He dubbed himself as the Black Moses of all African peoples. This is why he is never brought up in Black History Month—or any other time for that matter. Garvey’s efforts to promote Black independence and self-reliance was soon criticized by some “African American” leaders, who felt that his “Back to Africa” movement was unrealistic, fascistic, and that his rhetoric was divisive.
Opposition to Garvey via the NAACP coalesced into what came to be known as the “Garvey Must Go” campaign. Supporters of the campaign, known collectively as the Friends of Negro Freedom, intended to unmask Garvey as a fraud. They also appealed to the federal government to step up investigations. On January 15, 1923, a group of eight prominent African Americans petitioned Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty asking the U.S. government to continue its prosecution of Garvey on charges of mail fraud. The letter of petition ended by urging the Attorney General to “use his full influence completely to disband and extirpate this vicious movement,” and imploring him to “vigorously and speedily push the government’s case against Marcus Garvey for using the mails to defraud.”
I personally speculate that the targeting of Garvey by the NAACP had to do with its close connections with Jews and for the fact that Garvey was anti-Jewish. But with that speculation out-of-the-way on my part, this scholar lays out why they targeted him:
“The NAACP viewed Garvey’s movement as a dangerous rival to their own organization, and they worked to undermine his influence and credibility within the African American community. They were concerned that his advocacy for black nationalism and separatism would lead to division and conflict among black people, and they saw his movement as a potential obstacle to their own efforts to promote integration and equal rights.”
— David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was In Vogue
Garvey was essentially targeted by the U.S. government, which viewed him as a radical and a threat to national security. The Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI), the NAACP, the established Black Newspapers of the time, and the local DA all sought to ruin Marcus Garvey, eventually succeeding in doing so. This is the reason he has been wiped from mainstream Black history today. In 1922, Garvey was arrested and charged with mail fraud in connection with his sale of stock in the Black Star Line, a shipping company established by the UNIA.
During his 1923 trial for mail fraud, Garvey would blame Jewish people for being biased against him during the trial due to his connections with the KKK, even calling the judge and District Attorney “damned dirty Jews.” In 1928 Garvey told a journalist:
“When they wanted to get me they had a Jewish judge try me, and a Jewish prosecutor. I would have been freed but two Jews on the jury held out against me for ten hours and succeeded in convicting me, whereupon the Jewish judge gave me the maximum penalty.”
— Marcus Garvey
Garvey’s show trial consisted of a Jewish prosecutor, a Jewish judge, and a half-Jewish jury. His “trial” in New York was a legal mockery, prosecuted by a Jewish D.A. and argued before a jury, half of whom were Jews. The trial judge was Julian Mack, the most prominent Jew in America, who served as the president of the Zionist Organization of America, the World Jewish Congress, and the American Jewish Congress; and he was a leader of the Anti-Defamation League’s parent organization B’nai B’rith. The verdict against Garvey was a foregone conclusion
He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, but he continued to maintain his innocence and fight for his release. While in prison, Garvey wrote his famous letter First Message to The Negroes of The World from Atlanta Prison. Garvey was eventually deported to Jamaica in 1927 with his American citizenship being revoked. Not so long after being deported, he would die of a stroke at the relatively young age of 52. The UNIA would also follow Garvey to the grave. Garvey’s mentality was, as he iterated, “We do not need to beg to be behind their walls when we can build our own castles.” – And this is a dangerous mentality to have when the financial elite rather weaponize a Black people through victimhood-teaching.
Garvey wanted that identity outside of the Western design to turn all peoples into rootless consumers, and refused to play the victim. Garvey said his intention from the start was a Black Fascism. And he died in opposition of those same forces that we fight today. Making him a shining example to all Nationalists everywhere. For that reason, he will continue to go largely unheard of, and ignored in Black History. When mentioned they erase his real politics and goals from sight.
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
— Marcus Garvey
