Marcus Mosiah Garvey

“ As with the angels let us sing, "Hail the New Born King, the Prince of Peace, Hail to the Son of Righteousness, for with Thee there is life, without Thee there is death". For as thou died upon Calvary's mount to make us better, to redeem us from our sins, may we not hope for a continuance of that love even for today? and knowing Thee in Thy bountiful love for all mankind, may we not further ask that Thy Spirit lighten up our hearts and bring to us by the touch of Thy grace, the knowledge of the Everlasting Brotherhood of Man, and the Eternal Fatherhood of God? ”

“ We give out a spirit that knows no compromise, a spirit that refuses to turn back, a spirit that says "Liberty or Death", and in prosecution of this great ideal—the ideal of a free and redeemed Africa, men may scorn, men may spurn us, and may say that we are on the wrong side of life, but let me tell you that way in which you are travelling is just the way all peoples who are free have travelled in the past. If you want Liberty you yourselves must strike the blow. If you must be free you must become so through your own effort, through your own initiative. ”

“ Let them connive to destroy us; let them organize to destroy us; we shall fight the more. Ask me personally the cause of my success, and I say opposition; oppose me, and I fight the more, and if you want to find out the sterling worth of the Negro, oppose him, and under the leadership of the Universal Negro Improvement Association he shall fight his way to victory, and in the days to come, and I believe not far distant, Africa shall reflect a splendid demonstration of the worth of the Negro, of the determination of the Negro, to set himself free and to establish a government of his own. ”

“ As for me, because of the blessed past, because of the history that I know, so long as there is within me the breath of life and the spirit of God, I shall struggle on and urge others of our race to struggle on to see that justice is done to the black peoples of the world. Yes, we appreciate the sorrows of the past, and we are going to work in the present that the sorrows of our generation shall not be perpetuated in the future. On the contrary, we shall strive that by our labors, succeeding generations of our own shall call us blessed, even as we call the generation of the past blessed today. ”

“ We shall never succeed in taking the Spirit of Christ out of the world, because in some of us, still, there is that spark of love, charity, and mercy that links us to our God. But may we not ask the Great Omnipotent, the Great Creator, our Eternal Father to send once more into the world, just at this time and oh, how we pray that it be on this Christmas morn, our brother Christ, so that He may calm the raging storm and in truth pour out His benediction upon a corrupt world, a soulless human race, and make us subjects fit for Eternal Life? ”

“ Let us in shaping our own destiny set before us the qualities of human justice, love, charity, mercy and equity. Upon such foundation let us build a race, and I feel that the God who is divine, the almighty Creator of the world, shall forever bless this race of ours, and who to tell that we shall not teach men the way to life, liberty and true human happiness? ”

“ The history of a movement, the history of a nation, the history of a race is the guide-post of that movement’s destiny, that nation's destiny, that race's destiny. What you do today that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.
Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom. ”

“ Prejudice of the white race against the black race is not so much because of color as of condition; because as a race, to them, we have accomplished nothing; we have built no nation, no government; because we are dependent for our economic and political existence.
You can never curb the prejudice of the one race or nation against the other by law. It must be regulated by one's own feeling, one's own will, and if one's feeling and will rebel against you no law in the world can curb it. ”

“ Lagging behind in the van of civilization will not prove our higher abilities. Being subservient to the will and caprice of progressive races will not prove anything superior in us. Being satisfied to drink of the dregs from the cup of human progress will not demonstrate our fitness as a people to exist alongside of others, but when of our own initiative we strike out to build industries, governments, and ultimately empires, then and only then will we as a race prove to our Creator and to man in general that we are fit to survive and capable of shaping our own destiny. ”

“ Cowards that we are! It is we who are unworthy, because we are not contributing to the uplift and upbuilding of this noble race.
How dare anyone tell us that Africa cannot be redeemed, when we have 400,000,000 men and women with warm blood coursing through their veins? The power that holds Africa is not divine. The power that holds Africa is human, and it is recognized that whatsoever man has done, man can do.
We of the Negro race are moving from one state of organization to another, and we shall so continue until we have thoroughly lifted ourselves into the organization of government. ”

“ Day by day we hear the cry of "Africa for the Africans." This cry has become a positive, determined one. It is a cry that is raised simultaneously the world over, because of the universal oppression that affects the Negro.
All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishment of an African Empire: so strong and powerful, as to compel the respect of mankind, but we in our lifetime can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility within another generation. ”

“ Lenin and Trotsky were not Jesus Christ, but they were able to overthrow the despotism of Russia, and today they have given to the world a Social Republic, the first of its kind. If Lenin and Trotsky were able to do that for Russia, you and I can do that for Africa.
Therefore, let no man, let no power on earth, turn you from this sacred cause of liberty. I prefer to die at this moment rather than not to work for the freedom of Africa. If liberty is good for certain sets of humanity it is good for all. ”

“ There is a mad rush among races everywhere towards national independence. Everywhere we hear the cry of liberty, of freedom, and a demand for democracy. In our corner of the world we are raising the cry for liberty, freedom and democracy. Men who have raised the cry for freedom and liberty in ages past have always made up their minds to die for the realization of the dream. We who are assembled in this Convention as Delegates representing the Negroes of the world give out the same spirit that the fathers of liberty in this country gave out over one hundred years ago. ”

“ Today England stands out as the most brilliant star in the European political constellation. But what of tomorrow? Africa with her threatened upheaval will produce the same conditions in another century as Europe has done in the past. Can we not see that we are marching headlong into the abyss of eternal destruction? Can we not realize that we are not laying the foundation of peace? Can we not realize that we are but provoking the sleeping passions of the races? How long do you believe that four-hundred million Negroes will allow themselves to be exploited by alien races, robbed and murdered? ”

“ We are coming 400,000,000 strong. We are coming with our woes behind us, with the memory of suffering behind us—woes and suffering of three hundred years—they shall be our inspiration. My bulwark of strength in the conflict for freedom in Africa will be the three hundred years of persecution and hardship left behind in this Western Hemisphere. The more I remember the suffering of my fore-fathers, the more I remember the lynchings and burnings in the Southern States of America, the more I will fight on even though the battle seems doubtful. ”

“ Take away industry from a race; take away political freedom from a race, and you have a group of slaves. Peoples everywhere are travelling toward industrial opportunities and greater political freedom. As a race oppressed, it is for us to prepare ourselves that at any time the great change in industrial freedom and political liberty comes about, we may be able to enter into the new era as partakers of the joys to be inherited. ”

“ The Negro has loved even under severest punishment. In slavery the Negro loved his master, he safe-guarded his home even when he further planned to enslave him. We are not a race of haters, but lovers of humanity's cause.
Mob violence and injustice have never helped a race or a nation, and because of this knowledge as gathered from the events of ages, we as a people in this new age desire to love all mankind, not in the social sense, but in keeping with the divine injunction "Man Love Thy Brother." ”

“ It can be plainly seen that no one race or nation trusts the other. There is a Universal Suspicion that hovers over the conduct of every great leader representative of his race or nation. It is this suspicion that limited the Washington four pact treaty; it is this suspicion that caused the failure of the Genoa Conference; it is this suspicion that is going to wreck ultimately many of the nations and empires of today, thereby throwing into obscurity many of the races that now dominate the affairs of men. We as a race, are called upon to play our part, and we must do it well. ”

“ There is not one instance where a slave race living in the same country (within the same bounds as the race of masters that enslaved them and being in numbers less than the race of masters) has ever yet ruled and governed the masters. It has never been so in history, and it will never be so in the future. The hidden spirit of America is determined that it shall never be, caring not what hopes and promises we get. ”

“ I have come across so many weaklings who profess to be leaders, and in the test I have found them but the slaves of a nobler class. They perform the will of their masters without question.
To me, a man has no master but God. Man in his authority is a sovereign lord. As for the individual man, so of the individual race. This feeling makes man so courageous, so bold, as to make it impossible for his brother to intrude upon his rights. So few of us can understand what it takes to make a man—the man who will never say die; the man who will never give up ”

“ Man is the individual who is able to shape his own character, master his own will, direct his own life and shape his own ends.
When God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life, he made him a living soul, and bestowed upon him the authority of "Lord of Creation," He never intended that that individual should descend to the level of a peon, a serf, or a slave, but that he should be always man in the fullest possession of his senses, and with the truest knowledge of himself. ”

“ To-day He is risen; risen the spiritual leader of creation; risen as the first fruit of them that slept. To-day that crucified Lord, that crucified Christ sees the affairs of man from His own spiritual throne on high.
After hundreds of years have rolled by, the doctrine He taught has become the accepted religion of hundreds of millions of human: beings. He in His resurrection triumphed over death and the grave; He by His resurrection convinced humanity that His cause was spiritual. The world felt the truth about Jesus too late to have accepted His doctrine in His lifetime. ”

“ As by the action of the world, as by the conduct of all the races and nations it is apparent that not one of them has the sense of justice, the sense of love, the sense of equity, the sense of charity, that would make men happy, and make God satisfied. It is apparent that it is left to the Negro to play such a part in human affairs—for when we look to the Anglo-Saxon we see him full of greed, avarice, no mercy, no love, no charity. ”

“ If we sit supinely by and allow the great white race to lift itself in numbers and in power, it will mean that in another five hundred years this full grown race of white men will in turn exterminate the weaker race of black men for the purpose of finding enough room on this limited mundane sphere to accommodate that race which will have numerically multiplied itself into many billions. This is the danger point. What will become of the Negro in another five hundred years if he does not organize now to develop and to protect himself? ”

“ We cannot hold our love, but there is one love that never change or is mistaken, and that is God's. The longer we hold our love, the nearer we approach like unto our Creator.
The whole world is run on bluff. No race, no nation, no man has any divine right to take advantage of others. Why allow the other fellow to bluff you?
Every student of political science, every student of economics knows that the race can only be saved through a solid industrial foundation; and that the race can only be saved through political independence. ”

“ I trust no one from the people would believe that I could be so mean as to defraud a fellow Negro, either directly or indirectly. I have an ideal that is far above money, and that is to see my people really free.
Others of my race oppose me because they fear my influence among the people, and they judge me from their own corrupt, selfish consciences. There is an old adage that says, "A thief does not like to see another man carrying a long bag", and thus the dishonest ones of our preachers and politicians believing that I am of their stamp, try to embarrass me by framing me up with the law. ”

“ So today even though hundreds of years have rolled by since Thy crucifixion, we know that there is in Thine heart, there is in Thy soul a warm spot for the Sons and Daughters of Africa whose forebears bore the cross for Thee up the heights of Calvary to thy crucifixion.
We sing and shout with the angels; we ring our joy bells; we blow our horns in praise because Thou art indeed the Jesus, the Christ, the Emanuel to us, the Son of Righteousness, the Prince of Peace. ”

“ With all the preparation the human race has made to welcome into the world the Christ who is to redeem us, we find ourselves still in confusion, still fighting, still exploiting, still merciless in our onslaught one upon the other. But on this Christmas morn may we not all members and brothers of the great human family, forget our differences, and in one glorious chorus sing put to the world "Peace, perfect peace?". Christ died to free Mankind. ”