“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.
