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Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey Speaks |
"In a world of wolves one should go armed, and one of the most powerful defensive weapons within the reach of Africans is the practice of race first in all parts of the world."
We believe that any law especially directed against any African to deprive him of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice.*
We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers.
We declare it inhuman and unfair to boycott Africans from industries and labor in any part of the world.
With the help of Almighty Jah, we declare ourselves the sworn protectors of the honor and virtue of our women and children, and pledge our lives for their protection and defense everywhere, and under all circumstances from wrongs and outrages.
We hereby demand that the governments of the world recognize our leader and his representatives chosen by the race to look after the welfare of our people under such governments.
Resolved that the anthem 'Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Fathers' shall be the anthem of the African Race.
We demand that our duly accredited representatives be given proper recognition in all leagues, conferences, conventions or courts, of international arbitration wherever human rights are discussed.
*Excerpts from the Declaration of Rights of the African Peoples of the World, drafted and adopted in 1920. #7,9,15,23,37,40,52.
"Hold the Fort until our generations rise in their consciousness to the salvation of their own souls... Time is eternal and the Everlasting Watchman, who stands at the Gate of Eternity, beckons to us...and the time shall come when Ethiopia will be free and our work redeemed.
...it is only a question of time when the African, economically dependant as he is on the white man, would be forced to the wall, and that the solution of the problem in the future would not be so much by wholesale killing or wiping out of African populations...but by well-organized economic starvation."
"There is no sense in hate; it comes back to you. Therefore, make your history so laudable, magnificent and untarnished, that another generation will not seek to repay your seed for the sins inflicted upon their fathers. The bones of injustice have a peculiar way of rising from the tombs to plague and mock the iniquitous."
"It is a mistake to suppose that I want to take the Negroes to Africa. I believe that the American Negroes have helped to establish the North American civilization, and, therefore, have a perfect right to live in the U.S. and to aspire to equality of opportunities and treatment. Each Negro can be a citizen of the nation in which he was born or that he has chosen. But I foresee the building of a great state in Africa which featuring in the concert of the great nations, will make the Negro as respectable as the others... Cuban Negroes will be favored by the building of this African State, because when this State exists they will be considered and respected as descendants of this powerful country which has enough strength to protect them."
"I had a happy time in prison, because I went to prison in the cause of justice, in the cause of human liberty. The first time I went to prison, I was so physically upset and so near dying that I never knew it until I found out that my nerves were partially gone. So that saved my life."
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