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With Garvey's organization growing, he attracted the
attention of the government. He was subsequently prosecuted
for mail fraud and sentenced to five years in prison. After
serving three years in prison, President Calvin Coolidge
commuted his sentence and he was deported to his native
country Jamaica.
Before his incarceration, Garvey was not only conscious of
the plight of black people in America; he took actions to
improve their standard of living under his organization, the
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey
spoke extensively about race relations, black racial pride
and the Back to Africa movement.
There is no question that blacks have made significant
progress since Garvey's time, but as Garvey foresaw, racism
continues to persist in America. Possibly the most visible
indication of continued racial tension is the unprecedented
disrespect, racial innuendos, propaganda, and conspiracy
theories leveled at President Obama. Garvey identified the
root causes of President Obama’s plight in 1922 when he
wrote:
“A terrible mistake was made between 40 and 50 years ago
when black men were elected to legislative assemblies all
over the country, especially in the southern states and even
at the national capital when representatives of this race
occupied seats in Congress. The mistake was made as far as
the white people were concerned. There was a state of dis-organization
in the nation, and in that state certain things happened to
mere chance. In the chance, dozens of black men became
Senators and Congressmen. This opened up to the eyes of the
white nation the possibility of the black man governing the
white man in these United States of America – the
possibility of the black man making laws to govern the white
man? This possibility drove them almost to madness, in
suddenly rejecting the spirit of the Constitution and the
declaration of Lincoln that ‘all men are created equal,’
hence the determination was arrived at, that never again
would it be possible for the race of slaves to govern the
race of masters within these United States of America.”
The mindset of the GOP and the right-wing media as Garvey
alluded to is that President Obama should not have been
elected president. They want to ensure that another black
man is never again elected president of the United States of
America. This explains the GOP’s unceasing effort to bring
down the president. As Garvey asserts, "the possibility of
the black man making laws to govern the white man, drove
them almost to madness." This madness is evident in the GOP
shutting down the government, trying to repeal Obamacare,
and refusing to extend the unemployment benefits.
The racial conditions Marcus Garvey saw in America did not
allow him to be optimistic about the future for blacks in
America. He could not have envisioned that a black man could
one day be elected president. Despite the fact that Garvey
and Obama had far different American experiences, they both
experienced racially motivated efforts to bring them down.
In Garvey's case, they succeeded, but with President Obama,
they failed in his first term. I believe they will fail
again in his second term.
Jermel Shim is
a retired mechanical engineer who has embarked on a new
career as an author. Following his retirement in 2010, he
embraced his passion for politics and human behavior and
immersed himself into his new writing career which
culminated in two books:
A New Perspective on
Race-related Problems in Corporate American Companies
(Outcast Publishing) and Whom God Has Blessed Let No Man
Curse (Infinity Publishing). |
