Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist (2021)

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NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2022

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Black people deserve nothing less than everything: This was Marcus Garvey's simple, uncompromising message. His speeches on Pan-Africanism — the vision of a world where all people of African origin, on every continent, were united, self-sufficient, and proud — made him a powerful Black voice in the 20th century. His steamship company, the Black Star Line, was supposed to take his followers to Africa, where he said they would find true liberation. His message resonated with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X. But the civil rights establishment viewed Garvey with deep suspicion. And the Black Star Line never sailed. In today's episode, we examine Marcus Garvey's life and legacy, and how he became the towering, often-misunderstood figure that he is.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the late spring of 1921, Josie Gatlin, a resident of Okmoggi, Oklahoma, saw a note
0:16.6	come through the crack beneath her door.
0:22.6	She picked it up, she read it, and immediately realized that she was in danger, just like
0:29.6	the other 3,000 black residents in her town.
0:36.0	When notes came through your door, saying, leave now or suffer the consequences.
0:42.5	The warning was clear, and so was the choice.
0:47.0	What are you going to do?
0:48.0	You're going to pack up and leave.
0:51.0	Josie Gatlin, like many people, feared for her life, feared the Ku Klux Klan and had
0:58.5	to get out.
1:00.7	The threat was delivered on cards, commanding black residents to leave the state or suffer
1:05.8	the consequences.
1:07.7	Even a local newspaper allegedly published a similar warning.
1:12.3	For a black citizen of Oklahoma, this threat was real, terrifyingly real.
1:31.0	Help us to help you help yourself and the Negro race in general.
1:35.1	Do your full share in helping to provide a direct line of stingships, owned, controlled
1:40.2	and banned by Negroes to reach the Negro peoples of the world.
1:45.5	Josie Gatlin was determined to escape the terror, and she, like many others, knew where to
1:52.2	go.
1:53.5	The black star line.
1:55.6	The black star line company was a fleet of passenger ships Josie assumed she'd board
2:09.3	in New York City that would take her to safety and real freedom in Liberia, West Africa.
	...

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