While Marcus Garvey is often seen as the forefather Black Nationalism may have started with Martin Delany in the 1800s. Civil rights, as it played out in the United States with the African-American Civil Rights Movement, took a different approach. The distinction is made because there were other civil rights movements around the world that had nothing to do with African-Americans, such as that in Northern Ireland. It was a precursor to other movements such as the Black Power Movement that encouraged self-sufficiency and racial dignity. The documentary on Centric says that even though the Black P. Stones were involved in petty crimes they were still supported heavily through philanthropists and even public agencies.

The idea that this organization, a gang yet still a force by which racial progress was being made, was supported through activities other than those that are typically associated with gangs such as prostitution, racketeering and the drug trade fascinates me. As you can imagine the Black P. Stones did not continue to receive that federal money for long. What fascinates me about street gangs is that a lot of them started out with a purpose that was completely different from the reality of what those gangs have turned into today, and not just in the African-American community. Everyone had a different idea of how the goals of the civil rights movement would be achieved, and though America likes to focus on Martin Luther King and Malcom X there were other players behind the scenes. Look up Jeff Fort for more information about how all of this went down in Chicago back in the sixties. Chicago may not be the cultural force for the African-American community today that it was back in the sixties, but its contributions to the national discourse about self-sufficiency and self-awareness in the Black community cannot be discounted or ignored.

The Harlem Renaissance originally was called the “New Negro Movement,” it was a literary and intellectual blossoming that birthed a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Alain Locke, a Black educator and writer, born 1886 initiated and launched the Harlem Renaissance. He viewed this era as a time for the Black community to come together as a group and also for self expression.

Creative expression was one of the few ways available for African-Americans in the early twentieth century to survive, since racism was of epidemic proportions and economic options were limited.

Between World War 1 and the Great Depression the United States claimed economic success, jobs in the northern cities, were plentiful. Starting from 1920 to 1930 almost 750,000 African-Americans migrated to the north to flourish in more receptive conditions.

Harlem drew 175,000 African-Americans, especially in Manhattan and held the largest amount of black people in the world.

For almost fifteen years some of the most prominent and prolific writers, artists and musicians emerged in the African-American community and lived in New York’s Harlem district.

Zora Neale Hurston born 1891 was a writer, folklorist and anthropologist, collected African-American folktales in the rural South and interpreted them in her collections, Mules and Men in 1935, and Tell my Horse in 1938 Her 3rd volume of tales, Every Tongue got to Confess was discovered and published in 2001. She also wrote four novels, Jonah’s Gourd Vine in 1934, Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937 and her play included Mule Bone, a comedy written with Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes, born in 1902 was an American poet and a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His poetry was discovered in 1925 and his works included The Weary Blues, his first publication. His later collections of poetry are Shakespeare in Harlem in 1942, One Way Ticket in 1949, and selected poems in 1959. He wrote several plays including Mulatto, books for children in 1935 and The First Book of Negroes in 1952. He wrote a novel in 1930 called Not Without Laughter.

Oscar Micheaux, became the first African-American to write, direct and produce The Homesteader.

In 1887 to 1940 Marcus Garvey encouraged Black Americans to return to their African homeland to establish the Black Star Line, black owned steamships servicing the Caribbean Islands, America and Africa. Garvey was an entrepreneur, journalist and a supporter of Black Nationalism. Liberia found independence as a nation for freed and free-born African-Americans in 1847. Marcus Garvey believed in the development of Liberia when he stated, “Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa.”

W.E.B. DuBois organized the first Pan-African Congress in Paris, France, elected secretary of the organization writes in The Crisis about the treatment of African-American soldiers. He formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in 1914 his goal was to unite ‘all people of African ancestry in the world to unite and establish their own country and government.

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·         In order to try to protect America Tariffs were placed on goods from other countries, this bolstered our economy for a short period of time.  But after A short while of us not buying any good from other countries, they won’t buy anything from us.

·         During WWI crop prices were frozen by the government and money was very easily accessible to farmers through loans in order to increase their production.  After the war, prices were unfrozen and as the demand for crops went down as European nations began to grow their own crops again, the prices domestically for crops plummeted.

·         This era is the beginning of the technological workers era where unskilled workers are starting to be replaced by machine; this advancement stops the income of the lower classes in America.

·         There was a massive misdistribution of wealth, the top 1% of the population controlled 99% of the wealth in our nation, and over 95% of the land.

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·         Banks were speculating in the land and stock markets with little to no regulation, this greatly inflated the value of some stocks and caused people to invest large amounts of money in them, once the banks pulled their funds from the stocks dues to their money being needed elsewhere(next bullet) they stocks quickly lost their value, as the consumers lost their life savings

·         During this time period people were buying stocks on margin, which is a great idea, but not so much whenever your only means to ever dream of paying it off is it the stock’s value doubles or triples.    People invested too much on margin and went bankrupt, and the banks had to find the money to pay off these loans somewhere.  They found this money from bigger banks.

Background:

A graduate of Harvard university a founder of NAACP (1909)

beliefs: blacks should fight for full equal rights in every area of life.

NAACP: concentrated on opposing racism and segregation through non-violent activities.

Marcus Garvey

background:

Founder of UNIA

1916-Moved to USA

1927-Deported for alleged fraud

beliefs:blacks should aim to set up a homeland in Africa

UNIA- Encouraged black people to set up their own businesses employing only black workers.however, authorities were determined to stamp out UNIA

famous slogan- “Black is Beautiful”

Booker T.Washington

Background: founder of Tuskegee institute-a training school for blacks (1881)

Beliefs: blacks should learn skills in order to obtain decent jobs.

Tuskegee institute: this gave blacks a decent education this was to draw in attention to the unfair treatment of black Americans.

February is celebrated in Jamaica, Caribbean and the Americas as Black history month. It is a month dedicated to recognizing the struggles of our ancestors in enslavement for centuries, celebrating the accomplishments of black people and championing the endeavors, aspirations and ventures of today’s black aspirers for greatness.

I find the way Black History Month is celebrated in Jamaica as having shortfalls because there seems to be an overemphasis on the struggles of the black race and slavery. This creates a shadow of gloom despair and Movies about slavery (such as “Roots”) reignites hatred for the white race among the black populace.

I believe the month should be spent commemorating the achievements of Bob Marley, Marc us Garvey, Martin Luther King and Paul Bogle. There is a deluge of information available on the struggles of blacks for Jamaicans but very few about the accomplishments of blacks except for household names such as Barack Obama. A few may know Ben Carson or TD Jakes.

I believe it is this lack of information about the success of Black men why young black men in Jamaica do not aspire to greatness. There is an overwhelming amount of attention given to the unfavorable deeds of black men and Individuals in Jamaica yet very few available literature and media accounts dedicated to informing youngsters on the accomplishments of the black race outside of emancipation from slavery.

Few Jamaican youths know about a black scientist or a great black educator. Ian Boyne’s weekly programme “Profile” highlight the accomplishment of blacks particularly Jamaicans as a means of enlightening the masses on the accomplishment of black Jamaicans.

It is high time; black history month is celebrated instead of regurgitating the past. Marcus Garvey said that a man who does not know his past is like a tree without roots but black people in Jamaica have spent enough time dealing with the past. It is due time, Black History Month is celebrated by paying homage to our heroes and fashioning a programme, system and faculty for the black men in our society: who are lost in today’s world to become better men and women.

Before his death one could describe what was going on as racial attacks against innocent people but the death of Kelso Cochrane resulted in a full-blown riot.  Fearing for their lives, black people were not prepared to wait to be killed, now they would defend themselves at all costs.  The unrest the Police had feared now became a reality.  The state of affairs that existed at that time could have developed into outright racial conflict, if it had not been for the delicate way it was handled by the Police.  For the first time whether one likes it or not black people had to thank the Police for the way in which they handled the situation, they prevented a bloodbath.

The Funeral of Kelso Cochrane brought out the solidarity of black people, it brought home to them their vulnerability that they could be killed by hate mobs at any given time. 

On the day of the Funeral, hundreds of people gathered in the streets of Ladbroke Grove, the area in which the Notting Hill Carnival is held today.  On this occasion it was not a Carnival atmosphere, it was an atmosphere of gloom and despondency.  

As I marched in silence behind the hearse to Kensal Rise cemetery, I thought of the late Marcus Garvey and Mary Seacole whose graves also lay there, and wondered how many more black people would follow them, their lives having been cut short because of the fear and hatred that existed at that time. 

This feeling of despondency was not only applicable to Ladbroke Grove, I can assure you in every town and city of England there were groups of black people who stood in silence and fear wondering who would be next.

Whilst black people were living in fear in Britain, many white people were living in the Caribbean, these white people were not at the bottom of the barrel as we were in Britain, to the contrary, they were the creme de la creme of the British administration.  The dangers for these people were great, especially in Jamaica, as threats were made against their lives, if Jamaicans were attacked in England, there would be repercussions in Jamaica for those whites who were living there. 

Even Norman Manley the Prime Minister of Jamaica was worried about the consequences when he came over to London for a meeting in the 1950’s, with the then Colonial Secretary, he expressed concern for the whites living in Jamaica if black people in England were attacked and killed by mobs.  This led to drastic action by the Government and the police so the attacks ceased, but only for a while.

As the years passed, the strength and the solidarity of various African countries was expressed in their demands for independence from colonial rule, whether it was from the French in North Africa, the Portuguese in Mozambique, the Belgians in the Belgian Congo the Boers in South Africa or the British in much of the rest of Africa. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

English poet and philosopher, best known for his poems “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In 1816, he overheard his name mentioned in a hotel by a man who was reading aloud a newspaper account of a coroner’s inquest. Intrigued, he requested for the paper, and was told that “it was very extraordinary that Coleridge the poet should have hanged himself just after the success of his play (”Remorse”), but he was always a strange mad fellow.” Coleridge quickly responded: “Indeed, sir, it is a most extraordinary thing that he should have hanged himself, be the subject of an inquest, and yet that he should at this moment be speaking to you.” In fact, there was a man who had fallen from a tree in Hyde Park; and his sole identification was his shirt which bore the mark “S. T. Coleridge.” Coleridge believed the shirt was probably stolen from him.

Marcus Garvey (1887 – 1940)

National hero of Jamaica; Black nationalist and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). After having suffered a stroke in January 1940, he read in the Chicago Defender dated June 10th of the same year his own obituary, negatively describing him as “broke, alone and unpopular.” And as a result, he suffered another stroke and died.

Hiroo Onoda (1922 – )

World War II Japanese army intelligence officer stationed in the Philippines. After the war, he survived three decades hiding in Philippine jungles in the sincere belief that the war had not ended. He, along with three fellow soldiers, continued their battle, executing many local Filipinos in the process. Every effort to convince him that the war was over was considered an enemy trap. Officially declared as dead in 1959, he only yielded himself in 1974, when his commanding officer was called out of retirement to personally order him to surrender. He was accorded a hero’s welcome upon his return to Japan and wrote an autobiography “No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War,” describing his years fighting a war that was long over.

Fidel Castro (1926 – )

Revolutionary leader who led Cuba from 1959 until his retirement in 2008. In 2003, it was discovered that his draft obituary could be accessed from the CNN website without a password. Apparently, it had used Ronald Reagan’s as a template, describing him as “lifeguard, athlete, movie star.”

Joe DiMaggio (1914 – 1999)

New York Yankee baseball player and second husband of Marilyn Monroe. On January 1999, NBC prematurely broadcast his death as a text report moving across the bottom of the TV screen, which was seen by DiMaggio himself. The text was pre-written in response to newspaper reports that DiMaggio was near death due to lung cancer, and put on the air when a technician pushed the wrong button. He died on the 8th of March.

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)

1953 Pulitzer and 1954 Nobel Prize-winning American writer and journalist, whose famous novels include “The Old Man and the Sea” and “A Farewell to Arms.” Newspaper reported that he and his fourth wife Mary had perished after both figured in two successive African plane crashes in 1954. However, Hemingway survived, but suffered serious injuries that affected him for the remainder of his life. It was claimed that he reads a collection of his own obituaries every day with a glass of champagne following the incident.

Friedrich Gulda (1930 – 2000)

Austrian classical and jazz pianist and composer. In 1999, he sent a fax report to the Austrian News Agency of his own death from a stroke at the Zurich airport. Not long after, he revealed he was still very much alive and would be performing a “Resurrection Recital” complete with go-go dancers. He frequently played practical jokes to exasperate the musical authorities, thus earning him the title “terrorist pianist.”

Vince McMahon (1945 – )

American professional wrestling promoter and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) chairman. On June 11, 2007 live edition of RAW, he was “presumed dead” after the limousine he entered exploded, and a tribute was instantaneously made in his honor on the WWE website. However, on June 25, 2007, the scheduled memorial for him was cancelled in the wake of the “actual” double murder and suicide of Chris Benoit; instead, he emerged in an empty stadium revealing that the explosion had only been a stunt. The entire planned storyline was immediately discarded in deference for those who had died.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917 – 2007)

American Pulitzer Prize recipient and historian. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentioned about his death on its November 29 2005 edition. Three days later, it withdrew the reference saying, “We are embarrassed but happy for Mr. Schlesinger.”

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)

Welsh philosopher, historian and mathematician. In 1920, he contracted pneumonia during his one-year teaching stint in Beijing accompanied by his fourth wife Dora; and soon, erroneous reports of his demise were published by the Japanese media. So when he and his wife visited Japan on their return trip, Dora informed the media that “Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists.” The press did not take the sarcasm well.

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