[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 112 (Friday, July 25, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1649-E1650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING MARCUS GARVEY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 25, 2003

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor, recognize and 
celebrate the anniversary of his birth on the 16th of August and to 
praise Marcus Garvey for his seminal contribution to the civil rights 
movement.
  Marcus Garvey, born in rural St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica rose from the 
humblest of beginnings to attain international stature. He brought 
African nationalism and pride to the oppressed African-American 
community. In doing so, he challenged mainstream white America and 
predominant racist stereotypes. The passion and fervor with which the 
African-American community responded to Marcus Garvey's arrival 
indicated the boiling energy and pride that existed but without 
leadership. Marcus Garvey provided that leader, took pride in his skin 
color, and demanded that others do the same. In doing so, he energized 
a generation of African-Americans and laid much of the groundwork for 
the civil-rights movement.
  In 1914, Garvey formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association 
(UNIA) and the African Communities League (ACL) while studying in 
England. In doing so, Garvey sought ``to work for the general uplift of 
the Negro peoples of the world.'' At its peak, in 1922-1924, Garvey's 
movement encompassed over 8 million proud followers. Through the 
hundreds of UNIA chapters throughout the world and the newspaper Negro 
World, Garvey encouraged and worked for economic success and political 
influence for his followers. He urged people of African descent to 
create their own businesses and to wield the influence that accompanies 
personal wealth. He refused the notion that African-Americans could not 
succeed as entrepreneurs in the mold of Rockefeller and Carnegie. Such 
notions were novel and exciting for oppressed minorities around the 
world.
  In what would prove to be a fatal mistake, Mr. Garvey organized a 
steamship company called ``Black Star Line.'' Garvey designed his 
company to realize his dream of a powerful African nation built on the 
foundations of black culture and independence. The fundamental 
principle of Garvey's repatriation to Africa movement was one of pride. 
He wanted people of African descent to celebrate themselves and raise 
their culture to international prominence. Garvey awakened, energized 
and cultivated the modern nationalist movements that eventually opposed 
European colonial domination and began African self-determination.
  Garvey sought to combat the racism and the stigma of black skin that 
had seeped into the culture of his own people. He made black dolls for 
black children and called for separate black institutions under black 
leadership. Mr. Garvey's pride and his activism threatened white 
America, and J. Edgar Hoover quickly took notice. After failing to 
uncover any evidence of subversion, Marcus Garvey was arrested and 
convicted of mail fraud relating to ``Black Star Line.'' His sentence 
was eventually commuted, and Garvey was deported to his native Jamaica.
  Considering that Marcus Garvey spent only 10 of his 52 years in the 
United States, his impact on our culture was phenomenal. The ideas that 
Mr. Garvey espoused were not necessarily phenomenal in their 
originality, but Mr. Garvey's charisma and rhetorical excellence forced 
not only African-Americans, but mainstream America, to listen to his 
message. While I encourage my colleagues to reexamine H. Con. Res. 74, 
exonerating Marcus Garvey, I've risen today so that Mr. Garvey's legacy 
and his contributions to racial equality are not forgotten.
  I would like to share with you an Op-ed that I wrote in March of last 
year in support of H. Con. Res. 74.

       In 1987, the centenary of Marcus Garvey's birth when I 
     first introduced legislation to exonerate the great civil 
     rights leader, the New York Times cited a study of J. Edgar 
     Hoover's role in Garvey's prosecution:
       ``Hoover saw the blacks and the reds as a larger 
     conspiracy. The new Negro movement, which Garvey symbolized, 
     Hoover saw as a terrible threat to the American way.''
       Even then, in 1987, Hoover remained a near sacrosanct 
     figure in Washington, not yet fully exposed as a bully who 
     wielded the power of the nation's preeminent law enforcement 
     organization. Today, the late former director of the FBI is 
     widely discredited as a power-hungry blackmailer of U.S. 
     presidents and a hateful bigot and slanderer of Martin Luther 
     King who shied away from prosecuting organized crime while 
     doing everything in his power to intimidate and undermine 
     leaders of civil rights aniti-war movements of the 1960's.
       As Hoover's reputation declines--a pending bill in the U.S. 
     House of Representatives would strike his name from FBI 
     headquarters in Washington--Garvey's is rising. Last year's 
     PBS documentary on Garvey placed his name among the giants of 
     American 20th century Black history.
       Marcus Garvey was one of America's great Black leaders and 
     in the early 1920's he was wrongfully prosecuted and 
     imprisoned on charges of mail fraud. It is time high time 
     that the Congress of the United States of American recognizes 
     this injustice and clear his name.
       Born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, August 17, 1887, Garvey 
     epitomized the strength and pride of the people of the 
     Caribbean. Garvey was virtually self-taught, reading 
     voraciously from his father's extensive library. By 1910, and 
     when residing in Kingston, he quickly established himself as 
     a spellbinding orator and political organizer.
       Garvey's philosophy and accomplishments challenged the 
     myths of inferiority that demeaned people of African heritage 
     in the 1920s. When lynching of Black men was commonplace, 
     when house burning by Southern Klansmen and northern rioters 
     were routine when theories of white supremacy were acceptable 
     and notions of equality subversive, Marcus Garvey preached 
     racial pride and economic independence.
       He raised more than one million dollars from thousands of 
     investors in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa and 
     Europe to establish the Universal Negro Improvement 
     Association (UNIA) and his well-known Black Star Line 
     steamship company. The Black Star Line was established to 
     purchase ships to initiate trade with and evenutually carry 
     New World Blacks to Africa. Indeed, one of Garvey's most 
     important legacies was his internationalism, his recognition 
     that the struggles of the Black people of America were linked 
     by blood and history to the quests for independence by people 
     of color around the world.
       Garvey's success inevitably drew suspicion of an ambitious 
     J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered the surveillance and 
     infiltration of Garvey's UNIA. When evidence of subversion 
     failed to turn up, Garvey was indicted on a business offense. 
     Garvey's trial was a mockery of justice. The charges were 
     confused, the evidence flimsy, and the judge biased. To make 
     matters worse, Garvey insisted on defending himself.
       In 1923, Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and sentenced 
     to five years in prison. His appeals to higher courts were 
     promptly denied. Numerous petitions for Presidential pardons 
     signed by thousands of the very people whom he was accused of 
     defrauding-were rebuffed.
       Garvey's prosecution was one of this nation's great 
     miscarriages of justice. This fact has been well documented 
     by Prof. Robert

[[Page E1650]]

     Hill, editor of the Garvey papers at UCLA, historian John 
     Henrik Clark and others.
       Yet, the government has held firm in its conviction that 
     Garvey was a ``menace,'' as he was described by the young J. 
     Edgar Hoover, who made Garvey one of his first targets, as 
     FBI director. Among his last was Martin Luther King, a 
     philosophical successor to Garvey, who was branded a 
     ``communist,'' wiretapped and hounded by the aging Hoover.
       It may be difficult to comprehend today, but in the racial 
     climate of the 1920's, Garvey success was his greatest 
     liability. At a time when Black people were stigmatized as 
     intellectually inferior--and were economically more 
     disadvantaged than today accomplishments of the magnitude 
     achieved by Garvey were immediately and almost universally 
     dismissed as fraudulent. But as Garvey's mystique has grown, 
     so too has our understanding of the wealth of his 
     contributions and his historical importance as the 
     trailblazer for the great civil rights leaders who followed.
       In the United States, where he lived for 10 of his 53 
     years, Garvey inspired hundreds of thousands of Black 
     American supporters with hope for a better future. Today, he 
     stands out in the pantheon of Black America's greatest and 
     most controversial leaders. But in the records of the U.S. 
     Department of Justice and the Federal Courts, Garvey remains 
     ex-convict number 19359.
       Almost 75 years ago, Marcus Garvey was released from 
     Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, his sentence commuted by 
     President Calvin Coolidge. Deported to his native Jamaica, 
     Garvey died 13 years later, and entered history as that 
     nation's preeminent hero. As a role model to millions of 
     common people in the Americas and the Third World, he would 
     inspire the independence movements that liberated colonial 
     Africa.
       Despite the harassment and the weakness of the evidence 
     against him, Garvey's prosecution may have been inevitable in 
     the 1920's. But by unbiased standards, the charges were not 
     substantiated and his conviction was not justified. We cannot 
     overturn the verdict but we can prove that times have changed 
     and that we now know better.

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