Marcus Garvey and the "Black is Beautiful" Moverment!

“The Universal Negro Improvement Association teaches our race self-help and self-reliance, not only in one essential, but in all those things that contribute to human happiness and well-being. The disposition of the many to depend upon the other races without making the effort to do for themselves, has been the races standing disgrace by which we have been judged and through which we have created the strongest prejudice against ourselves.....Let us not try to be the best or the worst of others, but let us make the effort to be the best of ourselves   (Garvey, 23).” 

   Marcus Garvey is making a very important statement about the UNIA here. He is talking about how this organization is working to create an independent black community. Garvey's goal is to build up a people that are not just independent in some areas but independent as a whole. This idea of self-reliance is very important to the advancing journey of the New Negro. Garvey was promoting “the self agency of the Black Masses”. (Jefferey Stewart)  He wants African Americans to be working diligently within the race to create resources so that they do not have to waste time or energy depending on other races. Garvey says that is has been a disgrace to the black community because they have been dependent on everyone except themselves. When Garvey says that this has "created the strongest prejudice against ourselves" he is saying that the black community has created a pitfall for themselves and he is also arguing that the Black community is displaying signs of weakness to other races by depending on them for resources.  The New Negro was about “economic self-determination” as well. Garvey and other prominent Black leaders such as Booker T. Washington encouraged the Black community to create their own businesses that would cater soley to the black community.  In the last sentence Garvey says that he wants the black community to be the best of themselves. It is not about emulating any other race but working to be strong, rich, and lasting within the black community.

Throughout my paper I am arguing that Garvey’s involvement and promotion of the “Black is Beautiful” movement is not a reaction to whiteness, but rather it is the Black community defining beauty in their own terms and uplifting the beauty that has always existed in their people. I think Garvey’s quote on self-reliance is proof that the community was more concerned with building up a strong independent community rather than compensating for what whiteness has tried to strip them of.

Full Circle Between Lock and Baldwin's New Negro

If we were to look at the different interpretations of the new negro as a circle, I think Locke’s view represents half of that circle. Lock’s view focuses on the artist, the poets, the story writers, singers, actors and actresses etc. However Baldwin’s view focuses more on areas that Professor Stewart termed as “non elite” areas. I think it is Baldwin’s interpretation of the New Negro that brings this half circle full round. Baldwin’s view allows for a more complete comprehension of what Black success can look like. He does this by strategically beginning his discussion of the New Negro with Jack Johnson’s career as a professional boxer. Through Johnson’s career we see a shift or rather an expanse of what can embody the New Negro. Johnson also focuses heavily on the importance of entrepreneurship and he use important figures such as Madame C.J Walker. This is exactly why I say that Baldwin completes the circle of the New Negro because the accomplishments of these successful African Americans have paved the way for contemporary Black entrepreneurship. Baldwin’s interpretation of the New Negro ensured that these accomplishments and their trailblazers were recognized.

   Baldwin and Locke are similar in that when these two halves of the circle come together they provide a beautiful portrait of what Black success is. This success comes from Blacks using their culture, their talents and their business skills to disrupt racial and social hierarchies. On either side of this circle, African Americans were making history and putting pressure upon all of the forces of whiteness that were working against them. I must say that these interpretations of the new negro provide such a complex view of Blackness. No longer do we have this picture of the black man and woman as docile or simple but we have blacks contributing to society in a way that not even whites can deny!

Productive Anger

I read about George Swanson's journey to the north in "The Warmth of Suns" (p.192) I was interested in his reflecting on finally being able to sit at the front of "something". That something was the Silver Meteor headed towards the north, a new life. The narrator described Georges frustration of having to sit in a Jim Crow car, which was at the very back of the train. Not only did he and other blacks have to sit with all the luggage but they also had to deal with the fumes of burning coal and listening to the noisy engine roar the entire ride. Despite all of these discrepancies, he and other blacks were still expected to pay the same fare as that of white passengers.

Now George was sitting at the front of the Silver Meteor heading north. All of that back seat riding didn't stop his determination to get out! The narrator says "He and the other colored passengers just had to live with it. George gave it little thought because he was on his way out". George was headed towards a better life, and though the discrimination he faced in his past would always be apart of him, he was still determined to move forward.

I thought this connected nicely with Claude McKay's poem "White Houses" in "The New Negro"

Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate (134)

If George Swanson ever heard this poem, I think he would have felt very connected to the message. Black people were plenty angry at the way they were being treated but instead of just wasting their energy on their white counterparts, they put their anger into something progressive, taking the initiative to move to the north and make a life for themselves. As McKay expresses, Black wore their anger proudly. They might have wanted to get revenge, to make the white community feel as burdened, excluded, and oppressed as Blacks had been but they didn't waste time trying to subject whites to this same type of maltreatment. They focused on gaining justice. Again I put emphasis on the fact that both McKay and George expresses anger. Anger was most definitely in the midst of the Black struggle but they fueled that anger into something productive.

Precious's Self Assessment: A Major that has Evolved, Equipped and Enlightened me

I came into college as a Psychology major. All I knew is that I wanted to counsel people so Psychology seemed like the best road to take to get there. Before entering college I can vividly remember telling myself I would not major in Black Studies because everyone would expect me to do this--to find an "easy" way through college. Its sad but these were my thoughts just a few years back. A proud black studies major since the end of my 1st year, Black Studies has transformed my thinking. It is a major that has done what I think many majors don't have the ability to do: it has changed me from the inside out. From better understanding the creation of "ghettos" through courses like Black Studies 127: The Urban Dilemma with Professor Clyde Woods and The Social-Context of the Black experience with Professor Chris McAuley, I have come to better understand where I was born and raised...South central Los Angeles. In intro level course like Black Studies I quickly realized that African American culture is so rich and complex and in the journey of learning this history it is anything BUT easy. Before Black Studies 3, Intro to African Studies, I didn't know that coffee and sugar came from Africa. In Black Studies: The Politics of the Black female body with professor Banks, I began to understand that my body is a site of political discussion, from skin color to my hair and the importance of knowing that throughout history Black women have been stripped of the right they have to autonomy over their own bodies. This class made me look at myself twice in the mirror. I was just in the middle stage of  locking my hair, and now I truly understood that this "hairstyle" said more about me than I thought.


No, Black Studies  has not been easy at all, yet it has been the most enlightening, fulfilling experiences of my life. When people ask me why I became a black studies major I let them know right away that it only took one class to make me realize the lack of knowledge I have had about my history.... and then I started changing, evolving, I knew I was in a major that would have me leave this university as a better and more intelligent human being than when came in. I don't know too many other majors that can help you better realize the beauty that resides in you and your culture. Best experience of my life. I'm changed woman and I can say that this major has contributed greatly to who I am, and who I am striving to be.
Easy? not at all...Life changing? every step of the way.