Hey Family,
Today's blog post is going to be a different. Sometimes I get asked (or feel the need to explain) why I care so much about economics, financial literacy, the racial wealth gap, etc. and how it all effects and intersects with the Black community.
I'll break all of that down at another time, but today, I want to share something else. In college I studied Rhetoric. Not just speech communication but how every single thing we do, say, wear, don't wear, etc communicates something to someone else. One of my favorite professors in college was with a black professor who understood the importance of rhetoric in the ongoing black freedom struggle. (Shoutout to Theon Hill)
THAT CONCEPT CHANGED MY LIFE!
So in today's post, I want to share my senior thesis with you! I've changed a lot since writing this and have grown a lot as a man, a person of faith, a entrepreneur, a professional, a African person living in the USA, a husband, and more. I share this as an act of vulnerability and as an act of resistance, but also as a cry out to my community.
Sometimes, we lose the vision and lose the memories of our ancestors who came before us but in this essay I wanted to recall their visions, their memories, their hopes, and their ideologies in an effort to help us not lose focus.
I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts down below.
Ideology and Black Economics: A Review of the Economic Ideology of
Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Leonard Blair Jr
Wheaton College
Abstract
This paper identifies Marcus Garvey’s economic ideology in order to provide a foundation for black people in the United States on how to exit economic oppression. It does this by first identifying what a rhetorical ideology is. It follows this by identifying the two core principles of Garvey’s economic ideology which are a foundation of self-reliance and unity, and a reinterpretation of black people’s relationship with God and wealth. Garvey’s ideology is primarily extracted from two speeches of his, the first being a group of black Americans in 1925 in New York City, and the second being a speech seven years later to a group of Jamaican black people. After identifying the ideology in these speeches, this paper draws in relevant information related to this research and its importance in today’s society.
Ideology and Black Economics: A Review of the Economic Ideology of
Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. The Jamaican born orator, entrepreneur, and civil rights leader left a legacy that paved the way for black leaders such as Malcolm X and Dr. King. Many scholars have looked at Garvey’s ideology and have had similar findings. This is that one of the most important pieces to understanding the impact of Marcus Mosiah Garvey is understanding his economic platform. Garvey was an entrepreneurial trailblazer of his day. With the creation of the Black Star Line, his newspaper company, and the UNIA (United Negro Improvement Association) Garvey aimed all of his entrepreneurial ventures at bettering the life of black people, not only in the United States or in his homeland Jamaica, but globally.
Marcus Garvey opened doors and set precedents that had not been open or set by a black person in the history of the United States. Dr. King once said about Marcus Garvey, “He was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny. And make the Negro feel he was somebody" (Salley, 1999) Taking this into account, in today’s society which consists of many different movements such as the LGBT rights movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, hashtags like #MeToo, and Women’s Marches; it’s important for African-Americans to not forget the legacy and teachings of Marcus Garvey in the search for their freedom in the United States. Marcus Garvey’s ideology was heavily rooted in economics, and Garvey saw economics not only as a way to achieve economic freedom, but also as a way to achieve political freedom, and freedom from oppression.
With that being said, nearly 100 years after Garvey’s time in the United States his economic ideology is still relevant. It is still relevant because a lot of the issues black people were dealing with in Garvey’s era are still prevalent today. A 2016 report by the Pew Research Center determined that it would take 228 years for the average black family in the US to reach an equal level of economic success as the average white family if the average white family was not progressing during the entire 228 years (2016). This same research stated that the median household income for whites was just over $71,000 a year while it was just over $43,000 a year for the average black family (2016). With wealth disparities like this, the need for an economic platform for black Americans is should be at the forefront of social justice activism. Couple the previously stated research with research done in a 2013 Nielsen report, and that need for an economic platform becomes even more dire (2013). The 2013 Nielsen report stated that black americans make up 87% of all retail spending in the United States annually (2013).
While one of these shows us that there is a disparity in the amount of money being put into black communities, and the amount of money coming out of black communities, they also show us why an economic platform is necessary. If black people could find a way to leverage their buying power to increase wealth in their communities then they could achieve a level of economic freedom that leads to social and political freedom just as is the hope in “The Movement for Black Lives” economic platform which seeks to do just that (2017). This is where Marcus Garvey’s economic ideology comes in. Garvey not only laid the foundation to do just this, but in his ideology he anticipated research findings that wouldn’t occur until years after his death.
Garvey’s rhetorical ideology on black economics was revolutionary at the time of its release and has been able to transcend generations and still be relevant today. Because of this, it is necessary to study the economic rhetorical ideology of Marcus Garvey in order to develop a foundation for black americans in their plight for freedom in the United States with economics as the vehicle to reach that freedom.
With the Black Lives Matter movement still gaining traction and the NFL donating nearly 100 million dollars to organizations focused on social justice there has never been a better time to bring economics into the modern day conversation on race and social justice in America (ESPN, 2017). In this paper I will add to this national conversation not only by bringing in economics but by bringing in the economic ideology of Marcus Garvey as my foundation. In this paper, I argue that Marcus Garvey’s rhetoric features an ideology of black empowerment that features economics as the pathway to economic and social prosperity in the black community. I will do this by isolating and unpacking two relevant speeches of Marcus Garvey in order to highlight to his rhetorical ideology.
However, Before we can get into understanding what Garvey’s ideology as it related to economics, an understanding of what a rhetorical ideology is must first be developed. In her book, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, Sonja Foss wrote, “An ideology is a pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of some aspect of the world” (2009). This same understanding of an ideology was found in an article by Maurice Charland related to the “people quebecois” (1987).
In this article, Charland tells of the French speaking people in Quebec, Canada who wanted independence from Canadian rule. They called themselves, the quebecois and argued that the “people quebecois” were a real social group in French-Canadian history and thought they would be the best governors of themselves. What is most important to note in this people group is the fact that the “people quebecois” was an ideology. Their belief about their history as a group determined their interpretation of their relationship with Canada and when you apply this to Foss’ definition of rhetorical ideology, you can unequivocally see that “the people quebecois” was in fact an ideology.
Foss’ understanding of an ideology is also evident in Elizabeth and Jay Mechling’s article, “The Atom According to Disney” (1995). In their article, a reader going in with Foss’ understanding of rhetorical ideology can see how Disney developed a new ideology for the American people as it related to atoms. Americans beliefs about atoms were adjusted through Disney’s television series. This adjustment of beliefs was able to reinterpret the American people’s relationship with atoms.
With that being said, to determine something to be an ideology is synonymous with being bold. This is because to determine something to be an ideology is almost to say that it does not exist. It does not go as far as saying that something does not exist entirely, but it is to say that whatever is being called an ideology is in fact a social concept. Edwin Black captured this well in his article, “The Second Persona” when he wrote, “We have learned to keep continuously before us the possibility, and in some cases the probability, that what the author implied by the discourse is an artificial creation” (1987). With this we can determine that a rhetorical ideology is determined or identified by the speaker and as Sonja Foss stated, it is up to the audience to determine their, “interpretation of some aspect of the world” using that ideology (2009).
It is this understanding of what a rhetorical ideology is that I find to be most relevant for this paper. Using this understanding and applying it to Marcus Garvey’s economic ideology allows black americans to interpret their fight for freedom in the United States and apply the “patterns of belief” surrounding those economic principles to today in order to achieve the freedom they are fighting for (Foss, 2009).
Throughout Garvey’s life his economic ideology was put on display countless times. He spoke on many occasions, wrote countless letters, and even had a international newspaper that spread his ideology. Even though there are numerous examples that highlight his economic ideology, in this paper, I will focus on a select couple of Garvey’s texts.
First I will focus on his January 4th, 1925 speech to black Americans in Liberty Hall in New York City. In this speech Garvey addresses black Americans and identifies that black people in America and across the globe should be unified and self-sufficient economically because they are fighting a common enemy that Garvey calls, “the silent murderer” (1925). The second text that I will use is the January 15th , 1928 speech of Garvey where he goes to argue that black people have a misinterpretation of their relationship with God (1928). He then argues, that if this can be reinterpreted, black people can begin to see economics differently and act accordingly Garvey, 1928).
With that being said, as I analyzed these texts, I identified two core principles of Garvey’s economic ideology. The first and most prevalent principle is that Garvey believed in economic self-sufficiency and unity for black people (1925). Garvey believed that other races do not care about black people or their well-being and because of that, black people must be able to unify and sustain themselves. The second principle is that an adequate understanding of God is necessary for black people to have an adequate understanding of economics. Garvey believed that white people gave black people a skewed understanding of God and poverty that made black people content with poverty (1928). Garvey argues that God created all men equal and because of that, black people have just as much of claim to wealth as white people (1928). These principles are not the only core principles to understanding Garvey’s economic ideology but they are the two principles that I believe are most beneficial to black people in the United States today.
As stated, the first of these was economic self-sufficiency and unity. This was most highlighted in his January 4th, 1925 speech at Liberty Hall in New York City. Marcus Garvey believed that in order to achieve economic freedom, black people could not rely on white people or any other race to help them leave their social standing in society. He believed that, “the program of all the world towards the Negro is a ‘silent murderer that eliminates’” (1925). Garvey believed that “[Humanity] fights against each other for positions and places in a set world, as individuals, as groups, as races, and as nations” (1925). This desire to fight against one another calls black people to be economically self-sufficient because all other people groups in the world and especially white people do not have the best interest of black people.
It this idea of black self-sufficiency and unity that is core to moving forward the black community’s wealth today. As previously stated, a recent Nielsen report said that 87% of all retail spending annually in the United States comes from African-Americans (2013). If African-American could take that spending and put it in African-American businesses today, they could resituate black people in the United States’ economic system. This is evident in the same Nielsen report when the authors write to Black America saying, “Recognize your value as important consumers because Blacks are still the largest single race in the United States. Leverage the power of numbers when and where possible (e.g., through churches, community groups, etc.) to ensure retailers and businesses are responding to the relevant needs of the Black community” (2013). This is exactly the kind of thought that Garvey’s economic ideology anticipated.
In the same aforementioned Liberty Hall speech, Garvey talked about black people being economically weak because of their lack of unity. In it Garvey writes, “all of our earnings are so dissipated that in the space of twenty-four hours everything that we earn, everything that we get into our control, passes back into the hands of somebody else” (1925). He goes on to talk about how black people are not about to remove strands of economic oppression because they lack the capital to do so and when they try to acquire that capital, they are taken advantage of because the black “social existence is so disorganized” (Garvey, 1925).
Garvey’s description of this lack of unity in this section of his speech goes beyond passively saying that black people are unorganized and goes as far as to claim that black people are the ones to blame for their own disunity. Garvey says, “The average Negro ridicules whatsoever there is of Negro effort” (1925). Garvey depiction of black people in this section of the speech is one that calls all black people to live by a higher standard if they hope to achieve a removal of economic oppression. Garvey says later in the same section of his speech that, “If anything happens to a Negro the whole community laughs at [him] and everybody makes fun at it” (1925). This identification, when put into comparison with Garvey’s interpretation of the Jewish community that he thought was very organized and unified, highlighted a hole in the black community’s foundation. This hole was one of disorganization and disunity and Garvey believed that if repaired, the black community, “could constitute [themselves] a great economic power and a great industrial power” (Garvey, 1925).
A recent example of black people organizing well in order to affect economic change for their communities occurred in the fall of 2017 (ESPN 2017). During the height of the national anthem protests in the National Football League because of issues of police brutality, the NFL began to notice that the protest was affecting its revenue. The protests went as far as to not only have black people stop watching league games because Colin Kaepernick was not signed, but white people and other races began to stop watching as well in order to protest the players protests which generated an even more negative impact on the NFL's revenue. A large majority of the players who were protesting were african american and met with NFL owners and league officials to leverage their organizing for an economic return. Headed by Malcolm Jenkins of the Philadelphia Eagles, a coalition of players leveraged their protests to get the NFL to form a plan of giving over $89 million dollars to social justice oriented organizations. This is exactly the level of power that Garvey’s economic ideology can have when black people organize and leverage their social capital.
Additionally, Garvey’s economic ideology was rooted in the black community reinterpreting God. While all of what Garvey says related to God does not apply for all interpretations of God, it is his view of God as it relates to his economic ideology that is very important for black people today to grasp. In Garvey’s January 15th, 1928 speech Garvey talked about black people’s understanding of God. Garvey argued that, “The God that the white man gives you is the imaginary God that he made for you” (1928). What Garvey meant by this is that white people gave black people a very limited understanding of God. Garvey wrote that the God given to black people by white people is “not the God who made the land and sea, the rivers, mountains, plains, and hills -- all for [black people]” (1928).
Garvey believed that black people’s understanding of God was one that left them in the position of the beggar (1928). He said in this speech, “Some of you think its nothing to ask God to give you money, to give you jobs, to give you homes, to make you rich -- reducing the Almightiness God, the Divinity of God, to some easy, changeable, irresponsible creature of likes and dislikes, loves and hate” (Garvey, 1928). This view of God is incorrect because Garvey thought that anything black people could want and, “anything that [they’d] like to have, God has created it for [them]” (Garvey, 1928). Garvey said that God has given a variety of selections to black people. He followed that by asking, “Why sit and pray to God for that which God has given” (Garvey, 1928)? Garvey’s purpose for saying that was to say that black people are looking at wealth passively and that God created wealth to be acquired.
Garvey highlighted this in the speech when he gave an example of a boss placing $50 on the table for any employee to grab (Garvey, 1928). In the example one employee grabs the money symbolizing white people grabbing the wealth which God has given all humanity. He follows this by saying that the other employee ask his boss, “Boss, please give me the $50.” This begging employee symbolizes black people. Garvey followed this by continuing to argue that God has already provided that which black people pray for and that it is up to black people to go possess it.
Garvey also thought that black people’s interpretation of how God looked at wealth was skewed. Garvey thought that wealth, was inherently good and was of God. He said in this same January 15th speech, “All wealth is good [and] God created all wealth and never created poverty” (Garvey, 1928). In fact, in a speech seven years later in St. Andrew, Jamaica Garvey said, “God despises poverty because He did not create it. [God] created happiness and plenty for all and whoever selects poverty -- the greatest misery in the world -- is not in tune with God” (Garvey, 1932).
Garvey’s view of God that he wanted black people to grasp on a grander stage is one that anticipates later research. Although Garvey’s ideology is one that directly confronts miseducation as it is related to God and wealth, Garvey’s ideology speaks to Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s assessment that determined that many black people have a broken understanding of wealth and that when taught to black people, wealth education is problematic. In Nembhard’s article “Alternative Economics - A Missing Component in the African American Studies Curriculum” Nembhard states, that when economics is taught to African American Studies students, these students are taught, “only about poverty and underemployment and occasionally about underdevelopment” (2008). This means that when black people are taught about economics they are often being taught about economics from the perspective of the person living in economic oppression.
With movements today like “The Movement For Black Lives” which seek to better the lives of black people living in the United States by demanding equal access, a platform including economic education is key (2017). Garvey and Nembhard have expressed this economic miseducation and Garvey has attributed it as one of the reasons black people are still living in oppression. If a new education of economics in the black community is made available, the potential for black people to exit their economic situation and achieve the wealth that God created increases according to Garvey.
Garvey’s economic ideology is one that is dependent upon two core principles. The first is the most foundational and it is the idea that in order to remove themselves from economic oppression black people must learn to be economically self-sufficient and that in order to be self-sufficient they must be unified. This means that black people must put to rest what Garvey saw as their own issue of disorganization and realize they have a common enemy, their oppressor who Garvey calls, “the silent murderer who eliminates” (Garvey, 1925).
If black people today were to do this, and leverage their buying power, by not allowing their income to exit their community within 24 hours as Garvey stated, they can begin to “ensure retailers and businesses are responding to the relevant needs of the Black community” (Garvey, 1925). Garvey believed that not only was economic self-sufficiency powerful but also unifying could be very powerful. An example of this being done well in the United States today occurred in the outcome of many black NFL players unifying which lead to the league giving $89 million dollars to social justice oriented organizations (ESPN, 2017).
The second principle that is core to Garvey’s economic ideology is the principle that black people are miseducated economically, specifically as it relates to God. Garvey believed that most black people’s economic foundation in relation to God left them in the position of beggars. Garvey thought that in order for black people to remove the chains of economic oppression they must reinterpret their view of God as it relates to wealth and realize that God is the creator of wealth (Garvey, 1928). Garvey’s ideology of the miseducation of black people as it related to wealth anticipated Jessica Nembhard’s later research which concluded that black people are most often taught about wealth from the perspective of the oppressed (2008). Understanding this would be beneficial for modern day black social justice groups like “The Movement For Black Lives” to understand as this ideology would add to their platform by giving them a foundation for advocating for economic education (2017).
Marcus Garvey’s economic ideology sees economics as the pathway to economic prosperity in the black community. What is impactful about his ideology is that it was relevant when he lived and is still relevant nearly 100 years later. Black people today are in a position to recall the teachings of Marcus Garvey related to economics in order to advance their fight for economic equality and prosperity.
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