MY DAY: Life and Reality Confused – Part 2

Back to Marcus Garvey. His birthday is this week. The Pan African Connection Bookstore, 828 Fourth Avenue, Dallas, is having the 26th Annual Marcus Mosiah Garvey Tribute Saturday, August 16, 7:00 PM.

The life and times of Marcus Garvey has always been a truly marvelous one. And the irony remains how time moves on and stand still at the same time.

To be clear, this series is about our history and how it relates to and has always related to present times.

I am a John Wiley Price (JWP) Fan and I am not confused about life and reality. Life and the constitution says one thing, but the amplified version of reality is a nation divided with institutional racism.

I had five (5)grandsons, we lost one this summer in a ‘hit and run’ tragedy. This g-son met JWP at the antique shop where he was working. The two became acquaintances I am sure because he probably followed him around. JWP took time with him and returned to give him a hat. Well, as you well imagine, this hat became a shrine with its own victory dance and “fish story”. He was so proud of it. When the boys were all together, he would remind them that he knew JWP.

But it is important to me that we truly understand our history. Sure we cite it and listen to fancy speeches lined with eloquent words. Marcus Garvey travelled throughout the United States speaking and meeting with African American leaders. In the post World War I economic crisis and with racial discrimination, lynching and poor housing, the masses of black people were ready for a leader who was intellectually aggressive and had a plan to uplift the race. Everybody say “uplift the race”. By 1919. Again, by 1919, there were over 30 branches throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The organization began to fail after he was convicted and was deported from the United States.

The era for African Americans post World War I is amazing. Carter G. Woodson establishes the Journal of Negro History with himself as editor. In Alabama, the revival of the KKK with a membership reaching four million in the 1920’s. Ten thousand Negroes marched down Fifth Avenue (New York) in protest against lynchings in the South. Included in the march was James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. DuBois. In 1919 also, W. E. B. DeBois organized the first Pan-African Congress at the Grand Hotel in Paris.

I read some years ago, that history was like looking in the mirror. What do you see?

JOIN me as I Host the Cancer Lecture Series Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, September 12th. esterdayone@gmail.com