TBTNEWS COMMENTARYVantage Point!
Special Correspondent: Dr. Ron Daniels
The Red,
Black & Green: Fly The Flag and Fight For the Exoneration of Marcus
Garvey.
August 17 will mark the 128th birthday of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah
Garvey, the visionary Jamaican-born leader who built the Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) into the largest mass
movement for liberation in the history of Africans in America and perhaps the
world! As such, I have long advocated that August 17th, his birthday, be
celebrated as Universal
African Flag Day.
An unapologetic Pan-Africanist, Garvey believed that Black people
should unite and fight to liberate Africa, the motherland, from the brutal
clutches of European colonialism – Africa should be the base for global Black
Power! Hence he said, “I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned.
The whole world is my province until Africa is free.”
At a time when people of African descent were besieged, belittled,
marginalized, exploited and oppressed everywhere, Garvey sought to instill a
sense of pride in the history and heritage of a great people, noting that: “A
people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a
tree without roots.” He declared that“ God and Nature
first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make
ourselves what we want to be… Let the sky and God be our limit
and Eternity our measurement.”
Garvey was determined to rally a beleaguered people and mold them
into a formidable force committed to self-reliance, self-determination and
nationhood. The UNIA was organized
like a nation in-waiting with military, economic/commercial, educational,
health, religious and administrative divisions. He also created literature,
music, images and symbols, designed to promote pride and unity. For example, the
Universal Ethiopian
Anthem was adopted as the official song of the organization.
But, the most powerful and lasting symbol of unity that Garvey
presented and bequeathed to African people was a Flag, the Red, Black and
Green. Garvey was keenly aware of the psycho-cultural value of symbols to
an oppressed/battered people. The Red, Black and
Green was officially ratified as the Flag for African people at the 1920 UNIA Convention –
which led Garvey to proclaim: “Show me the race or the nation without a flag,
and I will show you a race of people without any pride. Aye! In song and mimicry
they have said, ‘Every race has a flag but the coon.’ How true! Aye! But that
was said of us four years ago. They can’t say it now….”
In the era of the 60’s when Black Power, Black
Nationalism and Pan Africanism
reemerged as a dominant force in the Black Freedom Struggle
in the U.S., the Red,
Black and Green was frequently in full flourish at rallies and
demonstrations. And, it was common to see sisters and brothers with buttons,
hats, scarves and clothing with the colors of the Flag in the design.
I shall never forget the hundreds of Flags waving in the breeze on
African Liberation
Day in 1972 where some 25,000 gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand the
liberation of the last colonies in Africa. It was a glorious site, one Garvey
must have been pleased with from his ascendant perch with the ancestors!
(Dr. Daniels is President of the Institute of the Black
World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer at York College City
University of New York. His articles and essays also appear on www.ibw21.org and
www.northstarnews.com)
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